What Does Made In U S A Mean?

Well, if your a baby boomer it's your generations fault. There are more of you than every other generation. And they started the whole, through it out and just buy new, because they are by far the richest generation!
 
Dan_S said:
Well, if your a baby boomer it's your generations fault. There are more of you than every other generation. And they started the whole, through it out and just buy new, because they are by far the richest generation!
Click to expand...
^^ This
 
I can't argue.

I'm towards the tail end of the Boom myself but this what I saw. Television reached out to those of us working in a booming economy, we had lots of money in our pockets and slick advertising was invented to seperate us from our money, the latest and greatest, new and improved, new styling, all telling us that what we had was insufficient, we needed to upgrade. Had to keep up with the Jones'. Trouble was that corporate greed got involved and latest and greatest wasn't necessarily the best and they saw a way to maximize profits by cutting corners. My dad worked in factories, he had quality tools, Dunlop, Craftsman, Delta, stuff you still see around. I saw the Japanese junk hitting our shores, we used to say, as kids when something broke, cheap junk, made in Japan. Those days Japanese goods were like the current Chinese goods. There are still decent tools being made here, trouble is that they are more expensive than off shore manufacturers marked as Assembled in USA from foreign sourced parts or Made in China. I look at labels to see where the thing I'm looking at is made, I was involved in manufacturing my whole life, road a lot of highs and lows. Had to reduce cost of manufacture to keep corporate happy in my engineering jobs.
 
The wiki page is not correct as far as I'm concerned it looks more like it was written by a grumpy Mr Wilson type.

Imo planned obsolescence is more to do with the fact that the consumer wants to replace the product. Take cell phones for example they don't last much more than 2 years now because your average consumer doesn't keep one that long. I know lots of people who get a new cell phone every year to 18 months. They pay heavy penalties for breaking the contract early just so they can get a newer model even though they only use a fraction of their current phone's capabilities.

The manufacturer has no reason to make something that lasts a decade if the consumer throws it out after 2 years.
 
Yep! the creed of greed.
All modern business is predicated upon this model irrespective of what country.
But I'm sorry to say it was invented in the good ole US of A.
Funnily enough Henry Ford was against the idea but GM took it fully on board.
The idea of consumerism was put forward and pushed by the American government to help the economy and reduce the stockpiles of goods caused by the thrift policies that were enforced during the first world war.
It worked and soon everyone was on the bandwagon.
Its very interesting to research where and how it started and the fine line that modern economics treads with making a product that will last just long enough so they can keep selling and one that lasts too long, doesnt need replacing so they go out of business.
Of course this is now reinforced with massive marketing hype and strengthened with huge doses of psychology and crass TV shows that turns a modern consumer into a quivering wreck if they cannot get the absolute latest to the second gizmo and brag about it.
The Chinese manufacturers whilst ignoring patents and copyrights produce the goods to the price the importers desire. These same companies do produce superb products on a par with anything else out there but we dont want to pay for them.
 
Dan_S said:
The wiki page is not correct as far as I'm concerned it looks more like it was written by a grumpy Mr Wilson type.

Imo planned obsolescence is more to do with the fact that the consumer wants to replace the product. Take cell phones for example they don't last much more than 2 years now because your average consumer doesn't keep one that long. I know lots of people who get a new cell phone every year to 18 months. They pay heavy penalties for breaking the contract early just so they can get a newer model even though they only use a fraction of their current phone's capabilities.

The manufacturer has no reason to make something that lasts a decade if the consumer throws it out after 2 years.
Click to expand...
Yes. The general idea is to try to estimate the intended service life and then try to design a product that will function reliably for that long without wasting money making some parts more durable than necessary. It's an attempt to design a "wonderful one-hoss shay". "Planned obsolescence" has to do with taking into account the fact that obsolescence is going to happen and planning for it.
 
Packard's thesis was that you are too stupid to buy what you need and modify your behavior based on experience. He also never provided any independently verifiable evidence to support his claims. He was just a sensationalist polemic writer. There have been many before and since.
 
Funny how the masses demand to be paid $10 to produce a widget then turn around and expect to buy it for $5 at Wallyworld. Complaining the whole time about corporate "greed"
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top