Jim,

You've done it again! If our industry leaders are not asleep at the wheel, your in-box should be full tomorrow; 50% saying "Hear, hear!" and the rest wanting to know who the hell do you think you are. One might consider the volume of e-mail you get (or don't get) to be indicative of the enthusiasm of the paper industry's leadership.

I recall a story about an explorer who was leading an expedition through the jungles of some wild, uncharted country, when the crew leader of the guys who were cutting a path through the brush asked if they weren't headed in the wrong direction. The expedition leader replied indignantly, "I'm not sure, but we're making excellent progress; keep chopping and add more choppers to the front line!" The mgt team of GM and Ford along with some paper guys could be accused of similar leadership.

Another little ditty: many years ago while working with my Granddad on a Farmall Super "C" out in the field, I apparently dropped the hammer from the tool box on the ground and didn't see it. The next time we needed it, it was gone. After some hunting we assumed it was gone and my Granddad purchased a new one...a much better one with a full-length handle (the old one had a broken handle), both sides of the claw intact (the old one was missing a claw because we used it for a pry bar and broke it--probably the same time that the handle was shortened), and the head was flat and square (the old one had a large chunk missing when we were using it to beat on bearing race that didn't fit exactly--maybe a bearing heater would have saved this from happening). The fact was the old hammer wasn't worth anything anyway; it had been damaged by mis-application in the past to the point that it was not an effective hammer anymore. Frankly I wondered why I hadn't lost it earlier. Well as luck would have it, while in the field chopping weeds out of the crop a year or so later, I found that d- hammer! I was fool enough to tell my Granddad. Guess what he did; he put the old hammer back in the tractor's tool box and put the new one on a shelf in the barn in case we would need a good one sometime! This hammer story reminds me of the thought processes that people are going through on some old rusty paper mills: [names deleted--Ed.] etc. The guys trying to find some nails to drive with those old hammers need to take a look at what the industry really needs to survive rather than just a way to get an acceptable ROCE--which is much easier when the employed capital is "0".

Keep up your challenging articles. I really enjoy them particularly since I'm on the outside looking in.

Ed Turner
Houston, Texas, USA

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Hi Jim -

I always enjoy your Newsletter, however this week's version was very special to me. You clearly and simply articulated very well key macro issues that have and still hold back our industry sector. Kudos to you for such a stimulating and well crafted piece.

Thanks again for a great article - I really enjoyed this one.

Jacquie McNutt
Raleigh, North Carolina, USA

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Candle Riddle from two weeks ago--

From the tense of the word "will" walk and near the end when it ask how many candles are "lit", I thought it must be a trick question that there would be no candles lit because will walk indicates they will be lit in the future but haven't been lit yet, then I thought it could also be a trick question that it would take so long to do all that walking for all those people that the candles (I guess I saw little birthday candles in my riddled mind) would be burned down to nothing by that much time and again the answer is no candles would be left burning.

Anyway, thanks for the fun.

Doug Daniels
USA

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Jim

I would like to join the Cellulose Community LinkedIn Group - anything you are involved in is at the minimum interesting, and typically educational.

Thanks

Dene Taylor
New Hope, Pennsylvania, USA

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Thank you very much for the compliment. By the way, the Board of Directors (Chuck Klass, Jon Kerr, Mike Ryan and me) of the Cellulose Community is actively seeking new members for the group site, too (www.cellulosecommunity.org). We encourage all to join.

Jim

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