LAFAYETTE: A THIRD PARTY might provide a place for National dialogue, to define objectives and focus action for change, but a THIRD PARTY isn’t necessary to get there. The reality is, that even without huge cash, serious change to allow an equitable social structure and reasonable financial stability is still possible in America but it requires “grassroots” organization and individual action leading to a unified sense of purpose and voice.

    Latinos are not a “political party” in the traditional sense but wield enough power to scare Baboonus Washingtonus into, at the least, serious lip service—and lots of largesse.

    There is a huge network of progressive citizen groups fighting for social/environmental causes across America. The problem is that they’re shut out of the National dialogue by the MSM. But we all know they’re there. R.Nader has a huge organization committed to serious change, and the track record to show for its efforts. How supportive is the average progressive.

    The possibility for a progressive network to strengthen Nation, State and Community is within easy reach but it can’t happen without individual effort and action.

    I recently heard the term “Help Refusing Complainers”. That seems to be a serious aspect of the core disease affecting the American psyche. We can speculate about the causes, but the illness is there. The damage and shadow are so powerful, individuals can’t/won’t act on their own behalf.

    I see Campaign Finance Reform as the central issue to return voice and representation to the people. It would also slow and eventually stop the “revolving door” looters now allowing corporate fascisms rise. Where’s the action/organization?

    Biology/ecology may be the actual simple answer to the problem. The forces working against survival may have crossed a threshold of consequence beyond National redemption. It is clear that the U.S. has entered a void by any human moral social standards.

    Very simple intuition tells me that human kind is losing balance and parity with the forces that inform the fact of life itself. This fact has been an underlying theme in progressive thought for decades now. Who listens? Who cares? Does it even matter?

    I say: It does.

POLITICAL STALEMATE

RH:It seems some financial investment is being made in the technology in both Europe and America but the wrench in the gears is “big oil”.

The problem, evidently, is (as always) the BigMoney element in the American electoral system.

Even if we piss and moan about it, nothing has been done to effectively resolve this problem despite past legislation to do so.

So, what are a people to do? Start a third way (politically) that is not by connivance so totally a part of the problem but more a part of the solution.

Otherwise, we shall be chasing our tails looking for fundamental answers to market dysfunction for the next decades - as (some progressives) have been doing during past decades.

The Third Way (a party of Social Democrats) that is independent of the other two (but aligned overall with Democrat values) is, to my mind, the only viable alternative solution—given the present political stalemate.

FF:

And, of course, you are right about HDMI cables.  A 1.3 is a 1.3 cable, regardless. It carries the digital signal.  But I don’t blame the Best Buy sales help.  They don’t know any better. And EVERYBODY wants to keep the Monster Cable contract.  I firmly believe that Monster Cable is one of the more useless companies that has succeeded in the US and Canada.  It’s right up there with Starbucks, who convinced Americans to pay $6 for a fucking cup of bad coffee, and Wal-Mart, who…well, is Wal-Mart.

Great post, David.

It reminded me of a musical track from Latin Quarter called “America for Beginners.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUVTXppFRbI

Fat Freddy, November 15 at 1:49 am Link to this comment

No, but in these cases, private insurance companies can and should. Many of the “regulations” is just the government doing the work of the insurance companies, at taxpayer expense.
*******************

Freddy, dream on.  What will they insure against?  Someone gets sick or dies?  Then you have to prove their client is guilty?  And what good does THAT do? The victim is dead.  Look at malpractice insurance.  How often does an insurance company ACTUALLY have to pay?  And does it prevent it? No!

If a restaurant is serving bad food a health inspector can shut it down far faster than “the free market” and a lot less people will get sick.

Sure, I know you’ll come up with a scheme that “explains” how it will work just as well—I was a devoted to Ayn Rand’s principles for a long time until I found so many holes in it that a large part simply couldn’t get past my “bullshit” meter anymore.  I still believe in meritocracy, that we are entitled to the profit of what we produce, and that our choice of interaction and transfer of goods and services efficiently can only be done by violence or by money—and money is preferable.

BTW, I’ve also read all that nonsense about the very fine stranding, yada, yada, yada.  True, thinner speaker cable has more resistance so over distance you lose something. And I know the formulae. So buy heavier stranded cable!  You won’t hear a difference between Monster #14 stranded copper cable and generic #14 stranded copper cable.  Maybe if you have $100,000 invested in a Class A amp, preamp, speakers and a top-end turntable you’ll hear a LITTLE difference, but I doubt it will matter unless you are bat-shit crazy about sound quality.

