The Maytag Man came by today

MKloepster wrote: snip

snip

Those cheap bastards are US!!! How many times have you gone down to the full service store to look at stuff then called around the discount places to save a penny? WE won't pay a nickel more than we have to. DEMAND drives the ship. WE won't buy good stuff, so THEY don't supply good stuff.

It's sad, but there's nothing much we can do about it. Gotta go. Found some "free after rebate" stuff I just gotta have... mike

I have a 30+ year old Kenmore (inglis) drier that has had the drum rollers replaced twice, and the belt once. Untill 3 years ago we had the matching washer. Motor was replaced once, and control head 3 times in 30 years. The replacement (same brand) had the motor, transmission, and control replaced within the first 3 months, then I found the REAL problem - a bad switch. We recently replaced the 40+ year old Frigidaire range. Until the oven element burned out and arc-welded itself to the oven liner, all that had been replaced was a couple wirers and one element control. The matching refrigerator was retired 5 years ago when it started freezing up (auto defrost went on the blink) The 20 year old Quazar microwave had the "antenna" replaced uder warranty at about 6 months when it started arcing - and has been troublefree ever since. The 30 year old gas furnace got replaced with a new medium efficiency unit this fall. The blower motor had been replaced about 10 years ago

- and I replaced the furnace because with the cost of energy going up it made sense to do so - and to do it on MY timetable, rather than Murphy's. When they took it out they said there was nothing wrong with it - it was just old. The central air is still there - never had a moments trouble other than the thermostat. The Beam central vac (15 years old) got a new set of brushes in the Lamb motor last spring. A lot of the new ones do not have replaceable brushes.

Only GOOD thing I can say for some of the new stuff is it is more power efficient - but often that is because it is underpowered - and therefore thrashes itself to death just "doing its job".

There's cheap, there's fair and there's gouge.

I just posted this on alt.autos.subaru a little while ago...

Sometimes people choose cheap because they are tired of being screwed.

Yep!! Real tired, in fact.

I'm afraid the bulk of us here in the States are in for a wake-up call. We no longer are an island, not since we started dealing with the entire planet. How can any of us expect to be paid wages that are three, four, or fives times greater than those paid in other countries, when those countries are doing their level best to capture all the production jobs available? Especially when our government, in all its wisdom, has been telling us that we are no longer a manufacturing society, but service based, helping chase the damned jobs away. Seems to me the "service society" title, along with the jobs it entails, have been shipped to India. What are we now going to do to make a living?

As long as the unions and workers insist on more for less, I see everything slowly leaving our country, everything, that is, but jobs like delivery drivers, which can be accomplished only on location. Those that remain will have effectively raised their income so high that those of us that are left with mediocre jobs that pay at a subsistence level will not be able to afford the services provided by these people. It's pretty much already happened with the medical and legal professions (and maybe the mechanics, too?) as you've already stated..

What do I propose? How about everyone that has a job reconsidering their contributions to society, and the pay that is received for their services. Why in hell should a low or no skill job pay high wages when highly skilled people are being put out of work these days? Makes no sense, and helps keep the prices of our goods out of balance with reality. How do we expect to compete under those conditions?

Until the work force establishes wage equilibrium with other countries, I see jobs continuing to leave our country wholesale. Sounds to me like pretty much everyone is going to end up making a lower wage (if they're fortunate enough to have a job, that is), something in keeping with wages paid in other countries. It's just a matter of when it happens. Some of you folks are going to have to liquidate a couple of your snow mobiles, trail bikes, your bass boat, and maybe even a couple of your cars. You'll either do it, or lose them. The free lunch is rapidly coming to an end for all of us. And it should. For the most part, we've all lost our perspective, in my opinion.

Next time you come across a picket line, give some serious consideration to whether or not you want to honor it, helping the typically over-paid workers get that extra 50¢/hr. raise, or the added benefits that so many of us have no chance of every having, all of which do nothing more than raise your cost of living when you honor and support them.

It's high time all of us start taking a realistic look at the money we make. Don't lose site of the fact that regardless of how much a worker gets paid, it is you, the consumer, that pays the salary. Business will continue to raise prices to compensate for their increased overhead. They must, or they go out of business. In the end, we all lose.

What's wrong with the idea that we do something to get back what we used to have and do? Earning our way, working with pride, and keeping jobs here as a result. I'm damned tired of buying things Made in America that are inferior to many of the imports, yet cost two or three times more. Didn't any of us learn anything from the auto industry that shot itself in the foot in the 70's, and were shamefully embarrassed by the Japanese? All of us should be ashamed of ourselves for the greed and indifference we have displayed in our ME FIRST society, with our exorbitant wages and low quality. Heavy sigh!

Rant off.

Harold

I think this is a continuation of 'all the jobs are going overseas' thread. The conclusion there was, it's not any moral failing on the part of the american workers, but rather the 1/20th factor - any job in china is accomplished for a wage that is lower than an american doing that job in america, by a factor of *twenty*.

Who should be ashamed? How about the excecutives at Wal-Mart, who are hiring illegals and not paying taxes, SS, or worker's comp on their pay.

When I hear about stuff like that it makes me ashamed. Then I think that those folks should unionize and go on strike.

I don't think the present labor pickle can be solved by a collective finger-shaking. It's going to be tougher than that!

