Chinese "Junk"

[fashion frank]

How many of you Forum members are fed up with buying Chinese junk ,when you have to replace something .

I had one of those G.E. chrome toaster's ,you know the ones with the "double loop " design on the sides of it .
You could take a sledge hammer to it , it lasted me for years but the coil finally broke .
My wife came home with a new toaster and that was three toasters ago and everyone of them has sucked since then and it hasn't even been that long collectively speaking.

I pose the question to you and it is this , how many things have you had to replace that was once upon a time made here and made better only to be replaced with some Chinese "junk" that is not worth a dam !
It will be very interesting to see how many items get listed here I am sure it will be quite a long list.

Also can you remember when we were all kid's and some things would be stamped "made in Japan" ,I bet to wager that even the stuff that we considered inferior that was made in Japan was still better than the junk we are now getting from China .

All the Best ,Fashion Frank

 

[David Conwill]

Sorry, the title confused me.

I don't believe (and I expect Edward to come back me up on this), that the country of origin has much to do with it, but rather the modern mode of consumption. The Chinese are fully capable of building quality goods, but they are largely asked to build down to a price rather than up to a quality. The global consumer is largely happy to buy a $10 item yearly for a decade rather than buy a $100 item that will last 50 years, thinking he is getting a good deal each time he buys it (or conversely, that $10 is a "normal" price and someone asking $100 for a quality item is nuts).

 

[LizzieMaine]

That's exactly it, and Vance Packard predicted it fifty-five years ago. This culture gets exactly what it deserves to get. If Americans want to see why they're awash in garbage, they should look in the mirror.

 

[Story]

Slave labor.
That is all. Carry on.

 

[Flat Foot Floey]

Most of the time you get what you paid for. I am guilty too. Sometimes I buy stuff that is too cheap just to save some pennies. Not only will it last for a shorter time it is also made under bad working conditions. I think this is even worse.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

Slave labor.
That is all. Carry on.

Well..cheap labor for sure.
HD

 

[splintercellsz]

China, Mexico, Taiwan, Pakistan, etc. Hence one of the reasons I enjoy vintage... Made. In. America.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I don't believe (and I expect Edward to come back me up on this), that the country of origin has much to do with it, but rather the modern mode of consumption. The Chinese are fully capable of building quality goods, but they are largely asked to build down to a price rather than up to a quality. The global consumer is largely happy to buy a $10 item yearly for a decade rather than buy a $100 item that will last 50 years, thinking he is getting a good deal each time he buys it (or conversely, that $10 is a "normal" price and someone asking $100 for a quality item is nuts).

I don't think we have a choice anymore because in all likelihood the $10 item and the $100 item are both made in the same factory with the only difference between the two being that the latter just has a few more bells and whistles than the former and it most certainly won't last fifty years any more than the $10 item will.

 

[Edward]

Sorry, the title confused me.

I don't believe (and I expect Edward to come back me up on this), that the country of origin has much to do with it, but rather the modern mode of consumption. The Chinese are fully capable of building quality goods, but they are largely asked to build down to a price rather than up to a quality. The global consumer is largely happy to buy a $10 item yearly for a decade rather than buy a $100 item that will last 50 years, thinking he is getting a good deal each time he buys it (or conversely, that $10 is a "normal" price and someone asking $100 for a quality item is nuts).

That's about the size of it. The Chinese are nothing if not master capitalists (not that they, or, indeed, many uber-capitalists for that matter would necessarily care to acknowledge that! ). I've seen so many beautiful, quality goods on sale out there and made there, it's astounding. It's certainly true that, for many reasons, Chinese workers do not at this point have the same level of rights for which Labour Unions fought hard in the West; add this to the realities of the local economy out there and Chinese companies can significantly undercut many Western companies. Of course, all this would mean nothing if the market in the West did not demand ever cheaper goods. This is what the Fair Trade movement has to fight against: it's not always easy to convince people to pay a tenner for a shirt for which they are used to paying two pounds, just so that the workers doing the manufacturing can get paid a fair wage. That said, this doesn't only happen in order to supply market demand with cheap goods; many expensive, 'designer' items are produced in poor conditions by very low-wage workers. Handbags, training shoes, jeans, consumer electronics.... None of this will change unless or until the market does.

