• That there is no such thing as fair trade and healthy competition.
• Good print firms are not only about the personality of the CEOs, but it sure does help.
• Salaries for personnel in rich countries are more than they should be.
• The Blackberry has changed the printer's world more than any kit on the shopfloor.
• Assume the worst about your customers and inevitably you get the worst.
• When the cabinet secretary talks about macroeconomic stability; it does not make the price of print more stable.
• Government can pick winners in the print industry, but as a rule it doesn't.
• Laissez faire policies rarely make a poor print firm richer.
• Is print global? Does print have a nationality?
• We do not, as yet, live in a post-printing age.
• India (and China) and even Indonesia are galloping at a fair clip, but the USA – in spite of all its problems – has the highest print output in the world.
• Packaging is not destined for underdevelopment; likewise labels, books and ideas.
• Making a few print firms productive doesn't make the rest of the industry more productive.
• Print consultants are over-priced.
• And print products are under-priced.
• Print firms in Karur or Morbi are more entrepreneurial than print firms in other parts of the country.
• Are we smart enough to leave things to the free market; and the print buyer.
• Will more literacy make a country richer? Or merely more educated?
• Perhaps today's offset presses need to become less, not more efficient.
• Curiously enough, a solid print policy does not require a good technologist.

Ramu Ramanathan is editor of PrintWeek India.

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