Jim

================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================

For a change, a posting worth repeating in its entirety! You have hit the nail (metal content) dead center with a BFH. Gerry :-)} London, Canada

That's a mouth full! Yep, I'm not sure there *is* any fixing this monster, regardless of who's responsible. :-(

Harold

Going to fundamentals, costs are high in the US because we have health care, social security, a big army, etc. The solution is to balance these govt benefits with import taxes. If you want more social security and foreign army adventures, raise duties to pay for them. If you want cheaper goods, lower social security etc. Make the customs duties directly fund the govt benefits and let the people decide.

My web page goes into this further.

LOL. I guess I was hungry when I wrote that. This morning swmbo made blueberry waffles so I can ignore the food aspect...

I get the impression, reading what Ed. H posts here, and also reading the NY times now and then, that this isn't a 'fault' kind of thing.

There isn't one single policy, or one single person, political party, government, or nation, that is to blame. And so the answer as such isn't going to be one single 'answer' but a long road back to where we once were. And by then it's gonna be a different place anyhow.

Like they say, 'fasten your seatbelts. It's gonna be a bumpy ride.'

Jim

================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================

Could you please explain this to the folks who *don't* have health or dental insurance, and likewise to those who are paying social security tax right now, but won't collect any money from that system before it collapses?

Jim

================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================

China has universal health care, social security, and the world's largest army. They just pay a lot less for them.

Example, it cost them about 1/30th as much to put a man in space as it cost the US to put John Glenn in orbit. We have a military that buys $200 claw hammers and $400 toilet seats. It costs you $15 for a lousy Tylenol in the hospital. Etc. China won't pay those prices.

As Ed always says, and Harold is in effect saying above, we have a huge underworked and grossly overpaid middle class. China doesn't. It pays peasant labor peasant wages. It doesn't try to promote them to the middle class by paying them more than their labor is worth. The US does, in spades, and as a result our costs are grossly higher than those of nations like China.

The US's defined *poverty* level is higher than the wages of 99% of the workers in most of the world. That's because our cost of living is grossly inflated compared to most of the rest of the world. And our cost of living is so high mainly because we pay people so much more than the rest of the world does. It is a vicious circle.

We got away with that when our economy was largely isolated from the rest of the world. But that's no longer the case. Now we find ourselves going head to head with economies with much lower costs. We've reacted to that by becoming the world's largest debtor nation.

A currently running commerical illustrates that. It shows a man wearing designer clothes mowing his yard with a riding mower, talking glowingly about his two new cars, his new HDTV, etc and finally saying he's in debt up to his ears. It ends with him saying plaintively "help me". It is an ad for a debt consolidation service, but what it really says to us is that we've been trying to live better than we can afford.

Restructuring our debt won't solve this. Trying to get other people to pay for our lifestyles will no longer solve this. We have to get our own house in order. We have to gain control of our own costs, and our own expectations, if we hope to avoid bankruptcy as individuals, and as a nation.

Gary

Interesting... Kenmore is a 'house brand label' so the appliance could have been made by any number of manufacturers, including Whirlpool, Hotpoint (GE), Gibson...

-Carl

Thanks,Gary. I can always count on you to refine and say so eloquently, that which I am trying to say.

Harold

And spelling at its nadir.

Or at best we stay the same. When there was no effective foreign competition, we could afford to stay on the treadmill, chasing goods with ever increasing costs by making ever increasing wage demands (which, of course, insured goods would have ever increasing costs). But that day has about come to an end.

Now we have less expensive alternatives to US made products. If we continue to make ever increasing wage demands, there won't be any jobs, because the ever increasing prices of the goods we make won't find any market. The jobs will go overseas, and with them the wages those jobs paid. To keep our jobs, we're going to have to learn to accept less money for doing them.

There's no other real way to stop this movement of manufacturing offshore, short of nuking the rest of the world to eliminate the competition. So to maintain the excessive lifestyles to which we've become accustomed, we need to find other lines of work, service jobs, that the world needs done, but only we can do.

One such job is policeman. We're in a position to become policeman for the world. No one is in a position to stop us, and the world does need a policeman. The trick will be to get the world to pay for it.

Like policemen everywhere, we can resort to strongarm tactics, protection rackets, extortion and theft, graft and corruption to sustain us if other nations won't voluntarily pay for our services. As the only remaining superpower, we can play that role, using the blood of our young to sustain our lifestyles. It is called empire.

But it would be better if we could get the world to accept us in this new role more willingly. To do that, we have to be better politicians. We have to convince the world we're looking out for their interests by filling this role. We're not currently doing a good job of that.

Gary

When did Wally World hire illegals? Last I heard, they hired a company who employed illegals.

Gunner

"By calling attention to 'a well regulated militia', the 'security' of the nation, and the right of each citizen 'to keep and bear arms', our founding fathers recognized the essentially civilian nature of our economy. Although it is extremely unlikely that the fears of governmental tyranny which gave rise to the Second Amendment will ever be a major danger to our nation, the Amendment still remains an important declaration of our basic civilian-military relationships, in which every citizen must be ready to participate in the defense of his country. For that reason, I believe the Second Amendment will always be important." -- Senator John F. Kennedy, (D) 1960

On Sat, 15 Nov 2003 12:22:12 -0800, "Harold & Susan Vordos" brought forth from the murky depths:

-major snippage-

I'll ditto that. Hear, hear!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - If God approved of nudity, we all would have been born naked. ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

That's Netscape spell checker.

Made in USA

JR Dweller >