An interesting artifact

[denise 20352]

  I was just thinking about this artifact that someone once showed me.  It was a carved wooden stick shaped like a rifle.

  At first, it looked to me like a kids toy, but then the man explained that the Indians had made it after the White Man fired rifles at them for the first time.  Without having seen the rifle up close, they didnt know what it was or how it worked, so they assumed that it had some sort of magical property.  Perhaps if they made wooden sticks that looked like rifles, they could point them at the White Man and go "BOOM!" right back at them, with the same magic.

  Whether or not the story is true, I dont know, but I just realized that this is exactly what the US carmakers have done.  In the 80s, people switched to Japanese cars because they were sick and tired of the poor quality of American cars.  The American carmakers assumed that the hard steering, rough ride, and cheap, plain interior was what attracted people, so thats what theyre building now.  Do you think that they will ever build a comfortable, easy driving car that looks American, or will they keep trying to build Japanese cars until they all fold up?  Now that even Honda and Nissan are building pickup trucks, there is only one market niche left for them, and theyre completely ignoring it.

-denise

[Randall A. McGrew CLC # 17693]

A very insightful rumanance.  I think you may have it.

Of course, if you think historically, what made the auto industry possible?  I mean, very generally?   The production line.  Thanks to Ford, America could have as many cars that could be made.  They all looked pretty much the same with variation on in utility to start but the differences came along with more and more advances.  But ultimately, it was the fact that fewer people could make more products, more efficiently, which supposedly made it possible for them to make better and better things, cheaper and cheaper.  Ok its a lie, but that was the theory.  Actually they are cheap and lousier...but because of the wonderful new business tool and methodology, we can all thank Henry Ford for the crap everyone now drives.  Simplistic but basically on target... with a whole lot of Harvard type business junk and some cool engineering in between.

Oh and how about this for a thought :   you know how horse hair stuffing smelled?  yuck.  Plastics sure made seats and interior pieces more colorful, expressive ... and toxic.  Oh yeah, toxic.  As plastics and other of those wonderful marvels of modern chemistry warm in the sun, they release fumes and microscopic particles that are toxic.  Youve heard that burning plastics and foam rubber put off Cynide gas?  Well they also put off such lovely things as formaldahyde when warm and glowing in the sun.  

Better living through chemistry!!!  HAH!