Worthwhile reading for all, we hope, though especially Millennial’s, as we trace the “Death of Quality” in consumer goods. As the trip evolves, we arrive at some interesting “facts” about the future.
This being a holiday weekend, we hope you enjoy the outline presented here and will share any additional areas that might usefully fit.
As the old Danish saying goes: “It’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the Future…” Except that our task is easier today in a world of spreadsheets and databases . These allow us to move the “future” a little nearer; allowing finer focus and clearer inspection.
After headlines and charts, of course.
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Ahmen Brotha ! weapons of financial destruction indeed pops! Nice thing in regards the “casino” is Stop Orders..Lock in your! Its a Rule of Trading – not a suggestion/advice a frigging Rule to live and die by. As your Underlying Asset (SPY,SPXL, GBTC) moves up or down you Place a Sell Stop or Buy Stop just below Current price – Stop orders should be adjusted accordingly.
G- man – don’t forget ur Stop Orders when playing on the “Street”. U can move those Stop orders up or down as underlying asset appreciates or depreciates in price.This “calculated risk” strategy will help protect from Ure Premature Ejections(UPE’s) from Trades that appear to be failing, only to be pumped back to life, after having just broken Support or crossed Resistance Lines.
Yes pros use Tech Analysis for timing/price flip indications to get ahead of the “crowd”.
Everyone looking for an edge – front running by milli seconds, spoofing, fat fingers..the list goes on. We had a Black Monday already..how about a Brown Tuesday?
Don’t forget grannies ole saying bout making money..”if you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying hard enough.”
Biggest lie that consumers believe – Quality Costs More – yeah more than Chinese junk – but it wont kill, poison,maim, blind, destroy internal organs, & it will last longer than 5 years.
U R not to have Bitcoins – any of the readership not already in Bitcoins – its too late..”no bitcoins for U” – they are for Libertarian types who want to be rich..see Unstoppable DeCentralization,Un-Hackable, Un- Confiscatable and U cant print anymore – ever.
U will just have to live with the foreknowledge that All(non cyrpto) WEALTH will be taking a 60% or Worse haircut. The good news ?? Debt will be zeroed out ; )
Watch the markets and money flows as Deutsch Bank DB goes under $7.00/share – once $6.40 a share is breached Financial Chaos could break out as Automatic Covenants are Triggered on HUGE Derivatives contracts.
Sure we can just paper this over with more FIAT like previous time (s), hunh G? Just keep printing those beloved EMP proof FRN’s, U can paper over anything! oh Happy Memorial Day Weekend, as a nation turns their thoughts and prayers to those that gave their lives..to the International Bankers /Vatican quest for riches/resources/souls..
Mixing sell stop orders with ETF’s is flash crash poison. In a flash crash, the ETF price may fall far below the stop order price before the security sells. Remember – a stop order is not a guarantee of a buyer being available, especially at the opening bell. Of course this isn’t investment advice, it is life experience. Stop orders can bite you in the end.
“Stop orders can bite you in the end.”
Therefore: They are good during the day; But — they are very risky overnight, IMHO.
“Seriously, why bother with quality?.because it is not instantly profitable.”
That comment is what makes capitalism work. Everything has to be disposable to keep Americans working, because innovation by itself isn’t fast paced enough to keep up with the demand for money/paychecks/lifestyle. But quality doesn’t necessarily mean longevity for the consumer. Even if it is a quality product like an IPhone, it loses its cachet when the next model roles around. The IPhone 7 is a perfectly good phone, but when the iPhone X was introduced, people traded them in for the new model. You can say the same with cars, clothes, my wife’s unending shoe collection, etc.
And, thanks to marketing departments, we have substituted style for quality. Corporate Hucksters position “Style” as the shiny new object we all must embrace. And when it goes “Out of Style”, we must re-load our inventory of “Today’s “ stylish junk. Again…you can name any and all consumer products that fit into this category…even food is categorized this way with Gluten free, Keto, Paleo and more fad based offerings than ever before.
The sad part is that Big Pharma is in this game as well. We can cure your restless leg syndrome, but you will need a slew of other drugs to combat the side effects caused by the symptom that seems someone just made up to scare us into buying more drugs. Eat healthy and excercise is taboo in and definitely not profitable.
It’s as if there is a cabal of overseers that control the manufacturing process to make sure that if a product needs parts, make sure that they are vulnerable parts that need to be replaced so that the consumer is forced to do one of two things…Go to the repair man whose job was created knowing that these things break… and be without it for a day or two…OR… buy another, more updated looking product with the same breakable parts… but, with the perception that it looks better on your kitchen counter, living room table, patio, bedroom or whatever it is your are buying.
It’s a racket..that’s for sure.
Your right mark..
Batteries for the aed.. I was talking to the battery place.. you send back the batteries buy a new one.. I asked about disposal etc.
The guy said oh we just put a new chip.. the batteries if on the shelf are fine..the units use battery in the unit check but those on the shelf are still good. What they have is a count down chip in them.. even though the batteries are still good the minute the chip hits zero you don’t have any use with it.. I bought a tv.. just stopped.. took it in (back when there were still tv repair shops) the guy said their programmed to fail after x hours of use.. at the dump.. I worked waste..biggest item vacuum cleaners..people will spend a thousand dollars on a cleaner fill the disposable bag the toss them out.. the rainbow and electrolux don’t get tossed..the reason. The bags fill up the unit pops open till you dump the bag..
I had a really nice belt sander..the bearing went out.. the replacement bearing was more than a new sander..
At the store.. new snowblower.. it was missing one bolt. The company toss it out we will ship new..
That’s why most grocery chains put deli’s in..
