reuse & repair

[eternomi]

How come the US culture is based on "throw it away; buy it new" mentality?

I mean I realize the economy is structured that way. It is cheaper to buy new than try to repair the old. I am not talking about wear & tear. If you use something for 5-10 years and you need a new one, that's inevitable. But things often break before their lifetime is up, and usually a small fix would extend the lifecycle of the product.. but we are almost forced to throw it out and buy now. That's a HUGE waste of all kinds of resources.

Some companies do some refurbushing of certain products to a certain extent, but overall, it is a "throw it away; buy it new" mentality.

How can this be turned around? Would it be possible to turn it around such that repair and reuse is cheaper than buying new? Any ideas?

[Baltar]

This happened because manufacturing was outsourced to countries with cheap human labor -- most things sold in the US are made in China these days. Labor in the US is very expensive comparatively, so if it costs $100 to repair a broken VCR and just about the same amount to buy a new one, why bother? If everything was manufactured within the country things would be very different.

This won't change until the foreign economies equalize with that of the US, and that probably will never happen. What's most likely going to happen in the future is products will be produced mostly with computerized/robotic labor at which point it will make even less sense to pay for fixing something because product prices will drop even more, while human labor cost will remain high.

[eternomi]

Baltar,

You are probably right. It's just that it is such a waste! And in a way, it is incredible that it is cheaper to build a brand new thing than fix what has already been made! That just boggles my mind. There has to be a way to fix this problem.

[ahimel]

The reason the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in the city on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes "Boots" theory of socioeconomic unfairness.

I now have a sticky note attached to my debit card that says, "Boots?"

So every time I make a purchase, I remember that not only will I save money in the long run by buying high-quality, I'll also enjoy the intervening short-run more.

You can find good products that will last you years or even generations; you just have to look harder for them because they aren't advertised.

[jkmuller]

Certainly part of our throw-away culture is an effect of the unparalleled consumer culture we have today in America. Most people are simply not interested in old things, except in rare instances. Also, when it comes to electronics, things go obsolete so quickly now that people are forced to upgrade, unlike with other goods. But hopefully, people will soon come to their senses when they realize we are already standing knee-deep in pollution. Sooner or later it has to give.

[Baltar]

Originally Posted by outback

Baltar,

You are probably right. It's just that it is such a waste! And in a way, it is incredible that it is cheaper to build a brand new thing than fix what has already been made! That just boggles my mind. There has to be a way to fix this problem.

I agree that it's a huge waste, but that's how a free market economy works. Right now it's cheaper to build something new because the labor that's used to build it is cheaper than the labor that's used to fix it. It can be built in China, but you have to fix it in the US. Cost of living in the US is a lot higher than in China though, and that means one must charge accordingly more for a repair service. I think the only thing that can be done is shipping the broken items out to countries where it's cost effective to fix and sell them. Sounds like a good business opportunity. In fact something like this is being done with old cell phones. Check out Recycle My Cell Phone.

EARTHWORKS has teamed up with CollectiveGood to either refurbish or recycle your old cell phone using the highest environmental and social standards.

Cell phones and accessories received in working order can be recycled back into reuse, the highest form of recycling. If the cell phone is broken, but has useful parts, CollectiveGood will cannibalize it, and create working phones from the scraps. These affordable refurbished cell phones help bridge the digital divide and improve the quality of life for people in the developing world who purchase them.

[eternomi]

In fact something like this is being done with old cell phones.

It might be slightly more complicated than that. I think those cell phones are in working condition. Maybe the battery died, or got too old for the original user's taste. Even refurbished products are mostly in working condition. Either the buyer wasn't satisfied, or the company was able to fix the problem (yay!), but can't really sell it as brand new any more.

My concern is with products that are truely broken, but need a $1 part replaced to start working again... You are absolutely correct about labor being cheaper outside of US, but those people only know how to assemble. They probably have no clue how the thing works.

Maybe we need better testing tools which can figure out what's wrong with something without too much human intervention.

[Still Growing]

There are some valid points made here:
1. Its cheaper to sometimes buy it new than to fix the item
2. Its often better to buy quality that will last longer

You know, we Americans are are consumer society. Its terrible how the Average America spends more than they make. A few years ago the average American had several thousand in credit card debt while the average Japanese had tens of thousands in savings. But whats interesting is that all of this personal debt is actually good for our economy... Strange huh?

