There’s another side of this slump. Intemperate expansion sometimes yields amateurish production.
Today’s Wall Street Journal has a headline about Mattel posting an “surprise” profit drop.
Maybe the parents looked at the boxes and saw that “made in China” label. Our companies have not exercised anything remotely resembling quality control, most particularly on plastics, paints and electronics, and our government can’t do it. Consumers can. Today I am repackaging and sending back a $125 birdbath that is supposed to have a thermostat and all sorts of safety features in it. I ordered from an American company, paid a fancy price, expecting to get something that should work: thermostats are not rocket science. I saw the “made in China” label on it. It failed in the first cold snap. This follows the expensive lighting fixtures that burn out the light bulbs, the new curly, “long-lived” light bulbs (in other, more stable fixtures) that burn out very readily, the socks that can’t survive the second washing, the Kitchen Aid appliances with knobs that crumble, shelves that fall and silverware nets and baskets that crumble in ordinary, expected use.
It’s not just that times are tough. The goods we have been buying are crap. We don’t have to buy crap.
