Comments on: A Pencil’s Point

By: c-kingsley

c-kingsley — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 22:33:52 +0000

But Warren, don’t you realize there’s a CRISIS in health care? (Here comes the diversion.) Why, 45 million Americans don’t have health insurance! (Were we talking about care, or insurance?)

45 million is all of 15% of the population of America. So “only” 85% have health insurance, and that means we have a crisis in health care.

By: Warren Jewell

Warren Jewell — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 19:41:03 +0000

You forgot, Mr. Purcell, to mention that new herd of 800-pound gorillas (riding elephants in every room) roaming the White House and Congress that the clueless know-nothing-know-it-alls euphemize as ‘universal health care’. Though, of course, in reality (reference: Britain and Canada) it is “what we will dang well give you, whether you like it – or die from it – or not!”

If pencils require many thousands of actions to get produced, how are the myriad decisions made daily in medical care going to be ‘administered’ by ack-jasses and heffalumps in Wash.D.C? And, it is more another layer of cost to be counted against patient care costs, huh?

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 18:29:57 +0000

And there is one basic ingredient mentioned throughout the article without which the pencil is neither required nor produced. People!
And what happens when fewer young people are available to fill positions in the supply chain vacated by an aging population? Demand may or may not initially fall but supply tightens and dwindles, costs rise. So goes Europe and America.

By: dove4near

dove4near — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 12:16:34 +0000

The government may not have taken over the making of pencils but a long time company that has produced pencils here in Versailles, Missouri was moved to Mexico a couple of years ago. Ticonderoga Pencils have been around since I was a little girl (I’m 72 now). People were left without jobs who had worked there for many years. We are a small town and losing this manufacturer hurt the community and its residents. I understand that the company is not doing well in its present location.
Yes, a pencil seems like a little thing. But we do fail to realize its importance to everyda life and the lives of the people who make them. This is only one example.