Have you ever wondered why the US has risen so fast. Is it because we are so hard working? So are many other countries.

Only in the past 5 years have many Japanese starting even using credit cards.

The money circulates so fast here in the US. We're our own best customer and now we are China's best customer.

There are some countries where the consumers are so tight with each other bartering, pulling the prices down and trying to reuse that the circulation never allows them to rise up as an economy.

I'm sure there are those reading this that could make some valid arguments on this but take a look at Miami.

Aside from those wealthy moving in, lets look at the locals. The price on everything gets beat down and beat down and in the end the prices are great for most locally manufactured items but nobody is making any money. All you economists out there can argue that if you pay less then you will save but when your market's buyers won't pay more then you're doomed.

People work even hard, buy their materials even lower but they have to do three times the work for the same profit.

Think Miami is a bad example, how about Turkey? How about India? A lot of talented and very smart people but its all about bargaining and getting the prices down. Yet their economy can never flourish.

My point is that when you throw away that broken VCR don't feel so bad. From the ground it came and the ground it will go. You will save your money and time, somebody else will save money and time and the net gain will be for the economy as a whole.

[Ibanez]

I think it also has to do with financial education. I mean if you want to learn about money, it's pretty much up to yourself. School won't teach, probably wouldn't want that to happen anyway, parents will only probably say, save some money each paycheck. But if you want to learn more it's up to you.

We are also taught materialism in a way, so with that consumerism is expected. Some grow out of it, others live by it.

[WanderingOak]

I know as far as vehicles are concerned, I am probably never going to buy another new car. They are so complex and overdesigned nowdays, that nobody knows how to work on them properly. Case in point, I have an '88 Chevy pickup and a 2000 Hyundai. I'm fairly certain that a trained monkey could work on the truck, while the car requires specialized tools and knowledge beyond the capabilities of the average shadetree mechanic (or zookeeper). The truck has 315K miles and is still going strong. Repair parts are plentiful, dirt cheap, and there are plenty still on the road and in junkyards. Meanwhile, the car had 200K miles, and has eaten it's own transmission three times so far. Parts are expensive, hard to find, and many mechanics and junkyards in the US won't touch Hyundais. I paid $2K for the truck back in 2001, while I paid $13K for the car, new in 2000. Of the two vehicles, which one has held it's value better, and which do you think I am going to keep? The only reason I still have the car is that I have 100 mile commute and my truck is not very good on gas.

As far as consumer electronics goes, in most cases it is cheaper to replace than repair, usually because there is no support or repair network in place. Basicly, if it is out of warranty, you would be better off buying a new VCR. Then again, with VCRs going for 30 ♥♥♥ nowadays, why bother even trying to fix it? If you are an electronics hobbiest, the dead VCR could be dismantled for all kinds of interesting toys. iPods are sealed at the factory, but if you do enough research on the 'net, you could crack the seal and figure out how to replace the battery, etc. Of course, don't tell Apple, because if anything else breaks, they will say it is your fault.

[eternomi]

Originally Posted by Still Growing

From the ground it came and the ground it will go.

All valid points except for this one... Where did you ever see a VCR coming out of the ground? And shoving them into the ground is certainly not a solution!

I am not really saying "let's not consume, and save all our pennies". All I am suggesting is that this "throw it away and don't worry about it" mentality is killing the environment. There has to be a way to reuse the materials. Perhaps there is a better way to recycle effectively and efficiently.

You might say "if there was, we would have invented it already". That's the same person who said back in the 1800s that everything has already been invented.

Maybe there hasn't been a "profitable" way to recycle thus far, so people avoided it like the plague, but this will ultimately have to be invented or the situation completely avoided... or it'll get to a point where we have no more place to put unwanted stuff.

Earth is huge, but eventually, it will run out of raw materials. Maybe this nanotechnology business will have a solution for this.

[Brutha]

The goverment could force companys to give longer warranties.
If you have a warranty you will use it instead of buying a new one.

[Doku]

Originally Posted by Brutha

The goverment could force companys to give longer warranties.
If you have a warranty you will use it instead of buying a new one.

