I would say Catchings and

Beetlejuice — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 02:03:30 +0000

I would say Catchings and Foster's theory is alive and well today! And I can see your point about the USA being the only game in town after WWII as well. And yes, I do remember when Made in Japan was the butt of all jokes too! Odd though, I ran across a collector of old cameras back in the 80's and one of his prized possessions an early model of Canon SLR camera with Made in Occupied Japan...seems there weren't too many of them in existence which made them a rare and valuable find.

Anyway, what is interesting about that period of time when Europe and Asia began to re-emerge on to the world stage again was two parts; first was style and second was disposablity.

Style was something completely foreign to Americans. I remember the first compact Toyota's were so small everyone joked you had to buy a coffin with it cause you would need it. But as they kept coming I noted they were built quite different. Instead of AM radio, they had AM/FM. Instead of vinyl floor matting, they had carpet, Instead of vinyl seats, they had upholstery. Instead of a large block engine with poor gas mileage, they had smaller engines with good horsepower and sipped gas instead of guzzling it. It was all those extras that began to sell the idea of owning one. The funniest part was if you went to a Chevy of Ford dealer and tried to get the same creature comfort accessories on one of their models, the price would go up thru the roof.

Disposablity was another concept completely foreign to the USA too. We bought things to last because the cost was based on the number of hours one had to work in order to make the purchase. So we expected things to have a long use life and if it did break, it could be repaired at a cost far less than replacing the entire item. Once the Japanese invasion began the cheap markets were flooded while the more expensive brands enjoyed the prestige of being American and high quality rather than cheap and affordable. Soon the American product lines began to feel the pressure because as they lay dormant, their competitors were busy reinventing and redefining the technology to a point where American products were out of the competition. So the business model changed and today you can't find the MayTag repairman in the Yellow Pages, much less anyone with technical skills and access to replaceable parts to repair a simple heating element on a toaster.

On David Seaton's blog, one of his friend's had a link to a video by a Dr. Bartlet from the University of Colorado at Boulder. the video title is Arithmetic, Population and Energy. It's all about the exponential function and an understanding that when some says there's a 7% growth rate, over time it's really fucking huge!

What Dr.Bartlet and Catchings and Foster have in common is business growth rates. Business is expecting continuous growth rates all while cutting costs for production. And as Dr. Bartlet proves, over time that growth rate gets huge. he uses the example of placing a single grain of wheat on a square of a chessboard, then the next square you doubly it, the next square you double what you put on the previous and so forth. By the time you get to the 64th square the amount of wheat is 400 time greater than the entire world production of wheat.

I think it's not too difficult to see where the business sector is busy whittling down costs, including employee salaries and benefits, to improve the bottom line to maintain that growth rate and yet they fail to realize their lust for constant profits is driving their potential customers/employees to a point where they can't afford the products simply because they don't have enough disposable income to make the purchase.

dagblog - Comments for "Prosperity American Style"

I would say Catchings and