Funny thing, the engineers who record those sounds you so lovingly pay so much to hear, use zip cord for their own studio speakers!  Ask anyone who’s worked in them.

LAFAYETTE: It’s my understanding BP decided to skip certain blowout protections required in Europe but optional in the States in order to save a fairly insignificant—by BP profit standards and the damage done—amount of money.

    We all agree a shift in energy policy is needed. It seems some financial investment is being made in the technology in both Europe and America but the wrench in the gears is “big oil”.

    Indeed Tanker spills are overlooked. Of course Mr. K. Salazar and the boys in charge of oversight care less. As does the MSM. Interesting stats.

    The point of my post was the seeming moral void in Washington and its effect on the American value system.

      Thanks for the comment.

Inherit The Wind

But you cannot “do your research” to control for XYZ cheating and emitting excessive X-rays.  You can’t see if the chicken factory isn’t making employees wash their hands after using the bathroom.  I’ve seen Chinese restaurants use their cooking woks as mop buckets!

No, but in these cases, private insurance companies can and should. Many of the “regulations” is just the government doing the work of the insurance companies, at taxpayer expense.

Inherit The Wind

There is a difference between cables, but not for digital signals. Monster Cable built their reputation on speaker wires. Thin speaker wires can degrade an analog signal. In fact, electrical resistance of a wire is inversely proportional to its diameter.

R = rho(l/A)

Where rho = resistivity of the material, l = length, and A = cross sectional area.

So, the thinner the wire, the more resistance. In the case of a speaker wire, IIRC, different frequencies are affected disproportionally. Lower frequency signals require more energy to produce, so any added resistance in the wire will effect them more than the higher frequencies. Monster Cable practically eliminated this disparity. The same is true for analog patch cables. However, with the advent of self powered subwoofers, there is no need to for the thick wires, because only a “small signal”, or “line-level” signal is sent to the subwoofer, where it is then amplified, separately. Frequencies to the main speakers are usually cut between 400 and 1,000 Hz with a high pass filter before they are sent to the speakers.

Digital signals are totally different. A digital signal degrades to the point where it can’t be read. Basically, the receiver can either read it, or it can’t. A big thick cable isn’t going to make two shits of a difference over a thinner one, as long as the signal can be read. And, there’s no difference between coaxial and optical cable in this case. Optical cable can carry more information, but if you are only sending one signal then, what’s the point? HDMI, DVI, component video, and S-video are all digital signals. Dolby Digital and DTS are digital audio. Dolby Pro-Logic is analog audio.

So, my point is that Monster Cable was about to lose a significant portion of its business unless they could “convince” people that their cables were superior for digital signals. There is also a huge mark-up at the retail level. Some salesmen get commission, others get commission based promotions and bonuses, like Best Buy employees. They also have to meet quarterly or monthly quotas. So, these salesmen are “encouraged” to sell people shit that they don’t need. And yes, it is planned that way. Also, never ever buy an extended warranty, except maybe on a laptop. Most of the cost is sales commission, anyway.

RH: If America had the same drilling regulations in place as most European Nations the BP spill would most likely have been avoided.

I am not so sure. Consider this record of oil spills:

Analysts for the Oil Spill Intelligence Report have reported that spills in that size range have occurred in the waters of 112 nations since 1960.

But certain areas see more spills than others. The Report identifies these “hot spots” for oil spills from vessels:

  * Gulf of Mexico (267 spills)
  * Northeastern U.S. (140 spills)
  * Mediterranean Sea (127 spills)
  * Persian Gulf (108 spills)
  * North Sea (75 spills)
  * Japan (60 spills)
  * Baltic Sea (52 spills)
  * United Kingdom and English Channel (49 spills)
  * Malaysia and Singapore (39 spills)
  * West coast of France and north and west coasts of Spain (33 spills)
  * Korea (32 spills)

The sooner we get off the carbon molecule as an energy source the better for this earth. And its inhabitants.

BTW, I’ll bet you that $100 cable was a Monster Cable.  Monster has made a business out of convincing people to pay $10- $16 a foot for cable that can be duplicated for $.10 to $.35 a foot.  They started with a big phony-bull-ony to-do about speaker cable and suckers bought into it.  Even if you COULD hear a difference between Monster 14 gauge stranded and standard 14 gauge stranded in an A/B test (which I doubt and would have to see to believe) would the marginal difference justify the huge cost?  No way!

