Re: Tesco - Prices Are Fiction?

On Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:15:24 +0100, Cynic <cynic_999@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

On Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:19:40 +0100, MM <kylix_is@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

But all those old cars DID last! Cars made in the 1930s were still
being repaired in the 1950s and even the '60s and spares were widely
available.

Yeah, great. Just think, had they *really* have been built to last we
could all still be driving around in cars with drum brakes and
bodywork that is not intentionally weakened with such silly ideas as
crumple zones.

"The first ever caliper-type automobile disc brake was patented by
Frederick William Lanchester in his Birmingham, UK factory in 1902 and
used successfully on Lanchester cars." - Source: Wikipedia

"An early example of the crumple zone concept was used by the
Mercedes-Benz engineer Béla Barényi on the 1959 Mercedes-Benz
'Fintail'.[1] This innovation was first patented by Mercedes-Benz in
the early 1950s." - Source: Wikipedia

There just wasn't the throwaway mindset that you seem to
extol.

I know. And yes, I do believe that the throwaway attitude has many
advantages. Not that there is not also disadvantages, but overall I
believe it wins out over the "last a lifetime" philosophy.

If you can repair something so that it is effectively brand-new again,
why would you want to replace it? If you're going to replace it
because you want a different design (and, nota bene, "different"
doesn't have to mean "modern", since art deco has been revisited
several times since the 1930s), then you're going to do it come what
may, but at least the device, whatever it is, can be given or sold to
somebody else who will continue to use it and have it repaired. The
reason we in the West have such a massive problem with waste and
recycling is that it is based on greed. Innovation will ALWAYS happen,
since new consumers are being born every day. It makes sense to me
that the "old-fashioned" grocer cut a chunk of butter off a large slab
or sold you just three screws or a mop handle. You could buy exactly
how much or little you wanted and there was no waste. Not even plastic
was used at any stage, just greaseproof paper which is biodegradable.
The 1950s generation were unwittingly saving the planet -- and then
the supermarkets arrived...

As for halting progress, that's ridiculous. There was nothing
stopping people from selling their cars and moving to a bigger or more
impressive model, but nothing like it is today, well, up until a year
or so ago once the recession started to bite.

If the mindset is that you should keep everything for as long as
possible, and repair rather than replace, people will tend to keep
what they have for as long as it does what they need it to do.

Exactly!


If the
idea is to replace your car every 5 or 6 years, what's the point in
designing them to last for many decades?

But /some/ cars DO last for many decades compared to others. Mercs and
BMWs, for instance. How many people buying a new piano today will be
wanting to "change it for the latest model" in five years, do you
think? Answer: A fraction of a percent. So if that is true of pianos,
why not for any other item? Do most people change their bed every five
years? No, of course they don't. They might buy a new mattress, but
that is because of wear and tear than can't be easily mended, unlike,
say, a head gasket in a car's engine. Why should consumers have to
accept toasters, electric kettles and all manner of household goods
which are specifically and deviously designed - with special
screwheads - not to be dismantled. It's a con, a scam, bad for the
planet, bad for our pocket.

Today, for example, I have found the fault on my upright vacuum
cleaner and it is the thermal fuse that has blown. One trip to Maplin,
69 pence and, well, most people would have gone out and bought a new
cleaner by now. Idiotic! Many people, probably the majority, have
succumbed to your kind of conditioning to think that repairing is
silly.

Unless the new vacuum cleaner was better than your old one in terms of
doing the job, or convenience.

The one thing you can guarantee about the new one is that it's going
to cost a lot more than 69 pence. It would have to be a WHOLE LOT
better to justify spending a hundred quid (some cleaners cost twice
that) rather than 69 pence.

I think it would be far better if houses cost the same as a car and
were scrapped and replaced with about the same frequency.

Oh, no! I'm having to prepare myself for this new masterplan by Cynic
Inc!

It will happen eventually.

No, it won't. As I drive through my local town or ride around on the
bus one thing I like doing is spotting the dates on houses. Many
around here are dated 1785, 1804, 1828 etc etc. Most people PREFER
older properties (albeit with mod cons) because it is said they have
character.

And people will wonder how we ever put up
with living in the same house for many years, or why we had to move to
a different location just because we needed an extra bedroom. Or why
the poor builders had to work outdoors in the cold and rain. Or why a
house should have cost many times a person's annual salary.

But the latter is specific to Britain, isn't it? There are many
countries where property prices are more in keeping with salaries.
But, again, the reason why houses went up in value is because of
greed. The greed of estate agents, who pushed the prices up and up
because higher prices meant bigger commissions. The greed of home
owners (actually they didn't own anything, but owed the building
society a couple of hundred grand) who could borrow like crazy on the
basis of the house prices increasing disproportionately. The greed of
the New Labour government that enjoyed the boom (while it lasted) that
was almost entirely based on borrowing

Or is it a nation of prefabs that you're looking forward to? Why not
encourage everyone to live in a mobile home, even?


Waste is ALWAYS bad! There is NOthing good about waste.

I assume that you eat only astronaut type foods that have no fibre or
roughage at all. After all, it would be terribly bad, according to
yourself, to be flushing all that undigested waste down the pan every
day.

Do you equate *** with wasted food that is thrown away because it's
past its best before date or because householders failed to budget and
plan with more thought and consideration for the planet?

You stated that waste was always bad. It is a fact that *** *is*
waste.

You're splitting hairs now.

Wasted food is probably the most innocuous waste because it
bio-degrades in a very short time, and often benefits the food chain
in so doing by providing nutrients for plants or other animals.

So why aren't we encouraged to throw waste any old where, then? I
mean, if it provides nutrients for plants or other animals?

If I buy an apple but throw it away before I eat it, is that all that
different to a case where the apple was never picked in the first
place (because there was nobody to buy it) and so it fell from the
tree and rotted on the ground? The only difference AFAICS is that in
the former case it has assisted the economy.

That may be true of apples, but what about toasters or vacuum
cleaners?

*If* there was a food shortage, or the land used to produce it is
desperately needed for other things, then the waste would be a bad
thing. But seeing that there is *not* a food shortage, and no
desperate need to use food production resources for other purposes, I
see no particular problem with food waste, only advantages.

I think actually there is a very significant food shortage when one
sees the world as a group of consumers. Just because we in Britain
aren't starving, that doesn't mean that everyone else on the planet is
the same. In fact, probably WE are not starving because many others
are! So, once again, my diagnosis of greed being at the heart of our
throwaway society exemplifies the decadence of the West.

MM
.