Why is there "business/manufacturing" at all?

[SoCalDem]

Think about it.

In times past, if someone wanted something, they had to make it themselves.

There were always people nearby who did a better job at making those things, so it was not long before they set up shop and spent their days doing that one thing they were good at, in exchange for something else made by a different tradesman.

If you eliminate the obvious electronic gadgets that very few understand, our "needs" have not changed all that much.

Businesses were originally created to make useful objects that other people needed, and were willing to trade for them. Some traded other objects, but most used a currency of sorts.

Business owners obviously had to hire workers to help and to learn the trades, but the primary relationship was between the customer & the product producers.

Obviously the business owners had more "wealth", but if their products cost more to build/make than the locals could pay, they were EX-businessmen pretty quickly.

These days , business is more about MONEY than it is about the product or the customer.

Most families have a finite supply of money, and of course they will look for the lowest price for something they need, but modern business seems interested in manufacturing perceived need, as much as the product they sell.

In my own lifetime, I have seen business change so much, I cannot believe it.

Instead of necessary products being made and sold locally, there seems to be a contest going on, to see how farflung the "markets" can get.

Is it smart/safe to import food we can grow here..from China? or Argentina? or Africa? Is the expediture of fossil fuel (and the pollution caused) worth importing garlic or plastic flip flops?

When I was young, the stock market was covered in a section of the newspapers, and unless it crashed, it was rarely mentioned on TV.. On cable/satellite channels, it occupies many channels 24/7 these days. When workers had company pensions, they had a vested interest in that company..once the 401-k scheme evolved, those pensions mostly "went away", and suddenly everyone "was in the market".. Conveniently now, the "common man" has a new need-to-know what the market is doing..every minute of every day. (or at least he's told he should be interested)

Where are the channels that concentrate on labor issues in those workplaces?

Another thing that strikes me as funny is this.. It's been deemed illegal to gamble online, yet it's ok (encouraged) to "play the market" in your jammies, from the comfort of your home.

[chaska]

1. Oh, how I long to get away from this commoditization-of-all-of-life society.

Just give me a shady spot under a tree and leave me alone.

How many Flowbees or Salad Shooters does a person need anyway?

[SoCalDem]

2. I can remember when people had their toasters & irons FIXED

and when ONE tv and ONE phone was plenty :(

and ONE bathroom too..

[KansDem]

10. I'm old enough to remember we fixed our own TV...

If the TV went on the blink, we would:
1) pull it out from the wall;
2) unplug it;
3) pull off the back;
4) plug it back in;
5) turn it on;
6) see what tube wasn't working;
7) unplug it;
8) pull the tube out;
9) go to the grocery store;
10) match up the burnt-out tube with a new one;
11) go home;
12) plug the new tube into the TV;
13) replace back;
14) plug the TV back in;
15) push TV back against the wall.
Voilà!...TV working.

In 25 years, we only needed to call the TV repairman once (yes, he came to the house)...

[blues90]

12. we used to repair everything

I still try but half the products are glued together so you can't take them apart and if you could you can't buy parts anywhere except for cars .

I have not seen one TV or VCR repair place for years now , all have gone . All is buy , it breaks , toss it out . Computers you can fix if they are not outdated . I can't think of much else .


It's not cost effective to repair things anymore and even cars after 6 years amny parts are not available so now you have a big piece of junk to get rid of .

I don't like this world much anymore .

[mrcheerful]

23. I drive a 1978 ford van, can still buy new parts for it and the parts I can't buy new

time for a trip to the junk yards. I also played with the carb and timing, so my gas mileage went from 13 mpg to almost 20 mpg. Pretty good for a 4,800 pound van.

[mrcheerful]

3. What you are talking about only started to happen after the election of Reagan

if you go back to 1979, people only bought what they could afford and the only credit they really had were their mortgages and car loans. Your basic energy costs were limited to gas and electric, with water and sewage for those that lived in city limits. If not you got by with well water and a septic tank in the back yard. Then Reagan came along and said "hey people, why don't you run your money plans the way the government runs the country's money"? You got credit cards, use them after all interest rates are at an all time low. Never mind that you have to pay back those credit cads or that your spending more then your bringing home. No need to conserve oil or limit how much oil you use, after all I, Ronnie Reagan, will make sure those pesky arabs don't cut supplies off. And thats the start of the down fall of the middle class.
Also during that time, Reagan and the neo cons got america to stop seeing the stock market as a gamble, they told the sheep hey, you to can get rich buying stocks, just put another mortgage on your house and invest in your future.

Jump ahead to 2007, people born after 1970 have never experinced mommy and daddy not having the money to buy them things, after all mommy and daddy used their credit cards to get them things. Sure there were a few that didn't fall into that trap, living on a fixed income many couldn't. The problem was that more did fall into that trap, some are still waiting for their stocks to make them rich but they know by watching the nightly news for stock market reports that any day their ship will come in.

The real trouble is just starting. Todays youth, even those with parents in the poor house, are under the impression that the world owes them things. The youth have been given so many things and they can't comprehend that those things have to be paid for. They are taking things for granted the same way some of us old people took for granted in our youth, electricity. All we knew was you flipped a switch and lights came on in the house, we gave very little if any thought that someone was paying for the lights, sure dad ranted on and on about leaving lights on, but until we got out on our own did we learn just how much that light cost.

My S.O.'s 16 yo son can't understand that mom or I will not go out and buy him a car so he can get a job? WTF? Job first, getting a drivers license second, then the car, right? Nope all of his friends have cars even though they have no license or jobs because mommy and daddy took loans out to get them their cars. Everything with him is its only $1,000 or its only a matter of getting a loan, after all TV tells him that theres a car dealer that no one gets turned down for a good used car. It's nott just the car buying either, his friends get new toys and he can't figure out why we refuse to buy him those same toys. You think it enters his mind that we can't afford or are willing to spend our money on things he or we don't need? Nope the problem is, I turned mom against him and won't let mom buy him things because I don't like him. Everyone of his friends are the same way, well to do or poor doesn't matter, they all have that belief that parents are only there to buy them things.