You can buy two 15’ HDMI cables at Costco for $40, with a screen cleaner.  There is NO WAY the $100 6’ Monster cable performs better.  It’s just bullshit and hype.

I don’t think it unreasonable for Americans to expect “Value and Safety” when making a purchase. The issue of “regulation”  is a mute point. If regulations aren’t there, big business will lay everything in its path to waste. Even if regulations are in place they’re often subverted or openly ignored. The dead are everywhere. If America had the same drilling regulations in place as most European Nations the BP spill would most likely have been avoided.

    FAT FREDS encounter with the salesperson trying to sell him an $8.00 cable for $150.00 speaks to the real issue of “Value”. It is the trickle down “lie and gouge” mentality of the corporate “elite”. They are not committed to COMMUNITY and HOME. COMMUNITY and HOME are threats. Theirs is a National take’em for everything we can NOW view. It’s often apparent in the attitudes of their sales people. You’re not a customer, you’re a “mark”. It was the WalMart destruction of commumity small business that replaced reliable Customer Service with the Corporate Hustler. It’s just another aspect of the open “looting” of American lives now underway. Another echo in the immoral void that defines Corporate Washington.

      True!! Buyer beware. But the game is rigged and (my opinion) it is as much the fact that Americans are beaten senseless by an avaricious system of politics, greed and MSM manipulation as ignorance. I support FAT FREDS frequent call for financial/personal/social responsibility. It is ground zero for the recovery of our Nation. My “rant” is that we can’t separate the damage from the wreck until we admit we’re in one, and we were all in it. A total separate “We the people—” reality is necessary in dealing with Baboonus Washingtonus. They are NOT us.

      You know, business people once felt a personal responsibility to their customers, understood their product and did their best to provide product value. It was personal human value, community and home that was intentionally destroyed. The shoddy products, the often dangerous flaws in them and the wasted labor that provides their purchase are simply detritus.

      The same thugs are now poised to strike the final destructive blow to American Social Structure.

FF:

I was with you till the last line…then you lost me.

Buying electronics is a matter of knowledge.  I’ve long known you can get fine quality at a low price if you do your research. I’ve found fabulous used equipment over the years. 

Yes, you can do it with TVs, too.  But you cannot “do your research” to control for XYZ cheating and emitting excessive X-rays.  You can’t see if the chicken factory isn’t making employees wash their hands after using the bathroom.  I’ve seen Chinese restaurants use their cooking woks as mop buckets!

Regulation cannot protect you from your own stupidity or willful ignorance.  Granted. But it CAN protect from things you cannot control for, even with research. It CAN protect seniors who are still, technically competent, but factually not (I’m there right now) from being preyed on by greedy doctors and scam artists. Seniors are notorious for being prime victims of smooth-talking operators. Or, as an illicit character on the old Rockford Files put it: “I didn’t invent pigeons”.

You can do all the research you want, but if YOUR brakes fail because someone cut a corner where regulation would have helped, there’s no way “Buyer Beware” is appropriate.

A penny saved, is a penny earned. - B. Franklin

Is that a real poncho, or a Sears poncho? - Frank Zappa

You get what you pay for - Unknown

Nobody ever went broke by underestimating the intelligence or taste of the American public. - H.L. Mencken (attributed) 

Buying discount electronics is like buying discount tools. Don’t do it. I bought a couple items at one of those traveling discount tool shows. I bought a small hammer. The claw broke the first time I used it. The steel was hardened, but it wasn’t tempered. I also bought a high-torque 1/2 drill for mixing joint compound. It worked for 5 buckets, then died in a puff of smoke. What the Hell, it was only $20. So, I went and bought a DeWalt for $150, and I’ve had it for over 5 years.

Here’s how I buy discount electronics. I research. Then, research some more. Then, I go to ebay. I bought almost all of my car stereo equipment, Alpine and Infinity, for about 1/2 price. It was new, but it’s what they call “Grey Market”. The manufacturer won’t honor the warranty. Big deal, most of those warranties are only 1 year, anyway. I bought my plasma from Amazon Warehouse deals. It’s a Pioneer 50” plasma. All of the professional reviews rated it the best, at the time. In fact, most of them said it was 3-4 times better than the next closest competitor. It had a retail price of $5,000. Ouch! So, I searched the internet and found an “open-box” one for $2,100 and free “White Glove” delivery. That was three years ago, and it still works great. (Pioneer has stopped making plasma TVs. They stopped making the plasma unit in Japan, and started getting them from China to get the price down. Unfortunately, they had to sacrifice quality, and decided it wasn’t woth selling an inferior product.)

