bar_of_soap dafremen When I was a kid, we used to go down to my grandpa's house in Arkansas. He had this electric fan there that was from the late 30s. He said he remembered buying it new and he was very proud of the fact that they used to make things to last. "They don't make things like they used to", he'd say. And it wasn't until recently that I really started to think about what he was saying and what it really meant about what our society has become. There was a time, if the sturdy construction of this appliance it to be believed, when companies actually had the ability to make quality products, which working class people could afford, that were designed to last for as long as they could make them last. Companies don't do that anymore. If you want lasting quality..be rich (and even then, don't expect anything designed to last as long as a rich man's goodies in the 40's did.) Otherwise, be aware that the entire range of goods and services are being turned into "bars of soap." In business, there's an old story about the "ideal product." The ideal product is one which is inexpensive to ship, constantly needs replacing and which everyone needs. The example often given is a bar of soap. This is the ideal which companies are chasing after. And rather than cut each other's throats trying to compete in the soap market, they've decided to cut the consumer's throat instead and turn hard goods which were never meant to need constant replacement, into "bars of soap." They've made the parts cheaper so they'll need constant replacement. They've made the product wear out faster so you'll buy a new one. Rather than engineer the products to last forever, they've made a science out of bringing the lasting value of their products down to meet the maximum B.S. that the consumer will put up with. Now the corporate world will claim that this is because there is a demand for lower and lower priced goods, while the cost of doing business continues to rise. But this is a circular argument, because they are bitching about conditions they created. The reason consumers want lower priced goods is because consistently greater numbers of us have less money and less financial security. When people don't have money, or don't feel financially secure, they spend less. Why do we have less money? Because corporations have engaged in a campaign of outsourcing jobs, replacing people with machines and reducing hours to avoid providing benefits. The labor market is glutted because of the lack of jobs, so corporations can pay lower wages..because there is greater demand for the jobs. With these lower wages, working class people have to purchase their OWN medical insurance, or go on a publicly subsidized program which comes more out of THEIR pockets than a corporation's. (Corporate taxes constitute only about 10% of Federal revenues. The public paid around 50% of those revenues. Even though corporate profits drained the economy much more heavily than the public.) And finally, with so little money left over..they want lower prices to try to build SOME semblance of the American dream they worked their asses off for. Even if it's a chintzy version of that dream which will break down in a year or less. It's not what they deserve..it's what's available. The reason the cost of doing business has been going up is literally because the money is quickly becoming worthless as the government prints more money to cover its mounting debts. With more and more people in poverty because of the selfish acts of shady business people, welfare and unemployment rolls are rising. To pay the mounting debt, the government borrows more money, then dumps it into the economy to replace the cash the uber-rich and large corporations are hoarding. This makes things even WORSE for the working person than just causing prices to rise as the money loses value. It's ALSO reducing the value of the money that people have put away for their RETIREMENTS and INVESTMENT. Their savings are being robbed from them without ever leaving the bank. No wonder they aren't spending as freely. No wonder they want lower prices. And then, after all they did to CREATE the demand for lower prices and to INCREASE the cost of doing business, corporations have the gall to say that they are cheapening our goods and services because its what WE want, or because the cost of doing business is out of their hands. It's only EVER been in the business world's ability to improve things in our capitalist system. They have our combined power in their hands..in the form of our money, and our labor. When this system was devised, business people still cared about doing a good job, serving their society and improving the plight of their fellow man. (Even Ford, that ruthless, greedy bigot, had a dream of providing the common man with a rich man's luxuries, and paying the working man a decent wage. Even our worst back then, cared about the quality of the products which bore their name.) It is unlikely that ANYONE would have adopted capitalism if they had seen what it does to people's basic sense of decency. If only they had seen how easily selfishness and the upward money trend of capitalism would combine to create the ultra-greedy: The insatiable MATERIALIST money addict. Certainly, they would have devised another system. Surely only the greediest would have seen the possibility of infinite wealth which capitalism without a conscience offers and started drooling. But that was back then. These days the dream of infinite wealth is everywhere..haunting the dreams of a people bombarded by marketing and its lover, pop culture. These days what was once a ruthless rarity has been multiplied into teaming hordes of human turds waiting to stab someone in the back (from a safe, deniable distance) for a chance at modern royalty. And those who own the stocks? Sit back and watch us make them rich while we tear ourselves, our families and our people apart. For shitty old bars of soap. 141107 ... | - - Planned_obsolescence 141108 ... Flowerock We need to build skills and knowledge within communities so that we don't need to buy as many things. This is easier said than done and a very basic idea, in motion it involes more than just learning and teaching, a lot of change and difficult transition periods probably. Most things are much easier said than done though. Myself included of course. Then there are issues of what we are allowed to do and where and how by "law" as well. It's a very difficult thing either to change the way business and goods are run and made ect..., and/or to change the way we live as a nation or even neighborhood. I don't know how to pull enough people together to make it work... Or exactly what will work. I guess I feel that knowledge and skills learned and shared is really the way to start from the ground up. As a side note listening to a perfect circle's "counting bodies to the rhythm of the war drum" seems to fit in with this discussion 141109 ... Flowerock Community_garden Buy_local Trade Bike_instead of drive Reuse things Mend broken or torn things (instead of buying new) Use old or broken things to make new useful things Build community, talk to people, network, ride_share, bike_share Give away "left_overs" instead of trashing them if they Are still edible. Give away old things if they are mend able. 141109 ... dafremen 1. Do no harm. 2. No more bullshitting. 3. Don't sit there bitching. Fix it, or forget about it. 4. Focus on contributing skills or labor to the community. see also: turning_away 141110 what's it to you? who go blather from