[woof]

woof woof woof woof

You ** didn't ** defend Canada. You indicted America.

I don't think he missed your point, he simply stated that you are no one to cast any stones. You made all American responsible and he simple denied that America was solely responsible.

You do seem to love to bash Americans. Perhaps that was the real point? Well, it's looking a little cheaper now, son. Take your medicine.

woof!

[Rupert]

Cowboys and Indians. Cops and Robbers. Do any of the men on here remember playing those games? I sure do and I really don't want to rob a bank. Too much PC crap.

Why resort to such a violent method as bank robbery....when you can be a plumber!
Regards!

[Rupert]

You'll soon know Gary.
Little girls like to play dress ups and are fascinated by adult things such as jewellery, cooking and handbags. All without instruction - they just pick it up and emulate.

You got it. My Dolly is just three and already asking for her own cell phone...actually she wants the I-Phone.....I'm holding off on it until she knows how to count better.....

Hello Dolly!

[Ratmagiclady]

where do you see me defending canada, we have enough people here too that wont go and pick up low paying jobs because "they are above it".

Actually, it's rather more like the decline in real wages is why so much of America ends up buying cheap crap that can only be made profitably in China. Over and over, cause it's crappy. Then when fewer people can afford something American-made, more people drop income brackets, and end up buying stuff at Wal-mart, which can only be made profitably in China....

Thinking there's some great surfeit of factory jobs that people are 'turning up their noses at' doesn't really meet with reality, if you asked me.

The corporations are definitely afraid of certain realities that can ramp back the consumerism and the legacies of a couple of decades of disposable material culture, but I think that's actually the way out.

If we get back to making things to last, (and as we start valuing that again) then there's better jobs in manufacturing, and the consumers aren't running up the credit cards to buy the same crap over and over, depleting the local economies and therefore, of course, losing more jobs.

It's always amazed me how in probably the most prosperous times in American history, how darn *homogenized* the material culture became, even as the stuff itself became more 'disposable.' You'd think it would have been a time of a certain amount of exuberance and whimsy in all that 'self-expression,' but *wow, things got kinda boring* I suspect all the instant gratification thing did was make people feel kind of 'rootless.'

One thing I've noticed as last year went on, was people have been starting to dress a lot more *interestingly* all of a sudden. (Much to my relief as a photographer. I've been getting bored. )

It's a start, anyway.

If we start thinking more in terms of sustainability, one of the most direct effects is that *waste becomes uncool.* Maybe people think a bit more before buying something... start to care more about what it looks like, 'Do I really want this,' and how it's made, instead of just throwing money at whatever's convenient or spoonfed as some lowest-common-denominator dangled as though it were new and fresh in a commercial when it's really kind of the same all over.

That's something where manufacturing can start becoming more viable for the West again: if people would rather spend fourty bucks once and make it count, rather than twenty bucks four times then you can employ one or two American workers instead of four or five child laborers overseas.

You can have competition and also something unique to offer from your local workplaces, instead of trying to 'compete' at... Homogenized cheap mass-production.

A new 'conformity' every season, optimized to move a lot of cheap imported goods again and again, really isn't our friend.

[Parallax]

Actually, it's rather more like the decline in real wages is why so much of America ends up buying cheap crap that can only be made profitably in China. Over and over, cause it's crappy. Then when fewer people can afford something American-made, more people drop income brackets, and end up buying stuff at Wal-mart, which can only be made profitably in China....

Thinking there's some great surfeit of factory jobs that people are 'turning up their noses at' doesn't really meet with reality, if you asked me.

The corporations are definitely afraid of certain realities that can ramp back the consumerism and the legacies of a couple of decades of disposable material culture, but I think that's actually the way out.

If we get back to making things to last, (and as we start valuing that again) then there's better jobs in manufacturing, and the consumers aren't running up the credit cards to buy the same crap over and over, depleting the local economies and therefore, of course, losing more jobs.

It's always amazed me how in probably the most prosperous times in American history, how darn *homogenized* the material culture became, even as the stuff itself became more 'disposable.' You'd think it would have been a time of a certain amount of exuberance and whimsy in all that 'self-expression,' but *wow, things got kinda boring* I suspect all the instant gratification thing did was make people feel kind of 'rootless.'

One thing I've noticed as last year went on, was people have been starting to dress a lot more *interestingly* all of a sudden. (Much to my relief as a photographer. I've been getting bored. )

It's a start, anyway.

If we start thinking more in terms of sustainability, one of the most direct effects is that *waste becomes uncool.* Maybe people think a bit more before buying something... start to care more about what it looks like, 'Do I really want this,' and how it's made, instead of just throwing money at whatever's convenient or spoonfed as some lowest-common-denominator dangled as though it were new and fresh in a commercial when it's really kind of the same all over.

That's something where manufacturing can start becoming more viable for the West again: if people would rather spend fourty bucks once and make it count, rather than twenty bucks four times then you can employ one or two American workers instead of four or five child laborers overseas.

You can have competition and also something unique to offer from your local workplaces, instead of trying to 'compete' at... Homogenized cheap mass-production.

A new 'conformity' every season, optimized to move a lot of cheap imported goods again and again, really isn't our friend.

It took a while get the strength to say this, but here goes:
RML is dead on right on this one! I see examples of it daily. People buy an $89.00 bike at Walmart, and then bring it to me to try and make it work right. Some of them I won't work on at all because IMHO they aren't and can't be made safe.
Their junk isn't cheap because they buy in large quantities. Their junk isn't cheap because they are such a benevolent corporation that they are willing to forgo profit for the sake of lower prices to the consumer. Their junk is cheap because it is junk.