If you want great tech support, and are willing to pay extra, I would go to Crutchfield. They have superior 24-hr tech support, and an extremely liberal return policy. However, you’re going to pay extra for it in the sale price. They also have excellent product reviews.

You also have to be wary of cheesy salesmen. I bought my Father’s flat-screen from Circuit City, when they were still open. He wouldn’t buy one on-line, so I found the best one at the best price for what he was looking for. When we bought the TV, the sales person told us, if we wanted HD, we had to buy an HDMI cable. It was $100. I laughed in his face. Then he said he had a “cheaper” one for $50, and repeated that we “needed” one. For one, Comcast will give you an HDMI cable for free when you upgrade to HD. For two, you can get a decent HDMI cable on ebay for about $8.

So, why do we need regulations? To protect people from their own stupidity, why else?

I guess Chris Hedges was busy the day TD needed its next “Decline Of The West” article.

Planned Obsolescence was formally adopted as a policy by Alfred P. Sloan, long-time head of General Motors.

While Wal-Mart is a major contributor to the cheapening of our products and moving production off-shore, Sam Walton and his heirs can’t be blamed for it alone. 

Wal-Mart isn’t to blame for the murder of our heavy steel industry and other rust belt industries.  But Sam Walton and his gang were fervent supporters of the extreme Right Wing Republicans that brought it on, starting with Ronald Reagan.

Cheap crap has always been around and sold—it’s not anything new. What has changed is WHICH crap is now prevalent as the cheap crap, and where “Planned Obsolescence” has moved. Also where the crap is made.

Again, it used to be Japan but by the 70’s Japan was moving to quality.  By 1979, the fastest VLSI chip was Japanese.

We have the country Republicans wanted and Democrats are too spineless and willing to compromise to fix.

MOVING OUR BACKSIDES

DS: There is no point in making a disk drive to last a lifetime if it’s not going to be able to talk to any computer within a few years.

Well, that is unlikely to happen … given that a great deal of data storage is going onto the cloud.

It is unfortunate that the thrust of this thread has been lopsided. But somewhat understandable, since we are all consumers. But Consumers are only one half of the Economic Equation.

The other half are the Suppliers; you know, the people who hire us? If our raison d’être is to earn income, theirs is to make a profit. These two fundamental objectives are often in conflict. At present, the conflict is grave.

We are in a fundamental transition of epochs – from the Industrial Age to the Information Age. Meaning what?

Meaning that low- and semi-skilled work that is dislocatable to better cost-climates are in danger. Why? Because consumers the world over behave in the same rational manner: They maximize their Disposable Income by buying at the lowest price. And they don’t particularly care where the product is made. So, yes, they are willing to accept poorer standards of quality.

When Japan had the same Quality Control problem in the early 1950s, what did it do? It called upon the American QC-guru, W. E. Deming – who had spent time in Japan during its administration by America just after WW2. The change in QC-mentality amongst Japanese manufacturers Deming brought about was an epiphany. Typical of how rigid cultures that are readily able to absorb either ideology or dogma, depending upon the circumstance. (And largely explains Japan’s pre-war Militarism that expanded its search for raw materials by conquest.)

My point: The problem with China’s well-known lack of QC is surmountable. What will remain is, however, its need to create 25 million jobs per year …. or witness its house-of-cards come tumbling down around its ears. China is, after all, a nation of 1.3 billion people. This magnitude of population is more a problem to be managed rather than a extensible source of manufacturing manpower skills , all the while being factually both.

So the question is not What do we do about China? as much as What is China’s role in the world? Which is another question for another day. Having lost the Race down the marginal-cost curve , our challenge is the Race up the skill-sets curve.

[The threat from China is manageable. If we move our collective backsides. I have visited Tupperware manufacturing plants in Europe that were state-of-the-art. That is, highly automated job shops manufacturing for a trademark. Some elements of high labor-cost manufacturing can remain in the US. But that which cannot be automated will inexorably leave for warmer cost climates.]

