This is an often-seen sight in NEPA lately.
■During Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 presidential campaign against George H. W. Bush, the phrase “It’s the economy, stupid” was widely used.
If Barack Hussein Obama II has a sign in the oval office it should say, “It’s the stupid economy,” and folks, it’s getting worse.
Three recent events hit close to home in Dallas. The big multinational-owned Offset Paperback Manufacturers turned the page on 69 employees. Friendly’s restaurant made its last “happy ending” sundae, and in Edwardsville, the Gallery Of Sound took the needle off the record.
The Friendly’s closing was a shock to some, but the parent company has been in Chapter 11 since October of last year. Seems there was just not enough profit in Supermelts and Fribbles to keep the wolf from the door. Friendly’s joins two other pretty big restaurants in the Back Mountain, the Mark II and the Dough Company in closing. When people don’t have jobs, it’s pretty tough to get them to eat out.
And 69 workers at Offset Paperback will be in that unhappy situation pretty damn quick. A statement from Offset says the company will lay off the workers on Friday, Jan. 27. The company makes 350 million paperback books a year, but officials say e-readers, such as the Kindle and Nook are doing them in. So this whole digital thing was a complete surprise to the owners, the Bertelsmann AG group? Interesting, because the same company owns TV and radio stations and certainly should have seen the light approaching as a train and not the end of the tunnel. Go figure.
The Gallery of Sound had a store in Dallas, and they had 11 stores once, but the bad news is only four stores remain in downtown Wilkes-Barre, Wilkes-Barre Twp., Dickson City and Hazleton. The good news is the fact that any locations remain open at all. Gallery of Sound owners saw the oncoming digital train, made the appropriate survival moves, tough as they were, and survived.
I hate to point this out but the owners of Offset Paperback had the same warning. Here’s hoping they make the right choices and we don’t have another empty building. In the world now it’s adapt or die, and I fear that spells doom for many. It’s a digital world, and until the power goes out forever or the Internet goes down completely under the weight of spam for male-enhancement products, it’s just going to be more so.
But hey, thanks for reading this dead-tree publication.
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