Right. Like we need MORE government intervention.

[WanderingOak]

Originally Posted by Brutha

The goverment could force companys to give longer warranties.
If you have a warranty you will use it instead of buying a new one.

If that happened, that $30.00 VCR would cost $90.00, and still be just as shoddily constructed. My Hyundai had a 100K mile warranty, and the local dealer did NOT want to honor it. They wanted me to buy a new car when it had a persistant 'check engine' light for three months that they couldn't fix. They eventually disabled the light, and I didn't figure it out for a few months afterwards. Of course they denied everything and I couldn't prove that they did anything. The cause of the light being on- mice chewing on a sensor wire.

[Brutha]

Right. Like we need MORE government intervention.

Either you like the way it is at the moment, then goverment intervention is not necessary.
If you don't want the way it is at the moment, goverment intervention is necessary.

In Europe we get more and more laws that force companys to give warrantys and recycle their stuff.
Therefore we don't have that mentality that much.

You can like the "throw it away; buy it new" because it is cheaper. But if you don't like it the way to change it is goverment intervention.

@WanderingOak:
You didn't buy a new car but kept the old one. If that is the target of the warranty the goal is accomplished.

[Baltar]

Originally Posted by Brutha

Either you like the way it is at the moment, then goverment intervention is not necessary.
If you don't want the way it is at the moment, goverment intervention is necessary.

In Europe we get more and more laws that force companys to give warrantys and recycle their stuff.
Therefore we don't have that mentality that much.

You can like the "throw it away; buy it new" because it is cheaper. But if you don't like it the way to change it is goverment intervention.

Government intervention is almost never good for the economy. The only exceptions are things like anti-trust laws but some people oppose even that. Forcing companies to provide longer warranties would simply raise prices, as WanderingOak said. At the same time it wouldn't solve anything, and in fact would create more problems. First of all the company wouldn't be fixing the product anyway, they'd just send you a new one. It's not cost effective for them to fix it.

Second of all there's the problem of what happens if the product has already been discontinued. They're forced to fix it if it's possible, or they have to send you a different model. Most likely they'd send you a new model because that would be cheaper. Basically longer warranties cost the company a lot more money, which means they have to charge consumers more money. This hurts the economy while not solving anything. I'm not saying that the way things are right now is particularly great, but the only viable solution is to figure out how to recycle things, not force companies to work inefficiently.

[Brutha]

Forcing companies to provide longer warranties would simply raise prices, as WanderingOak said.

While it would raise prices, it wouldn't raise them as much as buying the warranty at the moment in the US.
Check international prices for this.

Most likely they'd send you a new model because that would be cheaper.

Even then they need to do something with the old models like removing the working parts of them and using them for new models.
A company has also no problem to ship those old models to a low wage country to do this.
It costs less per unit to fix 100 units then to fix one. The customer can only fix one at a time, the company can fix all unit therefore it is cheaper for the company to fix them, then it is for a single customer.
If a company has to provide warranties it has to think about dealing either dealing with more old models or making models that don't break as often.

Companys get an incentive to invent practices of recycling those broken models and produce products that don't break. At presents the company profits when a unit breaks because the custumer buys a new one.

Basically longer warranties cost the company a lot more money, which means they have to charge consumers more money. This hurts the economy while not solving anything.

While the customer has to pay more money for a single item, he doesn't risk having to buy the same item again.
In total the price of those rebuys gets distributed over all customers.

If a company build a product in such a way that it breaks before the lifetime is up, why should the buyer pay for the new product? Wouldn't it more reasonable that the company pays for the new product?

[Baltar]

Originally Posted by Brutha

If a company build a product in such a way that it breaks before the lifetime is up, why should the buyer pay for the new product? Wouldn't it more reasonable that the company pays for the new product?

If I understand you correctly, then this reasoning doesn't work because it requires someone (like the government) to decide what the lifetime of an product is. For instance let's say that the lifetime of shoes is decided to be five years by the government. One company makes low quality cheap shoes, and another one makes high quality expensive shoes. The expensive shoes last the whole five years due to being high quality, but the cheap ones get worn out multiple times during the five years. If the cheap shoe company had to replace the pair of shoes every year for five years, it would provide absolutely no incentive to make the cheap shoes. Thus only expensive ones would be available. Next thing of course the government would have to do is set a maximum price on shoes (so the poor can afford them), making the shoe industry unprofitable and killing it.

In other words, you can't set a universal lifetime for a product because its lifetime depends on its quality. And its quality depends on its price. There must always be cheap and expensive alternatives available so that there's something everyone can afford. Also, someone mentioned that for tech products it usually doesn't make sense to fix them due to the rate of innovation. For instance if you have a VCR that breaks, you'll probably want to get a newer one or a DVD player instead. It also doesn't make much sense to fix computers after a few years. Some computer parts like hard drives can't be repaired at all.

[Still Growing]

Yea, I don't know where I got that metal came from the earth... I guess it would be better for the environment for us to burn it like they do in Europe instead of burying it. Even though it would be terrible for our air we could all feel good that we are "recycling".

Anyway the thread is about "to reuse or to repair". I say to reuse when it suits you and to repair when it suits you.

If someone thinks they should pay $120 to fix a $90 VCR just so it doesn't get discarded, this is rediculous.

As a society we do consume too much.

There are a lot of people who yell at SUV drivers from their little hybrids and they jet back and forth between NY & LA wagging their fingers. The energy it takes to cool their 20K sq. ft homes alone use more resources a year that that SUV.

The nature of this question to "re use or repair" does address how one should utilize their resources for the betterment of us as a society or for mankind as a whole.

What I speak of is that consumption is good for a group of people when their is a net gain within that society. Our trade deficity is so large now that we are becoming indepted to China.

People discuss about China holding the currency artificially but what they don't see is how they are doing it. To keep the dollar strong they are holding our dollars in the forms of loans to us for new construction. This my friends, is completely legal and ethical but it is also how your neighbor will get rich and you will become poor in time.

Read Buffet's article about Squanderville and Thriftville and you will see what is a larger topic than Iraq and the environment combined in terms of immediate problems facing us as a society.

Originally Posted by outback

All valid points except for this one... Where did you ever see a VCR coming out of the ground? And shoving them into the ground is certainly not a solution!

I am not really saying "let's not consume, and save all our pennies". All I am suggesting is that this "throw it away and don't worry about it" mentality is killing the environment. There has to be a way to reuse the materials. Perhaps there is a better way to recycle effectively and efficiently.

You might say "if there was, we would have invented it already". That's the same person who said back in the 1800s that everything has already been invented.

Maybe there hasn't been a "profitable" way to recycle thus far, so people avoided it like the plague, but this will ultimately have to be invented or the situation completely avoided... or it'll get to a point where we have no more place to put unwanted stuff.

Earth is huge, but eventually, it will run out of raw materials. Maybe this nanotechnology business will have a solution for this.

[Keith]

Originally Posted by Still Growing

If someone thinks they should pay $120 to fix a $90 VCR just so it doesn't get discarded, this is ridiculous.

Not necessarily.

The big problem is that the economy is stupid. To it, dollars are dollars.

But there's a world of difference between a dollar earned coding computer software and a dollar earned selling non-renewable oil (which is mostly what the VCR is made of). And there's a world of difference between dollars earned providing a valuable service and dollars spent on things such as replacement/repair costs resulting from a crime.

Yet, the way the economy is usually measured, a dollar is a dollar is a dollar. The money spent cleaning up oil spills is listed as economic progress.

Things like the GPI point out that GDP is an awful way to measure progress and attempt to come up with a better way.

When something made from irreplacable resources such as oil is cheaper to replace than repair, the economy is doing a very poor job of modelling reality...

[Still Growing]

Originally Posted by Keith

Not necessarily.

The big problem is that the economy is stupid. To it, dollars are dollars.

But there's a world of difference between a dollar earned coding computer software and a dollar earned selling non-renewable oil (which is mostly what the VCR is made of). And there's a world of difference between dollars earned providing a valuable service and dollars spent on things such as replacement/repair costs resulting from a crime.

Yet, the way the economy is usually measured, a dollar is a dollar is a dollar. The money spent cleaning up oil spills is listed as economic progress.

Things like the GPI point out that GDP is an awful way to measure progress and attempt to come up with a better way.

When something made from irreplacable resources such as oil is cheaper to replace than repair, the economy is doing a very poor job of modelling reality...

Keith,
So are you saying that as individuals we should pay $120 to fix that $90 VCR?

Also, are you saying that somehow the economy is faulty if you can buy it new rather than fix it? If you ever seen many factories in operation then you can understand how small shop paying high rent certainly has more overhead per unit than a factory does.

Hey, it would be wonderful if everything was reusable but they are not and so here we are...

It would also be wonderful if a health economy worked off of whats best for the earth instead of supply & demand but it doesn't.

And as far as "irreplaceable oil" goes, I agree that we should all try to figure out how to consume less of the black stuff but we are nowhere near running out of oil. We near running out of cheap oil. Theres a big difference. There is plenty of oil but its just too deep to get out cheaply. I'm more concerned about polution but not really of running out of oil.

As for the GDP goes, I'm not really sure where you were going with that, my bad...

Man, when we speak of Economics it can really be argued in a 100 ways couldn't it. There really is no black and white with the most complex of issues.

[Baltar]

Originally Posted by Still Growing

Hey, it would be wonderful if everything was reusable but they are not and so here we are...

It would also be wonderful if a health economy worked off of whats best for the earth instead of supply & demand but it doesn't.

Exactly! The economy is not stupid. The economy is the economy. Its purpose is not to be environmentally friendly, but to allow businesses to compete at providing products and services to consumers while making a profit. Pollution and recycling are issues of ethics, not of the economy itself which is why we have regulation laws for controlling pollution. But regulation has to be kept at a minimum. The more rules you create for businesses to follow the less efficiently they can operate, and that hurts the economy.

One example of recent recycling legislation is California's Electronic Waste Recycling Act of 2003. The law adds a recycling fee to products that have "viewable screens" which mainly means computer monitors and televisions. I think that ultimately businesses should handle recycling though, just like the paper, plastic, glass, and metal recycling today is a profitable business.

[Keith]

I'm saying that the economy is flawed, and the VCR case is one example of it.

The economy operates under the delusion that 'the environment' is part of the budget (at best) or an unrelated issue (at worst), but without the environment there can be no economy!

Air quality is a classic example - it has no dollar value on it, therefore it is literally worthless! Yet try running an economy without it.

In the case of limited resources like oil, the economy prices them at the cost to extract them from the ground! It can't possibly be rational to sell a litre of oil for less than the cost of a hamburger today, and for more than the cost of a car tomorrow. Not when that's foreseeable.

The GDP is relevant as it is the way a country measures 'economic progress'. If that number goes up, a country pats itself on the back as doing well. That number goes up when money is spent on something, no matter how wasteful; high crime shows as an increase in the GDP because of the high social costs.

I'm not suggesting that we all run out and become communists ; the free market is very, very good at what it does. But if it's not required to measure true costs then there's room for improvement.

[Still Growing]

Keith,
I know you have mentioned several times that the GDP is artificially high because various factors that are included in its calculation but that does not really have anything to do with saying that a person should fix a VCR even if it costs him more. It also does not mean whatsoever that the economy is flawed.

Please explain to me how the economy is flawed because you can buy a new VCR cheaper than you can have it fixed. I do not think that means that the economy is flawed at all. I think that means that the production of VCR's has been improved to a point whereby it is manufacturered by the most efficient means so there is not so much more cost to cut out. If a VCR were still $300 then it would have many flaws in terms of its efficiency to manufacturer so therefore you could have some temporary artificial economies such as VCR repair.

I am open to your point of view and maybe I'm not seeing what you see. But it appears that your view of a healthy economy is much more utopia based than capatilistic based.

[eternomi]

Originally Posted by Still Growing

Please explain to me how the economy is flawed because you can buy a new VCR cheaper than you can have it fixed. I do not think that means that the economy is flawed at all. I think that means that the production of VCR's has been improved to a point whereby it is manufacturered by the most efficient means so there is not so much more cost to cut out.

I agree with this. I am not an economy guru, so I am not sure how we got to where we are today with the economy. Obviously, the process for creating products is very efficient and getting better, thus creating things is very cheap. However, fixing them (enhancing their lifetime) is not. I am just curious how one might go about adding this to the cycle of the economy so that product life extension becomes part of the system rather than an afterthought which is clearly currently inefficient and is not working.

[Still Growing]

Originally Posted by outback

I agree with this. I am not an economy guru, so I am not sure how we got to where we are today with the economy. Obviously, the process for creating products is very efficient and getting better, thus creating things is very cheap. However, fixing them (enhancing their lifetime) is not. I am just curious how one might go about adding this to the cycle of the economy so that product life extension becomes part of the system rather than an afterthought which is clearly currently inefficient and is not working.

Outback,
Although it does not make since for you or the economy to repair a VCR that is less expensive to buy new it does make since for the economy to develop new efficiencies in recycling.

Currently, many forms of recycling consume more energy than new production. While some people struggle to figure out how to recycle the VCR or DVD player, others are figuring out how to do away with it all together. Why? Because there is no more money to be made in the hardware and its all about content.

If we had let the gov't be involved they would tax the VCR so that they could use the money to recycle it. Really backwards thinking...
The system works best when there is money to be made from it and there can only be money made with its done so by the private sector. If the gov't manages it then its an expense and it usually does not improve.

If you told the IRS, you made millions but could not account for it they would cease your property but yet they have not once balanced their budget.

If you want to see something destroyed then let the gov't handle it. The management of money is best done by the people who have earned it. First of all they will respect it, secondly they understand how it got there and finally they understand what they need to do to see it prosper. Politicians deal with huge budgets of monopoly money and although they are smart people they really don't understand much about it.

Economics is like a huge factory with many moving parts. Without understand the entire system, if you increase or decrease the lubrication to one sector it could have adverse effects. Politicians make decisions because they either are being paid by companies (directly or indirectly) or because the people are asking them to do it so this will make them popular. In either case there are interests involved that may not be the best for all.

In a free market, the best and most efficient way should win. Its a sort of natural selection system. In my opinion it is best not to tamper too much with the private sector.

Yes we need a gov't but not to tax our VCR disposal, for example.


----------------------------

KEITH,
I have re-read your posts and as I put them together I just couldn't disagree more...

You said that the economy is stupid. To say I disagree with this comment would be an understatement.

The economy is much smarter than the politicians who you would have regulate it. You also said that our economy is flawed if we are not able to reuse a VCR. This type of thinking is very much shared by many politicians. Many of these well educated people also believe that the economy and also the people left to their own demise will collapse. I for one, think the free economy is beautiful. Not perfect but and not without flaws but still beautiful.

The economy is like a garden and mother nature is not stupid. Yes it needs water, weeded and should not be over farmed or the dirt will eventually be robbed of its nutrients. What would the governement do ??? The gov't would put a shed over it, build a sprinkler system and award contracts to their friends to harvest the crops instead of letting the actual farm owner harvest the crops. Get my point?

You say that your comments are not for communism but they really are. The communists think the economy is stupid and so do socialists. In Europe, the prevalent mentality is that the economy is stupid and so a larger gov't is needed and hence you need to pay taxes as much as 50%. I'm not knocking Europe as a whole but what I love about the US is that it broke free of that system. Now its slowly going back to that centralized system.

Your opinion that the economy is stupid is not rare. You have many people who think as you do. You are also entitled to your opinion but its definitely not what the US was founded on.

Lets go back to the VCR:
You say the economy is flawed if we must discard the VCR rather than reusing it. I explained that it would consume more energy to recycle it than to produce it new.

Under your thinking, the gov't would tax the VCR since it cannot be reused. This would increase the price of VCR and have companies think of ways to reuse the VCR cases. This would ultimately cause more inefficiency and make us ever more committed to the VCR as a technology. The smart politicians would feel so good that the stupid people and economy were not left to their own demise wouldn't they?

Well a smart and free economy says you can't tax my VCR. The price of the VCR gets lower and lower to a point whereby the least amount of energy is consumed to produce this item until there is no more money to be made in the hardware. This could lead to streaming video through the internet or the cable companies.

So with your way of thinking that the economy is stupid, you would have the people reuse this VCR either by gov't intervention or through their on conscience even though it was not efficient for them as an individual to do so. This would create an unnatural tendency on your personal interest under the thought that it was "good for us" but yet we would not proceed as an economy or with our technology.

If we compare these two scenarios, I'd hardly call our free economy stupid and that it needs over-regulation.

Yes, we can both mention a thousand scenarios when gov't intervention is needed where there is an imminent harm created for the people just so a company can make a buck. We have to regulate extreme cases while letting the little VCR evolve.

I still vote to buy the VCR new and to let your so called "Stupid Economy" run its natural course. After reading and thinking of this further do you still vote to repair your VCR for more than it costs you because you believe its better for us as a people?

Say what you want since we'll never see your face in the line at Wal-mart buying your new VCR.

Still Growing...

[eternomi]

Originally Posted by Still Growing

If you want to see something destroyed then let the gov't handle it. The management of money is best done by the people who have earned it.

Where did you read me suggest that we should get the government involved?! When I said "we", I meant business owners, entrepreneurs, etc.. Not necessarily the government.

Originally Posted by Still Growing

The economy is much smarter than the politicians who you would have regulate it.

The economy is currently optimized for value creation on "selling a product", but what happens after the product is sold is not part of the economy. It creates no value, therefore the economy does not handle it and see if we can collectively come up with ideas to solve this problem.

The economy is "flawed" because what it optimizes is not always in the best interest of all involved. Economy (I mean the capitalistic economy) optimizes for the most money made, but that could sometimes be at the expense of the well-being of people (Enron), or the well-being of nature (Exxon oil spill), etc..

For recycling and repairs to be part of the (capitalistic) economy, they need to create value. Currently they don't, but that doesn't mean it is completely out of the question... or maybe it is... I just posted this thread to create a hook in the minds of all who are getting into business.

Not creating something to be repaired/recycled is a good idea, but that's not going to work for everything.

I know government is not a very efficient problem solver, but they could implement taxation for creating waste. This would be "taxing the bad" as opposed to "tax relief for the good". (It is easier to see the hit you take than to calculate how much you would save). This taxation would force the economy to optimize for the least amount of waste creation as well as most money made. And taxation is not exactly government intervention. We just need a way to measure how much waste each entity (person and corporation) is creating.

Last option is working with what we got which is tougher obviously. Products aren't exactly designed for repair/recycle. It may or may not be possible to work with what we got, but any improvement in this area would be well worth it. For example, there are companies which use the "wastes" of other companies as their raw materials, create products and make money.

[Still Growing]

Outback,
In your previous post you agreed with me that the economy is not flawed. You said "I agree with this. I am not an economy guru, so I am not sure how we got to where we are today with the economy". Now you are saying that the economy is flawed. I'm confused by your change of position on this....

Then you say "Where did you read me suggest that we should get the government involved?! When I said "we", I meant business owners, entrepreneurs, etc.. Not necessarily the government." Then you reply by saying "I know government is not a very efficient problem solver, but they could implement taxation for creating waste." I'm sorry but you are really confusing me here..

Even though I think you are contradicting yourself, I am enjoying our conversation. But, getting back to the VCR. You are now agreeing with Keith that the economy is flawed and that we should tax such items if they cannot be recycled such as the VCR.

So lets say you taxed the VCR's metal case by $50. From manufacturer to distributor to retailers this would be a $150 mark up on your $100 VCR resulting in a $250 VCR. Manufacturers would then spend their money on molds for a plastic case. Then I guess you'd impose a new tax on any case. So the manufacturers would work to develop a case return return. Sounds great right?

1. How much fuel would be needed to ship the cases back to the factories?
2. How many new employees would the government need to police this?
3. How much human attention would it take to develop and to manage this?
4. Where do you stop? Do you now tax every item or just focus on VCR companies?
5. Don't you think the factories should become more efficient and not less?
6. How much energy would it take to cool the new warehouses that hold the discarded cases?
7. How much energy would be consumed to run the machines that will reprocess the cases?
8. What if it actually hurt the environment more to reprocess these cases? Would that matter to you?
9. Since we can't police foreign companies would it just be the American manufacturers or importers you would put out of business?

The gov't could offer a grant to improve recycling and propose that idea to companies. Something of that nature could be good but to think the gov't is an expert on efficiencies is preposterous. Imagine we are on a farm and the farm is owned by the people. The chickens lay the eggs and the dog keeps the pretators out and the chickens in. Now one of the farmer's sons has a brilliant idea. He will put the dog in the chicken coup to keep a better eye on the chickens to make sure they are in there doing what the chickens are supposed to be doing. The farmer tries to advise his son that he's seen this before and that the dog will eat the chickens, the chickens will stop laying eggs out of fear and the pretators will move even closer in on the farm. The farmer explains to his son that dogs are great for keeping the chickens in and the pretators out but the dog has no business in the chicken coup.

Or maybe........ I have it all backwards, maybe you would have us believe that the government is the farm owner and the people are the dog. In my opinion, the federal government (dog) does a good job of farm security and basic things.

You should not expect the gov't to be the end-all. We have to have a gov't to keep basic order but now you want them to become even larger and tax us on our inefficiencies????? You are not serious are you? The gov't is going to be in charge of how the companies can become more efficient?

I'm dying with laughter here....

Let's recap:

1. The $100 hammer
2. Warehouses full of pencils. Hey they had to use the budget. Use it or loose it
3. Our national deficit is over $8 trillion and growing $1.21 billion per day.
4. Billions of dollars that nobody can seem to find.
5. Never have they balanced a budget
6. Imported Italian marble desks and Mahogany wall panels because...

And you seriously want our government to tax business owners and people even more on their consumption of products that are inefficent. And this government is going to outline how we can be more efficient and we should listen and follow them or we will be taxed more?

Please, you've got to be kidding.


Sincerely,

Still Growing.

[eternomi]

Originally Posted by Still Growing

In your previous post you agreed with me that the economy is not flawed. You said "I agree with this. I am not an economy guru, so I am not sure how we got to where we are today with the economy". Now you are saying that the economy is flawed. I'm confused by your change of position on this....

Maybe "flawed" wasn't the best way to put it. It is not optimized for recycling/repairing/reusing. It is optimized for one-time use. You can call that flawed, unfortunate, irresponsible, etc..

Originally Posted by Still Growing

Then you say "Where did you read me suggest that we should get the government involved?! When I said "we", I meant business owners, entrepreneurs, etc.. Not necessarily the government." Then you reply by saying "I know government is not a very efficient problem solver, but they could implement taxation for creating waste." I'm sorry but you are really confusing me here..

Getting the government involved is one option (probably not a good one). The best would be to insert repair/recycle/reuse into the economic value chain and government could give incentives to do this, but probably can't make it happen. People chase dollars (often ignoring the longterm effects of their actions). If it makes money for them, they'll do anything. I don't know how we can make reusing/repairing/recycling attractive enough that businesses would want to do it. This thread was originally started to discuss how to make this happen.

[WanderingOak]

I've heard tell that in third world countries, trash heaps are picked clean of anything remotely re-usable or recyclable by 'street level entrepreneurs'. Even organic wastes are composted into fertilizer. When I was in the Navy, in many ports we visited, we would unload trash while taking on fuel and stores- even if we were only there for a few hours. Fights would ensue over the 'privilege' of picking through bags of empty soup cans, spoiled vegetables, and broken/disposable equipment. Here in the US, that isn't an option, just because the county dumps are fenced off from the public and dumpster-diving is culturally unacceptable and in many cases illegal. Oft-times, the attendants at 'waste transfer stations' will actively prevent you from salvaging something that somebody else considers trash. After all, if a 'professional salvager' cuts his wrist open on a piece of tin while trying to recycle the hypothetical broken VCR, he could sue the landfill/dumpster owner for every penny he has.

Many communities have 'bottle bounties' in place for beverage containers. When I was growing up in Brooklyn, many people made a living picking through public trash receptacles, recovering bottles and cans. I've often been known to do 'guerilla gardening' on leaf pick-up day, going about in my truck collecting bags of leaves that I mulch and compost for my garden. I've also picked up several cabinets for my workshop on large trash day, because as the saying goes 'one man's trash is another man's treasure'.

Perhaps rather than fencing people out of the landfills, and locking dumpster covers, we should just 'gently remind' people that the property owner isn't responsible for accidents, and that salvagers enter at their own risk. Then again, we may have become too 'civilized' for a model such as that to work here.