Going up the skill-sets curve is a matter of getting our Educational House in order. Presently it is in a shambles, because primary and secondary schooling is in the hands of the states … and the states are being run by “deficit-hawk” nitwits. Americans cannot imagine the harm they have done to the future of our country by not expanding investment in primary-to-tertiary tertiary schooling. The whole shebang, as they say.

Let us not be surprised. The darkness of night has descended upon our nation, because American voters could not think beyond the tsunami of mindless media sound-bites that submerged them in the mid-term elections. We think the vote was one of deeply felt frustration?

Worse than that, the vote was blindly irrational given the urgently major reforms facing our nation. But what can you do with people who cannot think beyond their noses?

POST SCRIPTUM: Presumptuous

By what privilege do we presume to deserve a high-salary such that we can spend it blithely on cheap Chinese goods? Because it is that premise that Wall-Mart has so easily proven.

Semiotics may also refer, at least loosely, to symbols and I would expect that this is closer to what David Sirota had in mind, as he was discussing a less than fully conscious effect or motivation. Our responses to symbolic ‘language’ are not always at the forefront of our awareness and do indeed have tremendous effects on our emotions. If one does any reading at all on successful sales techniques, one idea that is discussed over and over again is that the decision to purchase any given item is almost always driven by emotions, while rational thinking is used to justify the purchase after the fact. Salespeople rely on this for the simple reason that appealing to our emotions works.

The practice of planned obsolescence may have begun in the 1920’s, but the phrase itself along with broad consumer awareness was not immediate. It was some decades more before a real sense of outrage, of being “ripped off” by manufacturers who produced substandard goods, took hold and was part of everyday discussion in American homes.

I am not sure that it is even possible to ‘put more value into a product than can ever be used.’ On the other hand, it is entirely possible to put more value into a product than a given consumer will be willing to use. But I can imagine very few products which, if well made, cannot be passed on, passed down, resold, or re-purposed. And, at the very least, doing so will take pressure off our landfills. For someone who possesses nearly nothing, that well made item you have grown weary of might be a real treasure.

I find many contexts - political, technical, health, etc - in which Americans are accused of being either stupid or careless or oblivious or apathetic. I suppose there is some portion of any population that could be accurately described with those adjectives, but I don’t believe that describes the majority of the populations of the United States. A great many Americans are overworked, underpaid, and stressed to the breaking point, not to mention cynical and mistrustful, neither without good reason. Yes, these conditions do make it much more difficult, if not impossible, to also be a thoughtful citizen who unfailingly and wisely participates in the life of the country in whatever ways remain open to us. I think it also leaves many people vulnerable to what I guess I will call political predation. 

The political and financial elite do bank on their foggy, blathering camouflage and our constant fear and exhaustion to keep everything running smoothly for themselves and snafu’d for the rest of us. Doesn’t mean we have to drink their kool-aid though. And surely we don’t need to sell it to each other.

When, exactly, did China replace Japan in the “Cheaply Made Crap” department? When I was growing up in the 1950s, anything you bought from a dimestore bearing a “Made in Japan” sticker was junk-quality 99.9% of the time.

I agree with the general thrust of this article. The only place where making things that won’t last makes sense is the setting where the technology is evolving so fast that withing a year or two the item is going to be obsolete. There is no point in making a disk drive to last a lifetime if it’s not going to be able to talk to any computer within a few years.

Semiotics means ‘the study of signs’.  Its usage in Sirota’s article is incomprehensible.

‘Planned obsolescence’ began in the 1920s, along with consumer capitalism.  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence.  People like to get huffy about it, but in fact it makes a great deal of sense not to put more value into a product than can ever be used.

The current prevalence of low-quality products represents the confluence of several tendencies.  Overall, the U.S. is a much poorer country than it used to be, as it continues to waste its substance in imperial wars.  There is, indeed, planned obsolescence, which rises to a critical level under the downward price pressures generated by economic decline.  Another tendency is massive public ignorance and unconcern—it is considered geekish to investigate the quality of a product.  Another is the deindustrialization of the United States, which once made reasonably good middle-range products.  When I last went shopping for a sauce pan, there was nothing between the $15 Chinese models which I know will fall apart in a year (because I have one) and the $250 models made in Italy for dumb rich people to show off to other dumb rich people in their loft kitchens.  We are talking here about a symptom of a much bigger phenomenon.

