Why is product quality dropping? (is it hiding something else's drop?)

Once upon a time in a galaxy far far away (no, really, it was here) there was an unspoken trend of buying products that were cheaper, in terms of dollar amount than the product that they always bought.

"It's just as good." they thought to themselves.

It was mostly noticeable when buying presents for all the little kids that would be expecting gifts under the Christmas tree.

Back then those toys would break slightly more often than the ones you were used to buying or the ones you played with when you were a child.

Now that all of these less expensive products are manufactured in one single country, that country he has no competitors and therefore they can make things more and more flimsy. As a matter of fact, those toys break within ten minutes to two hours of being opened.

This post is not about cheap toys or cheaply made toys. It's more about people like sheep when one goes over the cliff and all the others follow.

Another example.
Let's take a look at Walmart and how it invaded every small town in large city across the country.

Yes, it was easier to go to Walmart and get everything in one place or Sam's Club where you can get items in bulk for a much cheaper price. Before Walmart opened, you would have to go to one store to get one type of product and another store to get different types of products.

Again, sheep follow one off the cliff and everybody is suddenly crowding into Walmart. But what if Walmart suddenly did something despicable, like mistreating their employees?

You look around in all of those alternate stores that had products like hair brushes and shampoo and pharmacy items and other stores that had furniture and other stores that had electronics. But they're all gone, especially if you live in a small town.

More and more, whether you've noticed it or not, people are heading toward a herd mentality.

A lot of people are not thinking about what they do before they do it or weighing the possible consequences of going with the flow.

I for one never stopped buying products that were made in this country because I believe that it's worth paying a little bit more for something that is of better quality.

The problem is that a lot of companies that made higher quality products lost sales to the products that were shipped in from another country, specifically China. And local manufacturing
went bye-bye, so to speak.

One quality product that I missed the most is steel. Good old American steel. For the most part it has all been replaced with what we call chineseium.

American steel is mined and formulated and then manufactured.

Chinesium is taken from a barge filled with scrap and somewhat sorted to separate magnetic metal from non-magnetic metal.

All of the magnetic metal is melted down and then poured to form what is called steel, but it's not. It's chineseium, a much weaker variety of magnetic metal.

Think about it. The cost of a barge full of scrap is next to zero and you don't have to mine it. You don't have to refine it. You just melt it in call it steel.

Up is down and down is up.
The root cause of everything that I'm talking about is stemming from the word "inflation", which is not inflation. It is deflation. Prices go up so you thing the cost is inflating. But really, you have to use more paper currency because that paper is deflating. The same thing happened in Germany, Venezuela (think 1,000,000 bolivar for a dozen eggs) and Argentina (think 50,000 pesos for a couple value meals at BK).

Hiding the above truth from the public and keeping it from the forefront of their minds is what causes all of the above problems.

If eggs cost $4 per dozen, then the cost for one omelet is roughly $1.

If the price of eggs goes up to $8, then each person has to spend two dollars for their omelet.

The term for this is inflation, meaning something inflated and you pay more now. But what was it that inflated?

The price was inflated.

You can actually say this two different way:

The price went up.
The money went down.

The second sentence is the true one that the money changed in value because it's unlikely that it costs more time, energy, food, or housing for a chicken to grow and lay eggs.

The process is not variable.

If the egg farmer buys the same lie, "my costs have gone up due to inflation and therefore I have to charge more for my eggs." then of course you have both sides of the conversation using the same terminology "inflation" in order to logically blame the vendors and manufacturers for the high prices that anger you.

Truth be told, the prices rising have nothing to do with the value of the products going up, but rather the value of the money going down, which would make everyone turn to the government and ask them why they're printing money (which causes "inflation") and making each piece of paper that we call money worth much less than it was yesterday.

And that, my friends, is why I had to fix my son's remote control car 15 minutes after he opened it and why I have to buy four office chairs per year.

Yet, people still struggle to obtain more of the thing that is becoming less and less valuable, and they put it in a bank so nobody steals it. Can I tell you a secret? It is being stolen even while sitting in that vault. You will have the same number of paper bills when you take it out. Their value will only have been deflated.

And don't get me started on products becoming obsolete.