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| Re: Aren't We Too Tolerant of the British? [message #99636 is a reply to message #99629] |
Fri, 31 July 2026 09:26   |
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Wayne Parham
Messages: 19069 Registered: January 2001
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Illuminati (33rd Degree) |
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Remember the perception of Japanese products in the 1950s and 1960s? Very similar to the perception of Chinese products today.
And back then - when I was a kid - I do remember that most Japanese products were pretty inexpensive, low-quality items. But what I didn't realize was that they were working hard on R&D, making better and better quality stuff. By the 1970s, their motorcycles, cars and electronics were pretty good. And by the 1980s, everyone in America realized that because there was a rapid shift towards Japanese consumer electronics and cars.
America has always made very good quality products. We've had our ups and downs, but we've definitely been a manufacturing leader. We still are, in my opinion. But we're not the only ones. Britain and Germany have also usually been up there in terms of quality, and some other countries too. Not so much the orient, at least not for tech and heavy industry, until maybe the last 50 to 100 years or so. But they are definitely catching up.
Japan and Korea are there, I'd say. China is probably close. India will probably start catching up next.
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| Re: Aren't We Too Tolerant of the British? [message #99638 is a reply to message #99636] |
Fri, 31 July 2026 10:19  |
Rusty
Messages: 1446 Registered: May 2018 Location: Kansas City Missouri
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Illuminati (3rd Degree) |
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When I was a kid, I used to marvel at all the things that said, Made in USA on them. And, they did have a high quality to them. In that regard, to me at least, is that quality and quantity of US made "things" really started to drop off in the 70's. Which seems to coincide with when heavy industry such as steel production pulled up stakes leaving the Rust Belt throughout the midwest and eastern USA.
The Japanese were making inroads with car manufacturing in the 80's and had taken over the consumer electronics production. Now all of Asia practically does this for nearly all electronic, consumer appliances, cars etc.
America simply in adopting to an economic philosophy that eschewed manufacturing and industry for a service economy and financial dominance in planning the economy shot itself in the feet in today's world economy. All the skills and knowhow have been atrophied from this that cripple a manufacturing industrial base returning. That and a high cost of living driven up from a financialized economy. Even our tech sector has been outdone by the Chinese. Because they've invested and developed a huge supply chain system, educational incentive and research driven by their export and government planning for the future.
Our government these days as dictated by our economic strangulation of a small government shunned from participating in planning the economy and relying on whatever the whims of the marketplace is cannot compete with the economy of scale and cost of living going on in Asia and other countries once described as 3rd world.
China simply followed the historical economic patterns of what Great Britain, the US and Europe had done with the industrial revolution. The need for socializing the working class's needs for inexpensive living standards to make industry and manufacturing competitive for trade.
Finance capitalism has stymied our nation. Made in the USA is a thing of the past.
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