In general I recommend buying in thrift stores and the Salvation Army, or from yard and garage sales, if you can find what you need.

BIG B.  I’m convinced that “the elephant in the global room” is GCC. Discussions and lament about Baboonus Washingtonus and Corporate D.C. never seem to include or recognize the imminent failure of World Eco-Systems, food/water access and exponential population growth.

    The hidden horror may be that the so called “wealthy elite”/M.I.C. have recognized it and are preparing for their personal survival at the expense of our lives and future. Once you’re starving at gunpoint choices become few. And, the “select” will have long retreated to protected enclaves. It fits their “apocalypse” psychology to a “T”.

    A book review here mentions Cormac McCarthys “The Road”. It is a great look at the consequencwes of World Ecological Collapse. In reality we are all having a hard time accepting the insane reality of present day American politics. Because we are all prisoners if Time, it’s hard to vision the impact three short decades may have on our lives.

    LAST THOUGHT: I also try to BUY AMERICAN. Wonder is there is an On-Line Directory of AMERICAN MADE PRODUCTS? If not, there should be.

Basho,

Its a search, the amish only make so much.

re: patrickhenry

“I try to buy American products any time I can.  They are harder to find and usually more expensive.”

just curious, i haven’t been in the states for a number of years. are there any more ‘american products’ in the u.s. marketplace?

Yes, that’s where we are, having to spend money on things which soon end up in
the recycling and garbage bins. It’s good to hear that some people are mindful
about what they buy although it can’t be completely avoided at this point. The
“brilliant” idea of cheapening products in order to entice customers to buy more
started with US manufacturers, way before China and other countries became
available as a cheap source. But it’s interesting to note how popular it has
become to blame China for bad products when plenty of them are made here
too. The Chinese can make products that involve sophisticated manufacture,
but most US merchants want the cheapest stuff. They make tons of money on it
because of cheap labor and the fact that they easily bring them into the country
without tariffs, taxes, or any government control. 

The pressure to acquire new things should also be considered. Depending on
the work many people do, they’re being forced to acquire new gadgets which do
nothing to improve their performance or productivity. Failure to do so is
impossible in some situations.

It would be great if we all could stick to buying less and go for better quality.
That’s a weapon we can use in order to change some important things, and end
up with more money in our pockets and less aggravation. Businesses will
adjust.

I try to buy American products any time I can.  They are harder to find and usually more expensive.

I’ll pay it.

Sorry Text Guy, I would normally have jumped on the link between our floundering economy and our equally floundering ecology, but I got a phonecall and wrapped up my thought too quickly.

I was just pondering this morning, what happened to global climate change? It seems that, as our empire begins it’s slow march to history’s dustbin, not only are we taking down our closest economic allies, but perhaps the climate of the planet, for at least the next century or two (or three or four)

The prevalence of cheaply made and quickly outdated, or simply failed, products didn’t happen overnight. I think it was the late 60’s or early 70’s when the phrase ‘planned obsolescence’ entered our common vocabulary.

What is a little more recent is the breakneck pace of change and the relentless push, via every available means of advertising, to attempt to force us to replace anything and everything we own with some newer version which we are told is light years ahead of what we bought the day or week or month or year before. In fact, any actual change may be barely discernible and will just as likely be limited to the appearance of the item as to be a substantial improvement.

As with any drug sold on the street, one would generally be better off to ‘just say no.’ Truly, we are capable of that. We just have to remember to give ourselves a few minutes of cooling off time, a small bit of self-administered grace, to realize we do not have to say yes every time we hear that siren song: buy me.

There isn’t any real honor in keeping up with the Joneses. There is no bonus coupon for personal redemption to be mailed in after having purchased the latest, most glossy pump-you-up-but-what-else-really-changes gadget to be thrust in front of us.

The computer and monitor I use to read and comment on articles published at Truthdig are both nearly eleven years old. It took me five years to pay the system off. It was obsolete almost before I opened the boxes it was shipped in. It still works and works very well. Over the years, I have replaced the hard drive once and added memory. The day I made my last payment I felt like throwing a party. I don’t hope to repeat that five year stint anytime soon. But my grandkids are absolutely mystified by the fact that I tend to keep things for a long time.

