How 'bout the seveties? We still had our pride on, but the truth was we were getting beat. Japanese and European import products were simply better. With smug complacency, we didn't even see it coming. We drove our piece of crap cars with pluged up large displacement engines making a measly 125HP and getting 14MPG. Meanwhile, the Germans were exporting the Porsche 930 and the Japanese were sending over Mazda RX-7s and Sony televisions and video recorders.

By the nineties, we started waking up but we'd already lost most of the market share in several industries. So I ask you, what have we learned?

I've been dealing with a bunch of folks who evidently haven't. They want to be seen as a leader, but they are doing the same old tired dance. Sell whatcha got and don't waste money with product development 'til the market just won't bear it anymore. What they arrogantly forget is that competitive forces are then allowed to introduce better products and yank the market right out from under their feet. And rightfully so.

The egotistical snake oil salesman is the same kind of deal. He sells his products until people discover real medicines to replace them with. Of course, the snake oil salesmen fight hard to give the impression that their elixers are worthy. Magic elixers come in different flavors and some of them aren't even medicines - Look at what Edison did to convince people that Tesla's AC current was more dangerous than Edison's DC. What a load of crap. We shouldn't celebrate Edison's multiple patents; Most were insignificant anyway. We should have kicked his ass for being a manically obsessive lying sack of shit.

I'm just really tired of that sort of thing. I've seen too much snake oil and too many ho-hum products touted as the end-all and beat-all. Rather than actually make something with a competitive edge, these snake oil salemen load claims to get patents on insignificant ideas and fabricate performance data to sell their ho-hum products. It's bullshit, stamping out copies of the same old stuff but giving it twelve sylable hyphenated names. I guess the idea is that if it sounds fancy, it must be really high tech stuff.

It's no big deal in the scheme of things, I mean, nothing really is. But I felt like ranting a minute about the BS in the industry. End of rant.

So forgetting about politics or trade unions, even free trade capitalism sets the bar here. If a company's product isn't as good as its competition, it is at a disadvantage. The company can sell on reputation and cultivated image, but that fades quick when its product gets stomped. That doesn't happen very quickly because people are slow to change and move out of their comfort zones. But when a trend starts, it usually snowballs. Maybe in the past, a company could hang on to the status quo for a few years, but today, it cannot. So I think that sitting smugly on an old product in a technology oriented market is not good.

In optics, particularly in the area of cameras, the Germans ruled. The Swiss did and do make the finest mechanical watches. There was no US wine industry. The luxury ocean liner was still largely a European phenomenon. The finest guns were made in Belgium and Italy (many still are).

The Germans led the world in precision machine tools. The best gold jewelry was made in Italy. In fact, the Italians made the largest number of refrigerators in the world into the 70’s.

The history of US industrial production seems to that of making serviceable items affordably. We made the Model T, not the Silver Ghost. We built Levittown, not castles. We made lots of steel for all those cars, that rusted through in three years.

We certainly dominated the world's industrial production, there's no doubt about that, but I'm not too sure about exceptional quality.

• http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120529/

But really, I think automobiles made in America in the 50's and 60's were some of the best in the world. I love German cars too, and have a long history with them. But I'm not particularly impressed with any German automobiles until the 70's. I don't dislike them, but I do prefer the American muscle more. I'm talking about comparisons like the Ford GT40 or Cobra to the Porsche 911 of the same era.

Rolls Royce in the 50's and 60's didn't actually compare because it used archaic 1920's technology. What made it special was its craftsmanship, not its performance.

In another industry, I think American electronics were some of the best in the 50's and 60's. Sure, other companies made fine goods, but American products were what everyone wanted. American televisions were the best. There really wasn't a commercial market for computers that wasn't American.

I'm sure you're right about the nostalgia factor. But I do think America was a market leader in several key industries. I also think those industries have become much more competitive, and that it's harder for American companies to stay on top. And that brings me back to the point of what was kinda bugging me when I wrote the initial "Competitive edge" post - I think American companies should be careful about holding back on new technologies. There was a time when companies could wait to introduce technology so that they could keep from having to re-tool. The American V8 engine is a great example. But I think those days are gone, and to hold off on new technology now is to lose a competitive edge. It's like folding with a flush in your hands.