I, Sharpie

I agree; I upvoted because the underlying content was still interesting, but trying to write it as an "i, pencil" pastiche did the author no favours. I would have rathered the article direct the reader to read "I, pencil" and then gone through why they disagreed with its thesis, along with the story of how sharpie manufacturing was brought to the US from china

Yes, I was hoping to see some actual insight on this Domestic Manufacturing Miracle but it seems to just be "if you build it they will come"

This flies in the face of the more than one person I know personally that tried to take stranded US based manufacturing assets and turn them into something with a future. So far, no luck

I still believe there is upside in this space over the next decade or so but I haven't met anyone who's won in a repeatable way yet.

> It has received fulsome praise from such right-libertarian eminences as economists Milton Friedman and Donald Boudreaux

I had Boudreaux for an economics class in law school. His, shall we say, enthusiasm and dogmatic faith in markets was off putting. I once got riled up and sparred with him a little in class when we were on the subject of monopolies and he was teaching the theory that monopoly profits are an impossibility. My point was that the theory only makes sense when transaction costs are zero; non-zero transaction costs means monopolies can extract excess profits when there's an asymmetry in transaction (particularly financing) costs that favor the monopolist, as there often will be.

But later I realized that, at the end of the day, and like most of abstract economics, the theory was more right than wrong, just incomplete and oversimplified. And I learned much that day. If I had rejected the theory outright and walked way (notwithstanding remembering how to recite it for the exam), I would have ended up in a much worse place intellectually than accepting it, with qualifications, as an important conceptual model. The mature takeaway from his teaching the theory isn't that monopolies can't exist, just that it's more difficult than you'd think, and monopolists' ability to extract profits are bounded by the degree to which the situation deviates from the simplified model world. And doing so puts us in a place where can we can constructively ask and answer quantitative questions, as opposed to debating in qualitative rhetorical terms.

It's childish to nit-pick ideas and then pretend one has vanquished them because they pointed out technicalities about how they're wrong. The point of "I, Pencil" is to teach how humans communicate, cooperate, and produce amazing things through systems and processes that keep them all at arms length, without everyone deliberately working toward the same targeted outcome. Pedagologically, it does teach something profound and non-obvious. Is the essay simplified and reductive? Of course, but no more reductive (and IMO considerably less so) than, e.g., the anti-colonialist rhetoric trotted out in "Revisited", which feels more like an extended ad hominem than a substantive piece about political economics. (And it's worth pointing out that economic thinking can be useful in understanding and addressing colonial exploitation, such as understanding it in terms of cost externalization. And unlike rhetorical moralizing, that approach suggests far more actionable options for systematically ameliorating such exploitation--i.e. how to put our money where our mouth is, literally and figuratively.)

I'm a little confused about your reference to white boards. I didn't know that there are sharpies intended for white boards. Isn't their whole point that they're permanent?

Separately - try "super permanent" sharpies. I love them.

I use them frequently for marking non-writing-paper things like aluminum brackets, tape labels on wires, circuit boards, spray bottles of chemicals, boxes, etc.

I think they are the best permanent markers out there, i've never had your problems. It's odd because all the other good stationary products are japanese, french or german.

Jobsite permanent markers are better in every way and are the same price or cheaper.

> Even if left unused, they die out in a relatively short time.

Out of all the markers I've ever reached for, I think I've seen every kind except Sharpie go dry.

Do you put the lid back on? I’ve had Sharpies decades old still write like new.

I have a pack of Sharpies which I bought in 2011. Lightly used. Not dry. I store them horizontally.

The only complaint I have about sharpies is the crap ergonomics on the barrel, causing people to wrap tape around it just to get a nice grip, which inevitably gets super gross:

https://www.science.org/do/10.1126/science.aan7026/full/lanl...

Most acrylic markers have similar problems (clogging, drying out too quickly especially if the cap is not perfectly sealed...), but the end results are worth it.

This is a rather strange comment, Sharpies are permanent markers that aren't designed for whiteboards. Nor do they dry out, I've had Sharpies last multiple decades. Are you thinking of something else, perhaps? The benefit of Sharpies is that you can mark most surfaces with them and its permanent. NASA uses Sharpies because they can be used in zero gravity. I suppose you could use them on paper but it's likely they'd probably bleed thru.

I've tried the cheap ones, have not been impressed.

Yes. We should still praise it.

and also when 5 of the six parts are oil derivatives.

I think it’s all about short term gain vs long term sustainability. Most companies these days seem to be hugely focused on extracting as much profit as possible, and shoveling to executives and shareholders in the form of stock grants and buy-backs. A real bummer for society, to be honest.

Other companies (seemingly Sharpie?) seem to have the correct, longer view that investing in your employees and controlling your supply chain locally will protect you from potentially disastrous risks overseas. (Be it tariffs or natural disasters.) As the essay mentions, they wanted to invest into making it work domestically before another crazy supply chain shock happened again. Tariffs are a risk because if your product is more expensive and easily replaced by something cheaper, you loose money.

It’s honestly shocking how short-sighted boards are when it comes to employee wages. It’s purely self-serving — get a huge bonus this year by saving costs, company goes downhill, and move on to the next job. Reality is that happy, well-paid employees will stick around. Loosing knowledge with high attrition is costly in a way that’s hard to quantify. It ultimately impacts the quality of your products and resilience of your business.