Still, I am not immune to the dark arts of marketing persuasion. Consider this. I hate phones in general. I am liable to unplug my landline if it rings too many time in a day. I have a cell phone for emergencies. It is usually turned off. But if those amazingly alluring smart phones pop up in an ad on the web or on TV, my god, I feel like I really need one. It’s just plain nuts. And that is the powerful mojo of marketing - causing someone who hates phones to feel the need for a Blackberry or an iPhone or a Droid, etc. 

I have worked in factories that produced goods that I could not afford, even though those goods were not particularly well made. WalMart is along that model. The ugliest thing about the WalMart model is that they are supported by the very people whose wages rarely qualify as living wages. I.e., by the same people they and their ilk are most likely to abuse (in wage terms)as employees. It’s sort of like an odd, modern form of indentured servitude.

Voluntary simplicity seems like an honorable route to me. Human dignity must certainly be worth more than ruling the air or the roads or the many and varied popularity contests that apparently don’t end upon high school graduation.

Living-to-own is a poor and hollow substitute for a life well lived. Still, I think we have not yet irrevocably betrayed our power to choose.

Big B has it right..

One thing I could add to his list of the hidden costs of cheap consumer goods is the cost in pollution to our environment.

Aside from the small concern of paying a living wage.. by leaving our regulatory environment corporations avoid the cost of being a responsible citizen of our earth! And it’s a big savings..

Not to you and me, of course.. or to our kids and grand-kids.. but to the people on the receiving end of the corporate bonus structure and of course the stockholders come dividend time..

Payback time for all of this seems to be approaching at an increasing pace.

Adios!

One of the first lessons taught in school was Spains decline resulting from its expulsion of craftspeople and artisans. They were deemed unnecessary and many were of the “wrong” religion. The “rich elite” held them in contempt. Spain destroyed its manufacturing base and fell into permanent decline. FAT FRED and others here often point to the fact that our economy is a debt based airball. If I understand it correctly: debt is the currency. If I sell you overpriced crap electronics, automobiles or homes at 25% vig, bound to destruct or be obsolete before you can pay for them ,you are forever in debt.

    It is a valueless system that delivers no value and prevents access to meaning.

    Modern American consumer psychology knowingly creates skewed and twisted inhuman social/moral values and those families who do not embrace them are attacked and shunned. The attack is primarily focused on the child but fuels enough emotional insecurity and chaos to cause dischord in families already under intense financial pressure. Education is the very last value embraced in our public schools.

    The “text message” racket was a great vehicle to gouge unsuspecting families. The idea that a child needs to be in communication by cell phone in these “dangerous” times may be plausable, but the “service packages” sold often left unknown windows where teens ran up monthly bills in the hundreds of dollars. And, the parents credit score was on the line. Not to mention the fight from the child afraid of the manufactured peer pressure social stima. By the time parents got control they’d lost serious money to knowing avaricious greed and endured serious financial chaos. Walk into any cell phone store. You’re not buying service. You’re buying a “package” meant to exploit you for every nickel possible. Look at the “net”. In modern Europe 5 year olds run at top speed. America isn’t even wired, but it sure gets bled for the access it does have.

      Looking at craft and trades, most major American shops now use reverse outsourced illegal labor for building, cabinet/furniture making, steel work and other “skilled” needs. These “skills” are acquired by years of Apprentice and Journeyman work. Fine furniture and cabinet work from Early America is highly prized by our “rich elite” but they’ve gutted American tradecraft because (like a fair share of the tax burden) they don’t want to pay fair wages for labor and despise the Unions that invest in and produce great American Craftsmen.

    HOME and FAMILY are viewed as an open threat to the corporate fascists now trying to seize final control and implement destruction of America. HOME represents financial responsibility and stability, reason, security, social human values, privacy and refuge. Some European families have lived in the same HOME for centuries. If you have FAMILY, HOME and REFUGE, you can’t be easily exploited because these things make SOUND COMMUNITY and GOVERNMENT.

    American HOME, LIFE and FAMILY is being ripped to shreds by homegrown immoral idiots who gutted the American economy for personal profit and now, out of their depth with International theives, are willing to sell out the Nation to maintain their stranglehold. Human social values and stability are such a threat that though Social Security is solvent for at least twenty seven more years, its on their “gut it” list. Look at MSM coverage. Whores all!!

    Fight, or the future is a warehouse for the elderly,an uneducated child, a bare mattress and two way electronic thought control. Hell, we’re there now. It just hasn’t been refined.