China is only the latest centre for this sort of thing - at a time it was Japan, then Korea, then China... India, Vietnam and others are increasingly becoming manufacturing bases as things change (slowly) for China and it becomes cheaper for Chinese companies to outsource abroad. Africa is rapidly being economically colonised by Chinese-controlled manufacturing industry, I gather. Absent some horrific disaster on a global scale (zombie plague, nuclear war, plague taking out 90% of humanity....), globalisation isn't going to go away (whichever position you take on its desirability or otherwise), but it will be up to the market to decide what it produces, to what quality, and to what extent the producers are exploited.

 

[Edward]

I don't think we have a choice anymore because in all likelihood the $10 item and the $100 item are both made in the same factory with the only difference between the two being that the latter just has a few more bells and whistles than the former and it most certainly won't last fifty years any more than the $10 item will.

The result of market demand, again. Trade Marks were originally of value because they denoted the origin of the goods. Brand X made a good product, so you went looking for things made by Brand X. It was a guarantor that you knew what you were getting. During the twentieth century, at some point the brand became the thing in itself. The mass-market stopped caring whether Levis jeans, or McDonalds burgers, were any good: the product no longer mattered. It was the fact that they were Levis, or McDonalds, or whatever that counted. If people are happy to buy any old rubbish you can slap a logo on because it's the logo they want, there's no reason to strive to make the very best product any longer. Thus we see the rise of the $10 jeans with the $90 dollar logo. Yay capitalism, et cetera.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Sorry, the title confused me.

I don't believe (and I expect Edward to come back me up on this), that the country of origin has much to do with it, but rather the modern mode of consumption. The Chinese are fully capable of building quality goods, but they are largely asked to build down to a price rather than up to a quality. The global consumer is largely happy to buy a $10 item yearly for a decade rather than buy a $100 item that will last 50 years, thinking he is getting a good deal each time he buys it (or conversely, that $10 is a "normal" price and someone asking $100 for a quality item is nuts).

Hammer...meet nail. People don't want quality, they want cheap. They're getting what they ask for.

And on a side note, that made-in-Japan "junk" 30 years ago was generally far superior to the same item "Made in the USA".

 

[HudsonHawk]

And another thing...it grinds my gears that I can buy all manner of junk, from toasters to dog food, made in China, but I can't buy a quality cigar made in Cuba.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The eras of modern marketing and planned obsolescence were already well established thirty years ago. If you want quality American-made goods you have to look, for the most part, before the mid-fifties. When motivational research and scientific marketing took over, that was the end. People can have anything they want -- as long as it's what the Boys from Marketing want you to want.

With the exception of the computer -- which I found by the side of the road with a FREE sign on it -- there's very little in my house that post-dates 1955. That's liberation. The only way to win their game is to refuse to play it.

 

[HudsonHawk]

The eras of modern marketing and planned obsolescence were already well established thirty years ago. If you want quality American-made goods you have to look, for the most part, before the mid-fifties. When motivational research and scientific marketing took over, that was the end. People can have anything they want -- as long as it's what the Boys from Marketing want you to want.

With the exception of the computer -- which I found by the side of the road with a FREE sign on it -- there's very little in my house that post-dates 1955. That's liberation. The only way to win their game is to refuse to play it.

Marketing: convincing you to buy a product to satisfy a need that you didn't even have until you saw the product. Steve Jobs, for example, was a master of this.

 

[fashion frank]

Sorry, the title confused me.

I don't believe (and I expect Edward to come back me up on this), that the country of origin has much to do with it, but rather the modern mode of consumption. The Chinese are fully capable of building quality goods, but they are largely asked to build down to a price rather than up to a quality. The global consumer is largely happy to buy a $10 item yearly for a decade rather than buy a $100 item that will last 50 years, thinking he is getting a good deal each time he buys it (or conversely, that $10 is a "normal" price and someone asking $100 for a quality item is nuts).

While I do agree with your statements and you are in fact correct , what bothers me is that when we made things they were of good quality BUT they were also not expensive per say , so where is the trade off.
IMHO we need as a nation to get back to making things for ourselves and stop sending all of our jobs and money overseas.

Again in closing I was curious in terms of how many actual products that people have had to replace with Chinese "junk".

Thanks for responding and I hope more people will weight in here and tell us what they have to replace .

All the Best ,Fashion Frank

 

[David Conwill]

this doesn't only happen in order to supply market demand with cheap goods; many expensive, 'designer' items are produced in poor conditions by very low-wage workers. Handbags, training shoes, jeans, consumer electronics....

They're still building down to a price, it just results in a greater profit margin for the re-seller.

I don't think we have a choice anymore because in all likelihood the $10 item and the $100 item are both made in the same factory with the only difference between the two being that the latter just has a few more bells and whistles than the former and it most certainly won't last fifty years any more than the $10 item will.

Yes, that’s largely true now, but as Lizzie points out it’s an end result from the disposable mentality that has arisen. The working man’s $10 junk is the wealthy’s $100 junk, and the consumer still expects to replace it annually and he still would think a quality item at 10x the price was overpriced.

When in fact, the junk item is artificially cheap.

 

[LizzieMaine]

"Designer Goods" are the biggest racket there is. The high price is due to the licensing fee for the designer's name and logo, not any actual improvement in the quality of the goods. And not a nickel more money goes to the workers, either. They get the same sweatshop wage whether it's the econo-chain's label or Yves-St. Blow's.

 

[Baron Kurtz]

what bothers me is that when we made things they were of good quality BUT they were also not expensive per say , so where is the trade off.

When they were made in the USA, or UK for that matter, they were very, VERY heavily subsidised in the form of import tariffs (to name but one political model for keeping jobs in country, and getting re-elected - the principle function for a poilitician) and therefore cheap. With increased demand for the US/UK product the price remained [artificially] low.

 

[Fading Fast]

One thing I've discovered via trial and error (meaning I've done it wrong several times and then figured out there might be a better way) is that I can normally find a high-quality version of an item that will last longer, work better and, over its lifespan, offer better value than the cheaper versions, but I have to be willing to do the homework first and then pay meaningfully more for it upfront. Two examples are the alarm clock radio and the aforementioned-in-prior-posts toaster.

After throwing away several cheap alarm clock radios in not so many years, I finally researched and bought a Bose alarm clock radio. I paid about ten times (yes, ten times) the price of a cheap one and five times the price of the putative "good" ones from "better" brands and now, about 14 years later, I can report it was an outstandingly good purchase. It has worked perfectly from day one, (while not vintage) has a quality look and feel and produces great sound. It turned out to be the "cheapest" of all the alarm clock radios.

As to the toaster, my girlfriend and I bought her parents a Delongi toaster after hearing them complain about the cheap toasters they had bought that kept breaking. We paid - about ten years ago - (and this is from memory) about $250 for it (when a regular toaster coast about a tenth of that), but it has worked perfectly since, looks substantial and within a few more years of use will prove to be the cheaper purchase (plus they've had a much better experience all along). That said, I noticed that Delongi has dropped the price of its toasters to sub $100, so maybe they have sold out and are no longer making a quality product.

I've had similar experiences with men's shoes (buying quality brands such as Alden, not trendy ones) and vacuum cleaners. This is not attempting to address all the concerns brought up in prior posts, but just to point out that my experience has been that the quality product is out there at a price, but it does take some real pre-purchase research and a willingness to spend meaningfully more money upfront (but I will argue less money in the long run).

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Note the sprinkler in the background. I had gotten two of them at Lowe's. The first one lasted less than two weeks so I stupidly went and got another. The replacement had the very SAME defect and also lasted less than two weeks!