Bad Economic Predictions

[Leisher]

Planned obsolescence as a marketing strategy is a well documented thing.

Of course, but AaaS changes the game.

discussing the economy with the Director of Finance this morning. His car needs service and he knows it's going to cost a ton. He was lamenting how things used to be buil

this is such fucking bullshit. Complete fucking bullshit. But people believe it.

I'm not saying you are wrong because there's a spacecraft launched decades ago that is billions upon billions miles from Earth and still working despite some hiccups. I will say you're not completely right.

There are a LOT of variables that go into how long a product lasts. Were the raw materials bad for some reason? Were the parts faulty? Did the user properly care for it? What environment was it located within? And so on. Those things really aren't on the manufacturer. Yes, they might be legally responsible for bad parts or whatever, but they didn't "make it to break".

But there are things made much shittier now, whether intentional or not:
-My starter home had a 50 year old furnace. Both the home inspector and a furnace repair person we had out for a minor issue said it could run forever. Both said getting something new would be more expensive and wouldn't last as long.
-My MIL bought up a new washer for X-Mas or something one year. Within 6 months it was shot. Repair guy came out and talked about how it's cheaper just to buy a new one. He said nobody builds machines to last anymore because they want them to break so you have to get a new one. I asked him what brand lasts the longest. "They're all shit." That's a direct quote. He did give a nod to Speedqueen though. (Those are the ones in laundromats.)
-HP Printers are a great example of machines built to break and/or become obsolete. Hell, the entire constantly shifting ink cartridges are proof alone. When ALL printing is PaaS, watch and see how fast that catalog of ink carts gets standardized.
-Apple has been caught updating firmware on obsolete machines to make them malfunction inspiring purchasing new devices. Do we really think they're the only ones that do it?

I think if you treat something right, and it's from a reliable manufacturer or they don't have access to it, it can last a long time. It may become obsolete, but it can last.

However, treat something shitty and it'll break faster. Also...HP, Apple, and their ilk exist.

[GORDON]

A lot of appliances used to have metal gears and such, and now they're almost all plastic. The old stuff is universally considered more reliable, even though people will just dismiss the observations as "that's just survivor bias." Because these people have a need to argue over anything and everything.

But there's a Kitchenaid mixer, for example, that people readily admit was more reliable 20 years ago when they weren't using plastic gears. And everyone knows Pyrex was better 20 years ago before they got bought out and the new company started using inferior ingredients.

[TheCatt]

There are stories, and there are data.

[GORDON]

go ahead and throw your new Pyrex bowl, full of water, in the microwave.

[Leisher]

There are stories, and there are data.

Gordon is right. The garage door here stopped going up and down. Turns out, the culprit was a plastic gear that used to be metal and never broke. The plastic one naturally wears down until it can no longer grab the chain. Everyone on the internet whose video, blog, or whatever talked about this said the change in materials is to blame. The tech who came out said this part never broke until they made it plastic.

There's stories, data, and there's burying your head in the sand.

The Wall St driven economy is unsustainable.

[Troy]

There are stories, and there are data.

There's stories, data, and there's burying your head in the sand.

The Wall St driven economy is unsustainable.

Yup. See: Boeing.

[Leisher]

There are stories, and there are data.

There's stories, data, and there's burying your head in the sand.

The Wall St driven economy is unsustainable.

Yup. See: Boeing.

Another great example.

[TheCatt]

The Wall St driven economy is unsustainable.

yeah more than 100 years of life and standards of living getting better all the time has been terrible

[Leisher]

The Wall St driven economy is unsustainable.

yeah more than 100 years of life and standards of living getting better all the time has been terrible

The Roman Empire was pretty kick ass until it fell.

[GORDON]

White water rapids are super fun right up to the waterfall.

But nah...... things that work now are guaranteed to last forever.

[TheCatt]

DEEP EYE ROLL

[GORDON]

Deep eye roll right to the guillotines when the people for whom the economy isn't great finally have enough of being shat upon.

Just like the precedent of France, where they knew their system was perfect and best for everybody and would last forever.

[TheCatt]

Deep eye roll right to the guillotines when the people for whom the economy isn't great finally have enough of being shat upon.

meh. Theyre poor and we'll take their guns

[GORDON]

Just like the precedent of France, where they knew their system was perfect and best for everybody and would last forever.

[GORDON]

There are stories, and there are data.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... e-atlantic

Somewhere along the line, Boeing lost interest in making its own planes, Jerry Useem writes.
“One day in 1916, [Bill] Boeing spotted an imperfectly cut wing rib, dropped it to the floor, and slowly stomped it to bits. ‘I, for one, will close up shop rather than send out work of this kind,’ he declared.”

Useem compares this anecdote to a much more recent tale: “When David Calhoun, the soon-to-be-lame-duck CEO of the company Boeing founded, made a rare appearance on the shop floor in Seattle one day this past January … he was not there to observe slipshod work before it found its way into the air—it already had. A few weeks earlier, the door of a Boeing 737 had fallen out mid-flight.”

“The two scenes tell us the peculiar story of a plane maker that, over 25 years, slowly but very deliberately extracted itself from the business of making planes,” Useem writes. “For nearly 40 years the company built the 737 fuselage itself in the same plant that turned out its B-29 and B-52 bombers. In 2005 it sold this facility to a private-investment firm, keeping the axle grease at arm’s length and notionally shifting risk, capital costs, and labor woes off its books onto its ‘supplier.’ ‘Offloading,’ Boeing called it. Meanwhile the tail, landing gear, flight controls, and other essentials were outsourced to factories around the world owned by others, and shipped to Boeing for final assembly, turning the company that created the Jet Age into something akin to a glorified gluer-together of precast model-airplane kits.”

“The past 30 years may well be remembered as a dark age of U.S. manufacturing,” Useem writes. “Boeing’s decline illustrates everything that went wrong to bring us here. Fortunately, it also offers a lesson in how to get back out.”

Emerging from this dark age, Useem writes, “must begin with a recognition that something has been lost.” And said ascension might have already started: “Boeing’s chief financial officer recently admitted that the company got ‘a little too far ahead of itself on the topic of outsourcing,’” Useem continues. Can the company rediscover its engineering soul.

[Leisher]

a private-investment firm

I know a lot of people who equate these firms to Satan himself. Or to put it milder, "You'd have better results putting the government in charge."

When booking flights for the upcoming Vegas trip, we intentionally avoided Boeing.

[TheCatt]

we intentionally avoided Boeing.

That feels excessive. Also, airlines can just change the plane.

[Leisher]

That feels excessive.

Is it? What plane manufacturer and model has had parts falling off and are in the news for problems every week lately? The same one who the Boeing lead engineer or whomever said he'd never fly in one. Boeing 737.

It didn't much effort at all to simply pick a different airline or flight.

Maybe the joke will be on me if one of my Airbus flights crash, but ultimately, I am making the correct choice statistically speaking.

Also, airlines can just change the plane.

Sure, but that's outside of my power.

"Worry about the things you can control, not the things you cannot." - Me

[Leisher]

Another day, another Boeing whistleblower dies.

[TheCatt]

Being a whistleblower is almost as dangerous as flying their planes.