"TVs, vcrs, stereos, computers, etc? All cheaper to buy new than to repair, or obsolesence is built into them."
This, in my opinion, is one of the most insidious changes in our culture since the formation of the USA. What really happens when we buy a cheap TV or computer that was made in China?
1. We lose the technological and industrial knowledge and infrastructure to build it in the USA.
2. Money flows to China, which has accumulated to the point that they have a strong leverage over our economy, depending on what they decide to do with the US bonds they hold.
3. China builds more factories, which gains them what we lose in #1 above. More importantly, these factories can easily be converted into the production of weapons, just like ours were in WWII.
4. We are subsidizing what is essentially slave labor. People who are starving due to gross over-population are drafted to work in factories under conditions that have not existed in this country since the late 1800's.
5. We are converting our economy from a producing economy to a service economy. After we have been bled dry, I guess we can support each other by shining each other's shoes.
6. We are eliminating the middle class in this country. We are fast becomming a two-tier society: the well to do, educated, technologists and professionals on the one hand, and the minimum wage gofers in the service businesses, hotels, restaurants, call centers, billing factories, Walmart greeters, etc., on the other.
7. We are undermining all we have tried to accomplish in improving worker safety, child labor laws, employment levels, and environmental polution. Since companies are restricted from doing these things in the USA anymore, they just move their operations overseas where they can exploit workers, ignore safety standards, and pollute to their heart's content.
All of which is why I am happy and proud to pay $1,000 for a bow that is handmade in the USA, and I know that each dollar will end up in the pockets of a US worker, owner, or supplier, who will turn right around and spend it on something they want or need, which will improve our economy (unless they spend it on a cheap imported TV, of course!).
Are we really better off than we were in the '50's, before all this started happening? In the 1950's, we did not have cheap TV's, or cars, or clothes, or any cellphones or computers to speak of at all. In the 1950's when I was growing up, I think I had one pair of shoes at a time, and they weren't $100+ Nikes with fancy swooshes on them, either. If I wanted to entertain myself, I went out and shot baskets or played catch with someone. My mother didn't work outside the home. My family bought our first house because there was no down payment under the GI bill and the monthly payments were no different than what we were already paying in rent. Nobody had a credit card. In the 1950's, we had a steel industry, American cars were the best in the world, and all technology was not only designed, but manufactured here in the USA. So there were jobs not only for the college grad engineers, but for those who wanted to make a living with their hands, also. The price we paid for that was smaller houses, and we had to work more hours to get that TV or car, since the workers who made them were well paid.
We gave that up for two reasons: our desire for cheaper goods, and the general belief, promoted by internationalists, that the change was inevitable and we could no more stop it than sweep back the sea.
Well, maybe we will be done in by our desire for cheap goods. But I can assure you that the change is NOT inevitable. We can actually control our own destiny, because we are the ones paying for it! We have enormous power because of that, which we don't realize. Because we are the ones paying the bill, we could demand that all goods imported into the United States be manufactured under the same worker safety and pollution laws that companies face here. My feeling is that if US companies were allowed to compete on a level playing field, they could produce products at the same cost as foreign competitors. And, we would have the advantage of lower shipping costs, which will become an ever increasing factor as fuel costs continue to rise. The cost of goods as a whole would rise in the US, since manufacturing costs would increase, but the upside would be the rebirth of the blue collar middle class worker.
Sorry, didn't mean to rant this long.
Topic: The disposable mindset and it's effects (Read 2062 times)
