DeWese--Trouble Brewing

I am writing this on January 1, 2000, and there's trouble brewing in the old print shop. Yep, Joe Davis, chairman and CEO of Consolidated Graphics, announced in a press release that he "believes lower-than-expected sales volume is attributable to general industry conditions."

Davis believes this statement because Andrew Paparozzi, chief economist for the National Association of Printing Leadership (NAPL), published a report that said, for the first time in 15 years, real print sales (RPS) is lagging behind gross domestic product (GDP) growth. According to Paparozzi, printing industry sales growth will slow to 3 percent to 3.5 percent from the 4 percent to 5 percent for the year 2000. This means that for print sales to keep up with GDP growth, if 1999 was $100, then 2000 would have to be $105. Instead, alas, it's only going to be $103, or if we're lucky, $103.50.