Bailing Out a Sinking Ship

It’s been a long month.  The economic nightmare which has been thrust upon us by the criminals on Wall Street is definitely leaving its mark as retirement nest eggs are poached by weasels.  As you most likely know, the idiots in Congress have passed the $700,000,000,000 bailout, and we still see no light at the end of the tunnel.  It’s going to be a tough Christmas this year for the little ones.

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Built to last? In the past.

Well, once again, I am in need of a new coffee pot.  This will be the fourth or fifth coffee pot I will need to purchase since I have personally been purchasing coffee pots, and I am a fair bit aggravated about it.  I have not been purchasing the same brand either.  I have been mixing up the manufacturers a bit to see if I can find one that will last like I think it should.  We aren’t talking about rocket science here.

While visiting my mother recently, her toaster oven ceased to function.  She mentioned that when she replaces it, the new toaster oven will be the third since she purchased her current home ten years ago.  Again, a device which should last a whole hell of a lot longer, didn’t.  These products aren’t very expensive compared to other household appliances, but the cost starts adding up when you figure how many things need replacing sooner than they used to… back in the “old days”.

My grandparents have a coffee pot, which I used in light of my Black & Decker’s untimely demise, and I was most impressed with the coffee it produced.  Especially when you take into consideration that it was manufactured in the early 1950’s.  Just dusted the thing off, washed it out, and plugged it in.  It worked like a charm.

Know what else?  My grandparents still have the toaster oven that my grandmother used to make cinnamon toast for me in when I was my daughter’s age.  I don’t know how old the toaster oven is, but I know it’s at least 35 years old, and it gets used every single day.  Think about that for a second.  That toaster oven has been in use for more years than I can remember, since it is older than I am, and it has produced quality toast every single day since it was purchased.  It has never needed repair.  The little orange light, which tells you the heating element is heating, still works.

I would ask the question, “Why do products which are between 35-60 years old function better and more reliably than products manufactured in this new millennium?”, but I already know the answer.  Companies these days are more focused on making profit than making quality products.  The bottom line overrules quality control every step of the way.

So I will begin shopping around for yet another coffee pot, and hope I manage to find one made in the United States by a company that still has a shred of integrity left.  But chances are, I will find isle upon isle of Chinese products on American shelves.

And people wonder why the American economy is struggling these days.

Nearly 13,000 in hospital in China milk scandal

That’s right folks, keep purchasing those Chinese imports.

Of course, it is becoming increasingly more difficult to purchase domestically produced products since Chinese imports are so damned cheap.  But somewhere along the line, we need to stop and think about this for a minute.

Chinese manufacturers are killing their own babies with defective products.  What makes us think ours are any safer from those products? I would like to think that imports are held to the same standards our domestic products are, but as we have seen in the past, that is not the case (Carcinogenic toothpaste, lead tainted toys, etc).

Check out this article by Chris Buckley over at Reuters:

The number of Chinese infants sick in hospital after drinking tainted milk formula has leapt to nearly 13,000 and Premier Wen Jiabao threatened harsh punishment for culprits in the latest blight on the “made-in-China” brand.

Read the whole article here: http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSPEK11155120080922?sp=true