sick and tired of new scrap appliances.

[GoldenEraFan]

This thread basically sums up the opinion I've had of how things have been made since the day I was born. Here's my rant. I grew up in the '90s and basically was swamped with cheap plastics. The apartment I grew up in was basically a time-capsule from the mid-1980's, which still had that cheap disposable feeling to it, though we did use our 1984 Whirlpool refrigerator (off-white with a fake wood handle) for a good 20 something years. I recall the edge of it starting to pit with rust from years of condensation though. The major problem I find is that we've put computers in everything. Whenever an appliance or car breaks down now, it's always the computer and since fixing a computer chip has apparently become "difficult" it's become the norm to just throw it away and buy another one. It's all business of course, why build reliable stuff that will last forever when you can make junk and force people to keep buying it. Then again, companies offer warranties so what's the point of making junk if it'll be replaced or fixed for free and no profit to the company? I'm in my 20s, grew up with computers and yet I still find the fact that everything is computer run a bit unsettling. My current phone is a 2007 Samsung and does all I need it to do, make phone calls. On the subject of cars, I live in the city and don't need one, but our family car is a 2000 Honda Odyssey. The entertainment feature? No navigation system, no duel overhead DVD players, just an old fashioned CD player/radio. Now in truth, cars of 2012 have been really impressing me with their designs. Edges, curves and chrome are starting to come back, but these things are so technology heavy it's hard to even consider them "automobiles" rather than computers on wheels. I watched a review of the new Nissan Leaf, which I consider a nice looking car, but when the man in the video turned the car on, it sounded like he turned on a Windows Vista, complete with the little musical que they give computers. And clothes? I'm sure every fedora lounge member knows how poorly made most clothes are today, so I'll cut to the chase, all my vintage attire looks, fits and feels better than anything modern I've worn. One last word on comparison of old and new stuff: luxury items. There doesn't seem to be a quality difference anymore, luxury just refers to the label. In a recent article on the 100th anniversary of the Titanic disaster, they talked about finding a 1910's era alligator pocketbook, and compared it with the current most expensive alligator pocket book from the same company and claimed that the 1910's pocketbook was far superior in quality. I guess today it's brand name over brand quality.

[Bruce Wayne]

Our washing machine is on it's last leg. It needs a bearing & said bearing costs more than a new washer. The machine is only a dozen years old!

[jamespowers]

Our washing machine is on it's last leg. It needs a bearing & said bearing costs more than a new washer. The machine is only a dozen years old!

I know what you mean. Mine went a few months ago and cost me $150 to fix. Smart of them to use a plastic gear to engage the washer basket.

[William Stratford]

I know what you mean. Mine went a few months ago and cost me $150 to fix. Smart of them to use a plastic gear to engage the washer basket.

Had a washing machine break about a year ago, when it broke free of its mountings and decided to bang out some death metal when I set it spinning......but when I tried to fix it myself, I found that the mountings where plastic and the bolts were hardened steel (so I could not drill them out). Piece of (grrrr)

[Edward]

Its not that the Chinese cannot make these things last they can like anyone else, it's just that they dont want to. Its the bosses and culture that prevent it.

That's simply not true. Traditional Chinese crafts and workmanship are among the best in the world. The reason you see so much rubbish being made in China is for no reason other than the Western companies which have identified, maybe even created, a market for the same can maximise their profit margins by outsourcing manufacturing of their rubbish in China, and the Chinese, being the ultimate capitalists, are only too happy to take their money.

I think you are confusing Taiwan (a developed nation) with undeveloped nations like China and Vietnam.

I can't speak to Vietnam, but it is factually incorrect to paint China as 'backward' in this way. There certainly are areas of terribly poverty and deprivation (as in so many countries, including in the West. Here in London, while millions were being spent on Liz Windsor's jubilee, there are kids living under the poverty line with rickets). However, in many respects China is one of the most advanced nations in the world.

[LizzieMaine]

I know what you mean. Mine went a few months ago and cost me $150 to fix. Smart of them to use a plastic gear to engage the washer basket.

The Boys From Marketing will tell you that plastic gear is a *good* thing -- "Whisper-quiet operation!"

My washer has cut-steel gears in a permanent sealed-in-oil casing, and it's 78 years old this year. A little noise, I can live with.

That's simply not true. Traditional Chinese crafts and workmanship are among the best in the world. The reason you see so much rubbish being made in China is for no reason other than the Western companies which have identified, maybe even created, a market for the same can maximise their profit margins by outsourcing manufacturing of their rubbish in China, and the Chinese, being the ultimate capitalists, are only too happy to take their money.

Exactly. It's not that it's somehow impossible to build quality products. It's that it's cheaper to convince the public they don't need quality products. And the whole prison/slave-labor thing? "Oh, you should see how Those People *usually* live!"

[Edward]

Exactly. It's not that it's somehow impossible to build quality products. It's that it's cheaper to convince the public they don't need quality products. And the whole prison/slave-labor thing? "Oh, you should see how Those People *usually* live!"

Hopefully the tide will turn - I remember when it was only the socially conscious churches and "dirty, liberal hippy types" that cared about fairly traded tea and coffee, or cotton - now those are pretty much mainstream over here. It is, however, amazing and depressing what a lot of folks are prepared to rationalise rather than inconvenience themselves somewhat.

[William Stratford]

It's not that it's somehow impossible to build quality products. It's that it's cheaper to convince the public they don't need quality products.

Its also that industrialisation needs a continual turn-over of products to stay in business. When it was artisans, they would manage on a steady trickle of new sales , topped up with quite a few repairs. But with factories, they have to keep churning their widgets out (and thus the ones already being owned need to be discarded, whether because they break or are "last seasons model", so that people will pay for the new widgets ) otherwise the factories go out of business.

Thus is the insanity of basing a society around the economy, rather than the economy around the society. It is also why the turkeys (factories) will never vote for Christmas (durable products that last decades rather than months). So the question then becomes; how do we switch to such an economy when the powerhouses of consumerism (who are also the big employers) are diametrically opposed to such......the answer to which is that an economic collapse would actually be a good thing (rather than what the in-the-pockets-of-business politicians tell us) because it would remove the key impediment (industrialisation) that keeps us in the loony low-quality/high-turnover market.

But when I say that, I get accused of being a communist (by idiots who have no idea that politics is not just a squabble between freemarkets and socialism).

Gah.

[LizzieMaine]

Unless a sudden plague wipes out 99 percent of the population and civilization has to start over again from scratch, I don't see much chance of a real, meaningful, profound change happening -- there are too many vested interests keeping the whole modern system propped up. They've got theirs, and they're not gonna rest until they've got yours, too. As long as the brainwashing holds out, as long as people jump up and down with excitement over the idea of a telephone that actually tells them, in its own cutie-pie voice, where the nearest $6 frappuccino can be found, there's no hope.

All any of us can do, as individuals, is flatly refuse to go along. As I've said elsewhere, we might very well be overcome by the tide, but that doesn't mean we have to be swept along with it.

[William Stratford]

I know what you mean, there Lizzie. It just irks me that the things I care about are being crushed by something that in the deepest sense cares about nothing but is just an insatiable appetite. Its not my nature to tolerate bullies, and they are amongst the worst, but like you say we are largely powerless against them. I suppose I can hope that the economy collapses long enough and deep enough for people to realise this....but that will be an awful painful lesson for a lot of folks.