Damned American business

[cladking]

I've come to believe that to most American companies it's more important to rip off their customers than even to make a profit. They'll cheapen their product to the point it's worthless to save a couple pennies. They put less in a package knowing that people won't notice so short term profits soar. Of course recipes won't work any longer and long term sales suffer immensely.

They add vast quantities of untested and unknown chemicals to meats like sodium tripolyphosphate not because there's any legitimate reason but to get them to suck up water. I believe this chemnical is grandfathered in and doesn't require testing like sodium nitrite.

It cuts across the board. Products are packaged with absolutely no regard for the consumer who needs TNT or a degree in engineering just to open the package and then has to repackage it for storage. Now days you need a shop full of tools just to open the crap you buy.

Then consider that they alternately price the product anywhere between X and about 4X and it's absolutely no wonder that there's almost no sauch thing as brand loyalty any longer.

Every time they make a new product they reinvent the wheel. Engineering and designs are incredibly ingenious now days but as soon as they get the bugs worked out of anything it is obsolete and reinvented. You can't get replacement parts and they don't make it any longer. It's cheaper to throw out your printer and buy new when it runs out of ink than to get a replacement cartridge.

That's really a green way to do things.

Fuck 'em. I'll buy foreign when I can. It's crap too but I know that going in.

[IMaDick]

Consider that you are not forced to buy either foreign or domestic of any give product, My first computer cost me over 1200.00, my first Video player cost over 800.00 and my first satelite TV dish cost 1000.00 + it seems to me that the prices have gone down.

except for some items like cars,gas and food and the real culprit to the increases in cost on those items is government regulation.

so if you're done bitching ? go climb in your SUV head to your air conditioned office and do some research on why prices have gone up and quality has gone down, its not the manufacturer its regulation.

[Lady Cop]

Clad: They add vast quantities of untested and unknown chemicals to meats like sodium tripolyphosphate not because there's any legitimate reason but to get them to suck up water. I believe this chemical is grandfathered in and doesn't require testing like sodium nitrite.


that comment reminded me of an incident at a grocery store...i was asking the butcher what some "fresh" marinated chicken breasts were marinated IN. he stammered and finally admitted he didn't know. the fact is, when i read the tiny print on label they were marinated in salt water. period. well that sure didn't contribute anything but weight and sodium. and i raised hell with the store because some people will buy that crap unknowingly and they may be on low-salt diets.
hell, don't even get me started on supermarkets and their nasty little tricks. i read labels judiciously, but i know many people do not.
i recently got into a pissing match at another grocery store when they had a big sign that a boxed item was $2.49 per1 lb. box. only the box contained 9.5 ounces. i made them remove the big fucking lying sign.
what makes me angry is that i feel elders on fixed incomes are the biggest victims in grocery store-rip-offs.
they hate me at grocery stores, i watch scanners too.

[cladking]

go climb in your SUV head to your air conditioned office and do some research on why prices have gone up and quality has gone down, its not the manufacturer its regulation.

Bullshit. (damn it feels good to say that)

Manufacturers go out of their way to ruin products. Regulation doesn't explain this. Half of it is the CEO only is concerned with short term profits and getting his golden parachute to deploy. This means gouging the customer to the point he gets driven out of business.

[cladking]

Clad: They add vast quantities of untested and unknown chemicals to meats like sodium tripolyphosphate not because there's any legitimate reason but to get them to suck up water. I believe this chemical is grandfathered in and doesn't require testing like sodium nitrite.


that comment reminded me of an incident at a grocery store...i was asking the butcher what some "fresh" marinated chicken breasts were marinated IN. he stammered and finally admitted he didn't know. the fact is, when i read the tiny print on label they were marinated in salt water. period. well that sure didn't contribute anything but weight and sodium. and i raised hell with the store because some people will buy that crap unknowingly and they may be on low-salt diets.
hell, don't even get me started on supermarkets and their nasty little tricks. i read labels judiciously, but i know many people do not.
i recently got into a pissing match at another grocery store when they had a big sign that a boxed item was $2.49 per1 lb. box. only the box contained 9.5 ounces. i made them remove the big fucking lying sign.
what makes me angry is that i feel elders on fixed incomes are the biggest victims in grocery store-rip-offs.
they hate me at grocery stores, i watch scanners too.

They used to hate me. They'd ring up stuff too high and I'd chase them all over the store to do price checks. One day my $14 worth of groceries totaled up over $30. They don't do it any more.

I know one guy who used to puncture a small hole in the chicken package and dribble it all over the store. Then when he got to the checkout he made them reweigh it.

[IMaDick]

empty your cup grasshopper.

I just told you the truth about why american goods cost so much and foreign products cost so much less.

until you forget what you think you know and actually get so you know what you need to know there is not much anyone can do but over flow your cup.

[cladking]

empty your cup grasshopper.

I just told you the truth about why american goods cost so much and foreign products cost so much less.

until you forget what you think you know and actually get so you know what you need to know there is not much anyone can do but over flow your cup.

I don't think there's any question at all that government regulation adds a great deal to the cost of goods that are still made in this country. But this doesn't explain why American business is trying their best to piss of their customers, employees, and suppliers. Other countries have onerous regulation too and they have a huge cost to ship the products here. It's not really cheaper to make products in China using slave labor and 19^th century technology but the Wall Street bankers and CEO's make money by killing American business so it's going to die.

Government doesn't mandate they contaminate food or make packaging thaty can't be opened. Government doesn't force business to look to short term profits in favor of their very survival. These are business decisions to rip off their customers and provide shoddy goods ansd service. You can'tr even call them to complain anymore because you get a phone tree designed to discourage everyone but Job himself.