[SoCalDem]

5. Stick with it.. Your son will thank you later

Our oldest went round & round with us because we made him pay the difference in insurance cost when he started driving.. he ranted & raved about how his friends all had CHEAP insurnace and we made him pay for FULL coverage..

I kept telling him that it did ME no good for HIM to drive.. We also made him drive the car we bought when I was pregnant with him :)

Later when he grew up and went off on his own, he KEPT the full coverage when HIS possessions were on the line.:evilgrin:

[SammyWinstonJack]

16. I had to have insurance money before I was allowed to get my DL.

Problem with that was, we lived out in the sticks (Apple Valley, Calif.) up in the hills, a good 15 miles one way from Victorville and any chance of a job. I was so screwn! :rofl:

[SoCalDem]

19. Hey.. I LIKE Apple Valley.. That little gorge is quite beautiful

:)

[Atman]

4. There are so many factors involved...where does one begin?

Highways are a good start...merchants could ship their goods far and wide. People could drive to find a special item they needed. Factories, assembly lines and a fast-growing population helped bring about the need for mass production, or "manufacturing."

Now, too much disposable income is a factor. In the proverbial old days, we worked for what we needed and tried to save the rest for our loved ones when we died. But as we started making "extra" money, the term disposable income was born to describe that money we didn't know what to do with.

Today, people make obscene amounts of wealth for doing nothing -- pushing paper, signing deals -- and they have to spend that money someplace. So manufacturers are set up to produce lots of shit to sell them, to keep the money moving. Keep it in the system. Money is worthless if it isn't circulating at some level. So the rich buy jet skis for their three-year-olds and the rest of us wait for the bogo specials at the local market.

.

[SoCalDem]

7. Transportation changed everything, but was it for the better?

Is Chinese garlic "better" than USA grown? It's crazy. OUR garlic farmers ship THEIR product across the ocean (probably) and then WE import cheaper stuff to use here?

It;s like cooking a meal for your family, and then walking it across the street to trade for sinner someone else cooked ? Why not just eat your own dinner :)

[blues90]

6. I certainly undserstand where you are coming from .

They call this progress I suppose , well we have progressed ourselves right out of the real world into the high tech world where we have lost control .

I blame the good old tv for most of this , here is where people are hypnotized into a trance into believing they need all of the crap just to get through the same 24 hour day and made to feel if they don;t they will be left behind , well leave me behind please .

They is no reason we can't make what we need in the US and this can all be done by small companies not by some huge global corporation with the stock market and share holders .

We were sold the idea we would save time , well what we did was lose time all spent to made someone else rich at our expense .

Not only that we seem to have an entire new tech talk language now and one has to be an expert to understand what the hell anyone is talking about .

I was quite happy the way things used to be and could have easily gone the rest of my life without one high trch product and lived off US grown food and products as it was but will never be again .

Americans used to take great pride in their work , now it 's just a job with worries of being outsourced and a job with such low pay one can't live on it even with just the basics .

[Virginia Dare]

8. Good points, all...n/t

[bryant69]

9. Going back to nature? No thanks!

Thank god for our modern industrial age - God knows I wouldn't want to live on a goddamned farm and be stuck with the bullshit I could make myself. Thank God we live in a global economy where we can be exposed to ideas and art products from around the world.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[SoCalDem]

11. There IS (or was) a middle ground.

Hyper-consumption cannot last forever, and when it "ends" it will be very painful for us all..

[hogwyld]

13. Well, like it or not

When the oil starts going away, that's exactly where the survivors will end up. All of the people addicted to current modern lifestyles are about to get a VERY rude awakening within 5 - 10 years

[Subdivisions]

15. Boy you ain't kiddin'! n/t

[bryant69]

17. Society to collaps in the next 10 years?

We'll have to see how that turns out.
Bryant

[SoCalDem]

20. When the means to MAKE the money to BUY the stuff ends

it will get UGLY.. My kids may witness it.. That's a scary thought :(

[KansDem]

14. "These days , business is more about MONEY than it is about the product or the customer."

This says it all...

When we see the mega-millionaire CEOs, we see people who are far removed from their product or service. Their world is one of suits and broadrooms; of reports and memos. It doesn't matter if they are in the oil industry or the fast-food industry: they don't get their hands dirty. They dictate corporate policy from the penthouse and expect everyone to march in lockstep. They never see their product or their service and how if affects their customers. That's all handed in a hierarchy of departments and offices. They make decisions based on meetings and reports/memos, but they never see their customers.

[SoCalDem]

18. It's just high-stakes Monopoly™

Business owners used to be a part of the community they operated in.. Their kids went to the same schools. They had nicer cars & houses, but they were a PART of their community. They had a stake in how their community fared. Now they just make phone calss, send memos, and ruin people's lives at will..never having known or seen them..

[The2ndWheel]

21. Centralization

Predictability. The killing of any actual diversity, because too much is left to chance. If a thousand different people are doing a thousand different things, how is anyone going to make any money? How would anything large scale happen? It wouldn't, if you factor in physical reality, which we seem to want to escape at all cost.

Obviously there is more to it, agriculture gets involved as well(Monsanto owning food is the only possible outcome of it), but that's my little take on it.

[SoCalDem]

22. The odd thing is this.

IF a collapse happens, the ones who CAN make things and grow things will be the ones again in demand.. I guess what goes around, comes around :hi: