PAUL A. writes:

Regarding mops, when I had my cleaning business, we would use the basic Swiffer mop head and just put our own rags on it. Buy a dozen bar rags from Costco or wherever, and you can wet ’em down in the sink, soap ’em up, etc. Just tuck a fold of the rag into the four little grab points for the original Swiffer wipe, and it works like a charm. Toss the rag in the laundry when you are done.

I agree with your perception that there is too much useless junk being pawned off on us. I fix appliances for a living, and for many reasons, it seems that Capitalism has jumped the shark. Not just in mops, but in many things. Appliances are now manufactured to break as soon as the warranty expires. They are no longer “durable goods.” It is as though the smart, young, MBA’s figure that you won’t live without it, so you’ll have to buy another one. And they are right, for the most part. You have no idea how many of my customers are still making payments on their broken washer/fridge/stove. Much of what I see in the stores is institutionalized theft. I can’t think of any other name for it.

— Comments —

Sheila writes:

Amen to your varied posts and comments on this hugely irritating problem. I suppose it may depend on what part of the country one lives in, but have you tried getting anything repaired lately? There are no craftsmen or genuine repairmen left – there are only illegal immigrants who build things in an incredibly slapdash manner (regardless if the home is priced $150,000 or $450,000) and supervisors who look the other way. I’ve been fortunate to find some good plumbers – because everything I’ve had fixed has uncovered things built either not to code, or to meet the very least and cheapest iteration of legality back when the home was built 20 years ago.

I don’t buy extended warranties (I’m not a fool) because the stores make all their money on them and the repairs are never done properly. Just scout out the sales and buy something new and shiny and hope it lasts a few years. I just took a pair of shoes (summer sandals) to have the heel taps replaced. The place is owned by a Greek family and they do good work, but it was $10.00 – I don’t know how reasonable or unreasonable that is given the plastic taps or the time/effort involved. I do know I probably paid little more than that for Bandolino sandals to start with (again, sales and discounts), but I like them and there’s nothing else wrong, so I paid.

Hurricane Betsy writes:

It is so obvious why products are of poor quality: there are so many more people in the world today than there were 50 years (and more) ago – and they all want or need things.

The poor suffering earth simply does not contain enough raw material to manufacture all these things for 7 billion people according to old, high quality standards without exhausting itself quickly. So manufacturers use much less valuable material and thus – seemingly – there’s more to go around. And much more of the high quality materials left over for the very rich.

There’s too many people, of all classes and incomes, wanting and needing too much stuff. Some would say there’s too many people, period, irrespective of lifestyle. We could all live off grass and live in caves and we’d still be overpopulated, rendering our poor dear God-given earth barren sooner or later. But I’m not getting into that. It’s grist for the mill.

Laura writes:

The problem is more a case of underpopulation not overpopulation. The more mop and appliance consumers, the more business for mop and appliance makers. That should mean innovation in mops and appliances. Instead, capitalism causes demographic decline because it obliterates the family wage. I don’t see how overpopulation causes mechanical problems in appliances. In any event, the earth does not suffer. It feels no pain.

Capitalism produces junk products because it concentrates the ownership of production in the hands of the few and erases borders and craftsmanship. It is really geared toward making money lenders rich, not bringing dignity to labor. Thus it produces loads of junk.

Hurricane Betsy writes:

I don’t see how overpopulation causes mechanical problems in appliances.

A population that is greater than the earth can healthfully support causes mechanical problems in appliances in the following way:

*The greater the (civilized) population, the greater the demand for such things as we are talking about.

*Increased demand means an increased need for the products of the earth that are implicit in their manufacture.

*This means more resource extraction, which everyone rightly sees cannot just go on increasing forever. Trees, metals, oil, electricity for powering the factories, etc. This is just a partial list.

*Therefore, in order to continue making and selling their products, the manufacturers have to cut corners in the design of their products.

*Cutting corners means poor design.

*Poor design means early breakage, i.e. “mechanical problems”.

*Early breakage means you go and buy another one, resulting in an increase in the manufacturer’s profits + continuing degradation of our environment through yet more resource extraction plus increasing landfills and attendant pollution.

Since we are products of the earth (Go to Genesis and read up on how we came to be) we can only suffer when our numbers continue to increase. Indeed, they need to decrease, combined with learning how to live.

Thank you.

Laura writes:

Malthusian predictions have not been fulfilled over time. As population has increased so has human adaptation. But this idea that the earth can only sustain certain numbers has led to demographic imbalance; the advanced nations are undergoing severe demographic decline, partly because of this idea. Anyway I don’t see how poor design is the result of demographics. There are plenty of smart engineers in the United States. Many of these products are made in the global marketplace with its illusions of a “free market.” Limited resources should spur innovations in a healthy economy. The use of plastics and recycling are examples. But if it were true, which I don’t believe it is, that there were so many more people that we could no longer afford machines made from metals, then many of those people could be employed doing manually the work machines once did.

If you look at history, societies undergoing demographic decline and below-replacement level birthrates face economic collapse sooner or later.

The notion that “we need to decrease” is based on certain assumptions, including the idea that God has no say in what occurs on earth and values ecology more than the human soul.

Hurricane writes:

Your first paragraph is obviously referring to the western countries; demographic decline is taking place only among white people.

However, peoples of all races, in all parts of the earth, are in on the materialist, consumer lifestyle. They all went stuff, not just us – and as you know, their numbers are going up like crazy. This has an important impact because the economy is global, not local. We can’t just wall ourselves off and have our own little economy with quality goods and manual, old-style manufacturing irrespective of how desirable this would be. If we tried to accomplish this, the Powers That Be would make sure we did not succeed.

The government doesn’t mind a few Amish communities here and there living 100% (almost) off the land and self-sufficiently. But when it starts getting serious, they will put a stop to it, either through heavy taxation of such living situations, or something a little more…forceful.

We have to deal with reality. To me, the reality is that severe decline/collapse is already in the works; the damage done by humanity cannot be undone at this point. God is at work in all things, including your comforts and mine.

Your second point is problematical to me in that it assumes that God separates ecological matters and the human soul. I don’t think they are separate. One affects the other. They are bound up together like the components of an omelet and I know that can’t be unscrambled.

 Laura writes:

The globalist economy, built as it is upon the primacy of anti-Christian usury (see E. Michael Jones’s great book Barren Metal: A History of Capitalism as the Conflict between Labor and Usury), could never change if it was universally considered unchangeable. But it is changeable. It is not a force of nature. It has changed dramatically throughout history.

As far as the ecology and the soul, if you mean it is immoral to pollute and trash the planet, it is. But human life is not a form of pollution.

You say, “the damage done by humanity cannot be undone at this point.” I’m not sure what damage you are referring to; serious ecological damage has been reversed in the past.

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