Conserving resources

"Should the profit margin of a very few corporate owners outweigh the greater need for the whole world to make the best possible use of all resources."

Always has; always will. Short term $ gain always trumps long term preparation and planning for the future.

This will be a problem until we arrest progress, and I see no sign that's happening.

You could enact legislation to require for planning and recycling of materials when the device is manufactured. _Right!

While I sympathize with your concern, at least in the consumer electronics arena repair of anything lower than at the board level is simply impractical because of the widespread use of surface mount devices (they are extremely difficult to replace). I used to repair TVs, stereos, radios etc. at the component (capacitor/resistor/IC) level but those days are long gone. Troubleshooting was both an art form and a science.Today repair shops might swap out a major subsystem board but it's likely to be cheaper to simply buy a new TV/radio, whatever than to fix it. I don't see this changing anytime soon. When the cost of a repair exceeds the cost of the item there's going to be alot of waste unfortunately.

Who said only electronics. This is just as applicable to any consumer item. From shoes to kitchen gadgets.

I am out of work. Consequently people have begun to ask me if I could/would fix something for them. In many cases I do effect a repair and charge enough that we have managed to get by. More often I salvage something from the dumpster and use it after repairing it. What amazes me is the waste I see. I recently recovered from the dump a piece of brand new and still functional piece of industrial control equipment. It had never been installed. It works and is still being sold as current for around $1500 USD. Half a dozen mills in the area are still using this kind of equipment.

Nor do I accept the argument that profit will always be king and trumps everything. In the French evolution even kings lost their head. There will come a time when the have-nots will get pissed enough to take action against the minority of the world population that seem to be gobbling up the majority of the worlds respources. Then what?

If profit is king then why are we even having any discussions about global climate effect. It cost money to cut emissions.

Well said elnav

I appreciate your concern and I share it.

The high cost of repairs is due to high cost of living. But in India and China, the cost of living is not that high and every body thinks of repairing anything, before thinking about purchasing new one. You will never see any car dumped on road side, as in many western countries. On the other hand government has to pass the legislation against use of vehicals more that 15 years old!

Same thing is true for electronics also. No body throws the electronics, when it is not working. First he tries to repair it or/and sale it. There are repair shops for anything.

Rest of the world need to follow these practices to save themselves.

Economy of scale.

Consumer demand.

milo

It is possible to make something that is quality and repairable. If it last long enough, there will be more potential buyers who will want to buy such a quality product. So instead of a few affluent people buying repeat copies of something that quickly wears out, three people ( or more) each buy one of that product. The manufacturer will still sell the same number of products. But instead of selling three of something to one guy they will sell to three seperate indivduals.

What is really driving that kind of silly consumer demand is marketing.

I understand your passion but disagree with your generalizations.

The stuff that you are talking about is best exemplified by cell phones as a certain cat has pointed out. Even workers in China have cell phones these days. By making things at scalable quantities, manufacturers operate at the lowest point of the cost price curve, thus earning that portion of the market whose demand can afford that price.

Marketing does facilitate the transaction.

As for silly features, My sarcastic side has to agree. Who the flip really wants airbags, anti lock brakes, power steering, windshield wipers and <gasp> headlights requiring a separate electrical system on ones personal transportation? when all we want is transportation?

I like amenities. I like not having to check failing tubes (valves) because my solid state color TV does run. Black and white ones had uhh issues. I'm not nostalgic about a tube blowing say, right before a big game...

I haven't had an ipod, macbook, or dell computer fail.In my family. over past say 10 years. Hp's Yep, they failed. Lesson learned.

I buy a little higher up on the cost price curve.

That is the decision to be made- Where do we as consumers buy on the curve?

The sony end? or the bang and olafson end?

The Honda Civic or the Chevy cobalt?

milo

What? You want to ruin the whole economy? There is a whole cadre that just figure "Use it up, Burn it up, Throw it away." Somebody will figure a way to replace it!

GHAAA! Consumer electronics get better by increments not because they don't know how to make them better now, but because "The next generation" has been planned for when you are getting used to what you have. So out comes the next model, and everyone HAS to have it. They think we're stupid, and we go along with it. We no longer complain when last years model has shit the bed. Hell, just buy the 'new improved' one. Kinda like amortizing your stupidity.

I'll never buy another Sony anything. They crash as a matter of course after the warranty has run out. It's only a few dollars more to get a new one than to get the old one fixed.

End of rant.

Tippycanoe said: "What? You want to ruin the whole economy? "

Its already ruined thanks to super greed by a few individuals with their Ponzy schemes and what have you. Meanwhile every business owner who fires all his employees and exports the production to offshore places that promise low, low, labor costs is aiding and abetting the process of destuction of domenstic manufacturing.

What will happen is there will no longer be anyone who even knows how to make anything. The older experienced people will retire or die off but no one has been trained to replace them. Suddenly you wil discover ther is no industry and no one will even know how to make anything. At that point foreign interests can hold us up for ransom since we can no loger do for ourselves.

Mobile phones are the classic case.
There is no real reason for the constant change and evolution other than to sell more product..they produce new trendy phones to stimulate the market and sell tham ludicrously cheaply or give them away just to hook you on their contract which is what makes the money.
They are a HUGE waste of resources, and doubtless are full of nasties.

All these fancy facilities, and yet you can't get a damn signal on hill in north London...madness

I hate telecoms with a passion.
Del

Waste management companies are running out of room in which to dump such waste, yet we do not as yet have good recycling programs in place

The European Union has recently (last few years) introduced such a scheme - Waste Electric and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Regulations 2002/96/EC.

Recycling companies have been / are being set up to deal with the waste which is segregated at source (factories or municipal facilities - Tips). It doesn't go to land fill. It's broken down into constituent compounds and these are sold as feed stocks for appropriate industries.

