Vise Grip moves to China Options

[stock93]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26531610/

This pisses me off. I've bought a bunch of their pliers and really like most of them. I for one won't be buying them anymore. Now if I manage to break one they're going to give me a china made replacement. If anyone wants to send them feedback here's their page http://www.irwin.com/irwin/consumer/jhtml/contactUs.jhtml
I sent them a letter myself.

John

[byndbad914]

another societal issue that plays into this is that we are becoming more and more wasteful - we are really becoming a throw away society.

A simple example is the current view regarding technology - I literally just ordered a new laptop last week because my "old" one I use all the time is 7yrs old now and was the "top of the line" everything whiz-bang business IBM Thinkpad that ULCA required me to have for my MBA. That machine is an absolute dinosaur now - I have a hard time viewing highly compressed YouTube stuff and other vid sites I actually can't even play the vid because the graphics card is "so" old for example.

So our kids are being raised with the mentality that anything that is over 5yrs old is just that... old. That ripples thru everything - it becomes a fundamental way of thinking. And people of my generation (Gen X, now we have Gen Y) are similar thinking now.

And that plays into tools. As previously stated by a fellow teener, many people barely use tools and will never wear out even the shittiest of tools. So, if the Chinese tool is 1/3 the cost, the view is "I can break three of these before I pay for one good one and I will never use it enough to break 3 of 'em" so they buy the disposable tool, break one after a couple years, throw it away and buy another and die before breaking it and buying a third one.

It is very wasteful, but cheaper overall and that is where our societal mentality is heading - being wasteful isn't a sin if it is cheaper. I, however, was raised by parents that were absolutely furious if the wash machine died within the first fifteen years of purchase - my shit-ass "whiz-bang" LG washer died in 2 yrs and the dryer has been having issues since just after the 1yr warranty but I can make work. That was $2500 worth of bitchin' technology that lasts THREE years. And I have been searching online to buy better and can't find it - Sears stuff is junk, Hell even the old standby of Maytag has become questionable since they were bought out.

In short, I am getting a shitty viewpoint on life which sucks, but frankly, we're fucked folks. It is only going downhill in terms of quality pretty much across the board.

Oh yeah, I am using a Maytag washer again that I bought used when I moved out for $50 and it was built sometime in the 60s or 70s. The guy I bought it from in the 90s bought them used when he moved out in the early 80s! In 30yrs of service including my years, the previous owner had replaced the belt on the washer and the heating element on the dryer. The dryer element burned out again which is why I bought new stuff. Thankfully I kept the old washer "just in case" (IMG:style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)