buying quality crap 1 of 3

BUYING QUALITY CRAP

At one time many years ago, in a different publication far, far away, I used sarcasm to describe-or at least attempted to-my writing contents and style.  My first snail mail newsletter was “for the armchair survivalist”.  My first blog was by “the gadfly  of the survivalist movement” which showed that “the last one in the stewpot wins“.  Both which I was pretty proud of although somehow I got a sneaking suspicion that my razor sharp wit was not universally celebrated.  Anyway, my hope was always that while we were talking about a serious subject, we could also laugh at ourselves, or at least me, and the humor would help cement the lessons learned in ones mind.  Which is why I have no problem with others telling me I am full of crap on something.  Believe me, in a world full of dumb asses, I lead by example.  And I have been getting a lot of crap about recommending low quality tools ( because of low price ).  I of course disagree with this assessment, but I also blame myself for lack of clarity.  When you pay a writer the big bucks, concise and clear information is an assumed product.  So here goes, again, but this time with hopefully better delivery, the subject of buying inexpensive quality.

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Ten days ago, give or take, when I went to visit my parental unit down south, I was exposed to the big-ish city and its retail environs ( big enough to contain several Wal-Marts, several Dollar Trees and even an In-An-Out Burger which used to be an exquisite near orgasmic experience but which is now just a “better than the other idiots” dining practice ).  All three lunches occurred in different corporate eateries, and all three were understaffed around lunch.  An Arbies was even shuttered in a dining cluster right off the Interstate.  Also, after over a dozen trips down and back, I can state without hyperbole that there are almost zero semi-trucks on the road.  Compared to past slowdowns, this one was remarkable.  Which might explain how diesel, the same fuel that skyrocketed in price due to retarded environmental mandates dictating a cleaner burn, is how a dime UNDER regular unleaded.  When I relayed all of the above to the receiving clerk at one of my pick-up stores, I was told a relative who works for the Reno area railroads is reporting a lot of lay-offs.

[ update: the day after I wrote this, there was further reports of nearly five miles of linked locomotives, all from just one company, sitting idle down in Arizona ]

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This is nothing new.  We talked about the noticeable retail slowdown during the Christmas season, then all the troubling economic indicators at the beginning of the year.  What it is, is another very solid indicator that the 70% of the economy ( or is it 80%?  Sorry, going by memory ) that is retail is in very big trouble.  If that sector does indeed see a dramatic dump, you ain’t seen real unemployment yet.  So, everything we are going to talk about could very well be quickly changing.  More products could be “going Maytag” ( a hundred years of top quality products, their quality differentiating them from others, and in one CEO cycle in a quest for short term profit, it was all thrown away ), which is fine IF you are not the first duped consumers to buy expecting old quality but get the New Normal crap.  That is the whole problem with buying cheap or cheaper if not cheapest.  You can’t really judge 100% reliably all the time, even with web site customer reviews.  You are playing consumer roulette.

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For instance, I didn’t suddenly stop buying everything from Wal-Mart all at once.  I didn’t realize except through trial and error that slowly but surely all the foods were working towards being MORE expensive than anywhere else ( the days of The Low Price Leader are long gone ).  And it didn’t dawn on me until late in the game that EVERYTHING, regardless of name brand, was lower quality in the non-food section.  For so long, Wally had sold middlin’ quality.  It didn’t break too soon, and it gave you a good return on your money.  All the time people were squawking that Wal-Mart sucked, they were bemoaning the death of factories and Unions that happened BEFORE Wal-Mart got huge.  I discounted their voices as sour grapes, protestors seeking an easy target that was inaccurate.  People that didn’t want to believe the US hit Peak Oil in 1972 ( which caused the factories to move overseas ) or believe that the central bankers have been looting Store USA since then, conveniently blame Wal-Mart on all our woes, when all they did was profit off the situation better than anyone else.  They didn’t cause it. 

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So, at first, those same folks that trash-talked Wally quality were less than accurate and had an agenda-they were incorrect when compared to my personal experience.  When they continued in the same vein, I ignored them ( the same “reporters” and “experts” that keep blaming retails problems on online stores-as if Amazon can ever compete selling heavy items such as liquid laundry soap or thirty pound sacks of dog food ).  When they finally were correct, like that proverbial stopped clock twice a day ( don’t get me started on that gay ass military time which I disliked then and despise with a purple passion now, just like that retarded metric system which might be fine and dandy for pea brain scientists but which does NOT work for everyday folk who like to dive miles rather than kilometers and prefer half a gallon of soda to a 2 liter ), I of course had no reason to believe them and had to find out for myself the ongoing transformation of a large segment of the retail sector.

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Why, yes, much more next article.

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