It took a while get the strength to say this, but here goes:
RML is dead on right on this one! I see examples of it daily. People buy an $89.00 bike at Walmart, and then bring it to me to try and make it work right. Some of them I won't work on at all because IMHO they aren't and can't be made safe.
Their junk isn't cheap because they buy in large quantities. Their junk isn't cheap because they are such a benevolent corporation that they are willing to forgo profit for the sake of lower prices to the consumer. Their junk is cheap because it is junk.

Jim one of the things I have always said is the most expensive item you can ever buy is something cheap from China.

[seacapt]

Cowboys and Indians. Cops and Robbers. Do any of the men on here remember playing those games? I sure do and I really don't want to rob a bank. Too much PC crap.

Yup , like John Wayne movies too!

Yup , like John Wayne movies too!

Definitely! McClintock comes to mind. And Rooster Cogburn.

[Parallax]

Jim one of the things I have always said is the most expensive item you can ever buy is something cheap from China.

Yep. I've never bought anything well made that worked right and later thought "Gee, I wish I had bought a piece of crap instead."
The thing is, the Chinese, are capable of producing as high of quality goods as anybody else, but you have to pay for that too. They will make anything to whatever standard the company placing the order tells them to. They put out garbage when that is what the customer ordered.

[Ratmagiclady]

It took a while get the strength to say this, but here goes:
RML is dead on right on this one! I see examples of it daily. People buy an $89.00 bike at Walmart, and then bring it to me to try and make it work right. Some of them I won't work on at all because IMHO they aren't and can't be made safe.
Their junk isn't cheap because they buy in large quantities. Their junk isn't cheap because they are such a benevolent corporation that they are willing to forgo profit for the sake of lower prices to the consumer. Their junk is cheap because it is junk.

Yeah, it sure wouldn't hurt if we started making things *more repairable* again, either. Planned obsolescence may make things more profitable at the top, but people aren't as likely to commit to a pricier thing that can't be fixed if something goes wrong or needs upgrading, anyway.

Repair work is local work: I've sure noticed that evaporate over time, too. Some of it's a bit understandable in an electronics revolution of sorts, but then again, some of it's just waste.

Heck, when people threw things *out,* I could often fix things up or make something nice out of them: you just don't see much that can even be used for parts anymore.

Of course, what you can't afford, you can't afford, but when people are trying to skimp ten percent on materials to make more profit on something, they're generating ninety percent waste.

[Parallax]

Yeah, it sure wouldn't hurt if we started making things *more repairable* again, either...............

The very first thing that that brought to mind was the T.V. tube tester and replacement displays that used to be in grocery stores. For those of you from the post transistor generation: most grocery stores had displays for testing T.V. tubes. If your T.V. wasn't working right, you would pull all of the tubes out, test them with the tester, and if any were bad you picked the replacement from the bins or drawers below.

[Ash]

The thing is, the Chinese, are capable of producing as high of quality goods as anybody else, but you have to pay for that too. They will make anything to whatever standard the company placing the order tells them to. They put out garbage when that is what the customer ordered.

They are not only capable, they also do in some companies, mainly those with strict specifications from their clients. Basically, they're all about creating products for their customers, and doing it quickly and cheaply for them. It's only when the client says "nope, not good enough" will they try harder with more quality/care to produce a more acceptable result. And they will do so because that's what matters to them - meeting industrial demand.

[Ratmagiclady]

The very first thing that that brought to mind was the T.V. tube tester and replacement displays that used to be in grocery stores. For those of you from the post transistor generation: most grocery stores had displays for testing T.V. tubes. If your T.V. wasn't working right, you would pull all of the tubes out, test them with the tester, and if any were bad you picked the replacement from the bins or drawers below.

Hee, I think I may be just too young for that to have been in the *grocery* store, but we had one of those big furniture-TV's that still had at least some tubes in there. Gods know I climbed inside the thing enough times after the repairman showed me what not to touch. One we had was at least partially-solid state, as I recall.

Now I've got Bowie's 'Life On Mars' going through my head again.

I'm just old enough to remember the TV repairman coming to the house, and the milkman, heh, disposable diaper trucks all over the place... and no computers.. (See, it wasn't all bad stuff. I was a freakishly smart and perceptive kid, you see. I'm sure it gave me a head start in life on freaked out about everything, but I was a *sponge* for a while, there. People forget stuff. )

I wonder how many tradespeople will talk at some random like five year old kid about what they're doing, these days. You can really build on that stuff, though.

[Ratmagiclady]

They are not only capable, they also do in some companies, mainly those with strict specifications from their clients. Basically, they're all about creating products for their customers, and doing it quickly and cheaply for them. It's only when the client says "nope, not good enough" will they try harder with more quality/care to produce a more acceptable result. And they will do so because that's what matters to them - meeting industrial demand.

Yeah, but they aren't the *only* ones who can make a go *that* way, see?

We certainly won't thrive by trying to out-cheap-quantity-them.

[seacapt]

It took a while get the strength to say this, but here goes:
RML is dead on right on this one! I see examples of it daily. People buy an $89.00 bike at Walmart, and then bring it to me to try and make it work right. Some of them I won't work on at all because IMHO they aren't and can't be made safe.
Their junk isn't cheap because they buy in large quantities. Their junk isn't cheap because they are such a benevolent corporation that they are willing to forgo profit for the sake of lower prices to the consumer. Their junk is cheap because it is junk.

I agree on both counts! But even the high end bikes have frames made in China these days.