The I side joke at one store is wealthy people will special order a hundred rib eyes..then on monday bring half of them back saying people were getting sick just to get their money back.. after a holiday like this weekend we would have a store cookout for the help. I once asked why they allowed them to do that. The response was..they will promote the store to their employees . Crazy but true..
Gotta agree with you, Mark. Prime example of “planned obsolescence” is the Nintendo Wii. I bought one for the family for Christmas, paying a premium because of their planned scarcity. Now, they’re ending functionality that lets it connect to the ‘net. At least the games on DVD still work.
AND I’ve got a double-oven we can’t use because the oven hinges went bad and replacements are no longer made. Works fine otherwise. Some dude has a pair on eBay right now for $399; guess it’s time to buy a countertop convection oven.
Another example is a set of battery-powered power tools I got one year as a Christmas present. I put it aside and one day a cuople years later needed to use the sander, but the batteries wouldn’t hold charge for more than 5 or 10 minutes of use. AND the batteries that fit were no longer made.
W/D….
“guess it’s time to buy a countertop convection oven.”
If you would like a suggestion on toaster oven.. let me suggest the wolgang pick pressure oven…
Absolutely love ours.. I got it by mistake. I usually keep a backup appliance. Seems in my life anyway..if something is going to to breakdown it will be late at night ,during a point of time where replacing replacement is not budgeted (although I do have a long term fund for appliance replacement, the last appliance catastrophic event involved every appliance in the house.. happened after a transformer on the pole went out), during a holliday.
Because of that t keep an extra small appliance on a shelf..
Great oven..
“Stops” should be held mentally… NOT placed with the market brokers! They are ‘visible’ to the pros, and they make considerable profits with that knowledge. Ever hear of “Running the Stops”? Voice of experience. Burned once…. learned fast.
Well said, brother Hank. I don’t use stops. If I can’t ride the market, I cash out and leave the casino. Trust ’em with my money when they can see my hand? Not a frigging chance…
Fricken Cool! Never heard of it. I dont know why. It answers a question i had about something else. Totally relevant metaphorically to one dilemma i have been pondering. Thanks Hank!
I was awe struck at the “timing” of your responce as the i was pondering something completely unrelated to stocks but juxtaposed in meaning and symbolic relation at the very time stamp in your responce. Well played.
Lol… I have known two individuals that played the stops…
They did ok..use to brag about how much they made..no fail..
Then I didn’t hear anything till my friends son asked me to step in and talk to dad..
He lost his retirement, his home, a section of prime farmland.. he now lives in an old used 72 single wide trailer..
I seen the other..he Fared better but has to mow lawns to make a living. His kids bailed him out..
I was shocked today.. forty four years ago a friend of mine and I did an art piece… it hung at the regional airport .a panorama of our areas namesake. So I stopped down to pick up my glove trotters coming home from vacation this morning and they took it down.. oh well like everything.. it got old..
where did it go? Can you find it, get it?
“where did it go? Can you find it, get it?”
I actually asked… no one had a clue.. they weren’t sure if it went into storage or during the remodeling tossed it out.. back in those days we were young and creative.. did a few murals in buildings..this one.. we actually had to get rid of some pine branches and styrofoam lol .. tossed it up on a board and thought hell look at that. Glued it down and started working on it.. we did a lot of paint.. the guns hung on hooks paint would drip.. got a really nice pile next thing you knew we would turn it into a city scape lol lol the stuff they replaced it with is what I think water balloon art..after you have the paint fight let it drive then airbrush your graphics over it .
Those were the days…
I can not wait for the next chapters in this book! I am on track to be debt free in 2 years, I am selling crap I don’t need and donating what won’t, and working on owning my own piece of land in 5 years with a high quality gal later on! I really, really look forward to this book! I loved the power in the greater depression one!
I’d like to bring up a couple of points:
We suffer from a broad lack of standards in what are essentially fungible items, such as cars. There are standards for engine and bell housing sizes, for example, yet no car manufacturers adhere to these(industrial manufacturers do). We have integrated electronics on cars such that we don’t have separate engine and transmission computers. The upshot of this is that any interchanges are fraught with problems.
The VW bug, Kharman Ghia and Porsche brands had a standard bell housing with four bolts to mount and connect the engine. A simple thing that worked for 50+ years. Interchange was a snap. If we actually used ASTM, NEMA, ISO and other standards as a selling point for increasing MTBF and decreasing MTTR for everything, we’d have a much more robust infrastructure. Today what should be simple repairs on a car are as complex as brain surgery. There’s a reason that VW, small block Chevy, MOPAR 318, etc., are still famous since they did what they did and did it well. At the big rig level, reliability, economy and ease of repair are very important, as is the ability to have the power unit of your choice in any manufacturer’s frame.
Imagine if toasters had standard parts instead of manufacturer’s specific ones. Inventory would be improved with mass reductions in parts counts. You could keep parts on hand. You could cannibalize as necessary to have your buttered toast in the morning. With an open sourced design, everyone could make toasters that had interchangeable parts! Obviously, the same is true for all appliances. The IBM PC evolved as it did from an open sourced design. Many others fell by the wayside.
The same goes for practically everything else that’s manufactured. Imagine the many containers on a store shelf. If the containers were standardized and maximized volume(square rather than round), then they could be used again and again at home until they were totally used up. A couple of bumps on the bottom and sides would make them stackable. They could be used to return other contents if that made sense. Shipping empty containers and jars anywhere uses fuel, even for recycling(better called decycling). Current recycling rarely re-uses materials for their original purpose. It’s truly sad that the real reason that municipalities are forcing “recycling” is to reduce the loading on their landfill sites.
How we get from here to there is beyond my understanding, but efficiencies from standardized parts are there for the taking.