One of our most glaring problems is that most americans have NO IDEA of the true cost of “cheap” stuff. As they buy shoddy crap from one of many banana republics proudly displayed with a smiley face at their local wally world, they fail to realize that those “cheap” items have cost them their local economy and in many cases, their jobs. Americans do not grasp the cyclical nature of the cheap shit we buy to the overall health of the nation. We stare blankly at the shopping mall and wonder where half the stores have gone. The vapid bubbleheads of the USA don’t see that we are just begining to see the fruition of unfettered capitalism, less competition, lower prices (for a while) lower wages, disappearing benefits, and a countryside dotted with small, dirty, company towns.

welcome back to the 1890’s.

Everybody knows that “cheap” is how Wall Mart gutted the country of mom n’ pops
and sent our manufacturing jobs flying overseas.

And on the subject of flying I’ll add that now this phenom is starting in earnest
with air travel. Since the sole criteria for ticket purchase seems to be price, the
airlines know they must strip the services down to the bare minimum in order to be
the first one up on the Orbitz search. This leads to extra fees for things that once
were included in the service, like bag checking. It won’t be long before seats will
costs extra. I take that back, didn’t I hear that some shuttle services have already
started selling standing-only tickets?

Still watching a 15 year old Magnavox TV.

As an artist, who “works” with domestic and exotic hardwoods. I placed “work” in quotes, because this is exacting, manual work and sometimes gets pretty nasty; the kind of work we Americans typically shun. I make one of a kind items that I hope will have a legacy. My pieces are, if compared to cloned decorative items found at discount chains and even upscale stores at the mall, flat out, expensive amd yet I work at my art at less than half minimum wage to acheive perfection. I like to think, when I compare my work to the knock-offs out there, that my work has a little bit of soul.
  In this environment, I cannot expect to sell many pieces. I do not expect anyone to go out on a limb in this economy. Nonetheless, I’d like to see more people opt for “Made in USA”. We used to be “the” top-notch producer of quality goods. “Made in USA” was a signature that had sway even though it might have cost a little bit more. That market model has totally disappeared and we as a nation are poorer for it.

I cannot bear to watch commercial television with its shoddy pitches for clever Chinese, soon to be yard-sale, crap. I’ve got to hand it to the psychologists on the executive boards of every Madison Avenue ad firm. They earn their keep. LOL (That’s a joke, son.)

It is the incessant drumbeat of ‘new and improved’ that forces all of us onto this treadmill of constant buying.  How embarrassing to have kids into your house and you still have one of those big ‘tube’ TV sets instead of the latest, sleek flat screen.  And, just when you finally swallowed the nasty pill and put a new Sony on the 25% credit card but the retailers start the drumbeat for the new 3D version, which, of course, is totally incompatible with the just purchased set.  We live in a society where things have replaced the family.  No body goes to Johnny’s house because they are poor and don’t have all the latest gizmos but his parents are the nicest and friendliest people around.  We all want to go to Bobby’s house because he just got the newest X-Box but his parents are never around because mom is at the ‘club’ and dads ... well dads never around because he’s always traveling somewhere.  We are one seriously sick society.

Good luck with your new baby!

My son can taste the difference between Fruit Loops and ‘Colored Fruit Rings’ at the grocery store.  I can’t get away with cheapo-ing anything.

We can’t afford a flat screen, but our $500 TV from 5 years ago (knock on wood) only fuzzes if the cablebox is not in the exact right position (and my son knows the exact right position).

Just recently my son ‘lifted’ an $800 iPhone from a classmates bookbag because ‘it was so cool.’  The phone is returned, and all is good, but I live meagerly in a district where 8-9 year-olds carry $1,000 cell phones.

I try to tell my son, ‘We are not poor, we are rich.  Poverty is in the soul… it is not about money… and you are the ‘richest’ boy I know.’

Hear hear. When I was young most people who enjoyed riding bikes saved up for Campagnolo group sets. Every single part of a Campy product could be replaced. The Japanese companies decided to put out cheaper versions that were disposable. Sadly, these companies, like Shimano, now dominate cycling. I have wheels that I have ridden over 250,000 miles on. Current bicycle wheels have an expected lifetime of less than one-tenth as long.

I’m sure the same story holds for other industries. In fact, I recall an interview on NPR where someone said that the U.S. Commerce Dept. had determined that Wal-Mart products were made so poorly that the consumer was actually not saving any money.

I’m cheap. The few products I buy are not.