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If you buy from small business, money is more likely to stay within a community. If you buy from a monster corporation (and we all have to occasionally), that money is usually taken out and squirrelled away elsewhere.Robin Hood wrote: ↑November 28th, 2021, 4:07 am I think it pays to source locally produced wherever possible, in order to support the local economy and local people.
It also provides a much shorter chain between producer and consumer, so problems can be resolved.
I was discussing some of this the other day. Old technology is good for some things. Apparently old fashioned tractors and farm equipment is now fetching high prices because a lot of farmers are finding modern farming equipment needs computer updates etc all the time. Not appropriate when you are in the middle of a harvest and your machine stops because you've not paid your update fees etc.MikeMaillet wrote: ↑November 28th, 2021, 5:48 am I work in a food manufacturing plant and we are noticing that the quality of industrial parts has also taken a dive. Cheap stainless pipes that develop pinholes after two years, pump seals that disintegrate every few months... This leads to higher downtime, more scrap and always, these costs are passed on to the consumer. It also leads to high levels of frustration and negatively affects employee morale. Nobody wants to come in to work on a piece of crap production line where you have to fight with it for 12 solid hours.
I'm beginning to understand more clearly what it means when Isaiah chastises us for being preoccupied with the works of our own hands, the things our fingers have made. Maybe we need to toss everything in the trash and start farming for a living. Maybe the Amish know something we don't. My love/hate relationship with technology has turned to mostly hate. That's probably a good thing.
Mike Maillet
Ingleside, Ontario
ur last paragraph is the cure for the world, imo!MikeMaillet wrote: ↑November 28th, 2021, 5:48 am I work in a food manufacturing plant and we are noticing that the quality of industrial parts has also taken a dive. Cheap stainless pipes that develop pinholes after two years, pump seals that disintegrate every few months... This leads to higher downtime, more scrap and always, these costs are passed on to the consumer. It also leads to high levels of frustration and negatively affects employee morale. Nobody wants to come in to work on a piece of crap production line where you have to fight with it for 12 solid hours.
I'm beginning to understand more clearly what it means when Isaiah chastises us for being preoccupied with the works of our own hands, the things our fingers have made. Maybe we need to toss everything in the trash and start farming for a living. Maybe the Amish know something we don't. My love/hate relationship with technology has turned to mostly hate. That's probably a good thing.
Mike Maillet
Ingleside, Ontario
Brave New World was required reading when I was in high school, along with 1984, Catcher in the Rye, Crime & Punishment, Lord of the Flies, On the Beach, Plato's Allegory of The Cave, and a few other mind numbing books to encourage angst in youth approaching an assigned role in the dominant social order.libertasbella wrote: ↑November 29th, 2021, 9:03 pm Ever read A Brave New World? "The more stitches the less riches" was one of the axiom's of Huxley's hyperconsumerist society. They don't want you to make life purchases anymore, unless it's a house that you'll wind up paying over half a million dollars for.
Aldous' brother Julian Huxley was actually a key player in setting up the current world order, including founding UNESCO.libertasbella wrote: ↑November 29th, 2021, 9:03 pm Ever read A Brave New World? "The more stitches the less riches" was one of the axiom's of Huxley's hyperconsumerist society. They don't want you to make life purchases anymore, unless it's a house that you'll wind up paying over half a million dollars for.
It's horrible. Nothing is made to last anymore, and it seems that's how people like it. Everyone (LDS are the worst with this) wants everything brand-new all the time. Once something is a few years old, even a car, it's time to get rid of it and get a brand new one.markharr wrote: ↑November 27th, 2021, 9:02 am Remember when companies used to advertise how dependable their products were? They ran entire ad campaigns on it. That when you purchase one of their appliances, you were making an investment that would last your lifetime? I remember as a teenager using my mom's washer and dryer that she purchased in the 60s. As well as using my dad's power tools from the 60s and 50s. They still worked as good as the day they bought it. Gone are those days. You never see the Maytag man anymore. You are lucky if you get five years out of the cheap Chinese garbage that they produce now. My stepdad purchased the old shop equipment from a local high school in the 80s. The high school wanted newer and safer shop equipment to replace the stuff that they had that was built in the 20s. Huge mistake on their part. My stepdad still uses that hardware and it runs like the day it was made. That high school has probably had to replace everything every decade since then.
It's better for the environment for you to have to purchase newer more efficient models, they say.
How is it better for the environment to have to manufacture new hardware for every family every five years not to mention the environmental cost of shipping it from china, all because it is slightly more efficient? There is no way that the miniscule advances in efficiency offset the environmental cost of making more garbage and shipping it here. This on top of the fact that landfills are filling up with cheap plastic Chinese garbage.
I'm on this rant because I am tired of being in the middle of a project and having to run to the hardware store and purchase a new power tool because my last one that I purchased five years ago burnt out.