Back in the late 1990s when I worked for Uncle Henry, much of the plastics used were recycled (another legal requirement). The European plan for cars (don't know about US) is that manufacturers will be fined for every part of the car that can not be recycled at the end of life.

All the hooha about Recycling has missed the point that the Recycling is the youngest of three siblings: the other two are Reduce and Reuse and are more effective in conserving resources than Recycling. In some respects, Recycling should be the last resort! Now there's a concept to blow a tree-hugging, spagetti-eating hippie's mind!

Given the history of electronics, until the recent invention of waste all, want all, electronics, et al, was designed to not only be reliable but long lived AND REPAIRABLE at a reasonable cost. Somewhere along the way, somebody got the idea that they could not only increase profits but increase market demands by intentionally making stuff less reliable and non-repairable. Marketing hype has been very successful at making us think we really need all of this throw-away junk. Yes, junk! Anything that costs as much as things do today and gives such short service is nothing short of junk!

This kind of thinking is short sighted and wasteful and is only geared to one thing, making profits and getting bonuses for oneself by coming up with new ways to rip off the public. The cell phone is definitely a great example. The vast majority of cell phones are NOT particularly cheap, if one believes the supposed retail pricing given for them. Telecommunications companies buy these phones in huge quantities, at wholesale prices, offering them to customers 'free' (that is a misnomer!) or at reduced pricing from retail, but one way or another, you are going to pay for them! I don't know about outside the U.S., but these 'cheap' phones are packaged with very expensive phone services with a two year minimum contract. To get out of these contracts, one must pay a very large penalty, i.e., essentially the cost of the phone. Cell phones are not cheap by any definition of the word.

I do not disagree that there is some genuine usefulness to cell phones but on the other hand, the vast majority of traffic on cell phones is totally unnecessary and would not even be taking place if it wasn't because one of these 'tethers' were not in your pocket. We have become addicted to a mostly unnecessary form of expensive communication. Just look at your monthly cell phone bill and remember how much your land line used to cost.

Hundred of millions of these phones have been made and thrown away because they cannot be repaired or are too difficult to repair at reasonable cost. Some small portion of these phones have been recycled to new users but the vast tonnage of these phones are now residing in the trash, a total waste of resources. Why are they not repairable? One reason, size, these wonders can only be put together by machines, not humans. The fact that machines do it is not the problem, the fact that they have become unrepairable by design is. The batteries which run them only last a relatively short time and a replacement is also too expensive, marked way up over a reasonable profit margin, another reason to toss the phone and get another one, ever notice that the battery only lasts about as long as the time to the next upgrade.

The economy of scale which has made these cell phones (for example) supposedly 'cheap' and available in large quantity would also reduce the cost of making them repairable, there is little EXCUSE for any equipment to not be repairable and at a reasonable cost. That is what engineers can do, that is NOT what bean-counting, pencil necks do, they are quite the opposite in their targets. Anybody who argues that manufacturability (i.e. easy of making, not ease of repairing) is a plus is blowing smoke up their own butts! The only argument they can put forward in support of this fact is that this makes their jobs easier, it is no wonder they argue in favor of it. The question that should be asked is; has manufacturability made things better? The answer is a resounding NO! The supposed advantages are if fact, null and void in the long run, it only reduces the initial costs, it actually increases the overall costs and in a most costly manner to everyone, not just the purchaser. As we bury more and more resources in trash dumps, these resources are going to become much more expensive and guess where that is going to lead us? Higher initial cost and even higher long term cost, not a very pretty future.

Certainly, making something repairable is going to cost a little more but in the long run, it really costs a lot less than throwing everything away and just buying more of it. The truth is, we are not getting our money's worth with todays throw-away junk, we have been led to believe that we are getting a good bargain. Yes, the initial lower price has allowed some people to be able to buy stuff they wouldn't have before but that is not a very good argument for tons of trash.

Those of us who are older, remember when we bought things, they lasted for years, on the occasion when they broke, they could be repaired reasonably and still lasted for some years. This fact never put anyone in manufacturing out of business and in fact, this reliability made a very good name for them in the bargain, netting them more business. Toasters used to last 30, 40, even 50 years (my parents toaster lasted nearly 50 years), all you had to do was replace the cord about every 10 or 15 years. How long do today's appliances last? 1, 2, maybe 5 years if you're really lucky!

I had an electric water heater that was 35 years old when it developed a pin hole leak. The repairman told me that the special 'screw' that was designed to fix such leaks had been discontinued by the manufacturer because the heater manufacturers didn't want them to be repaired. The new water heater? Expected life span...8-10 years IF I'm lucky. So far, I have been lucky, but the thermostat has been failing every three years like clockwork, at least it is still available. I'm not the only one having the same problem with the same water heaters, pressure relief valves and thermostats fail regularly on these models. Not impressive!

When I bought my first VCR in the early 1980s (1982 to be exact), with the exception of normal cleaning and an adjustment or two, the video head needed replacing after about 10 years and thousands of hours of use. How long do VCR / DVD players last today on average? 2, 3, maybe 5 years if you're lucky and what happens when they break? Toss them and buy another one because repairs are going to cost just about as much as a new one because they don't replace parts any more, they replace assemblies! Waste, waste, waste! I also agree that recycling should be the last resort, after something has given some good years of use and has really worn out, retire it and recycle it!

To the gentleman who complained about vacuum tubes (or valves to our friends across the big pond), they were and still are capable of giving long life. If you were having problems with frequent failures, guess what? The TV was poorly designed, not much different than today. I have tube equipment which is still operating after 50 years and with infrequent tube replacements, that means they were WELL DESIGNED and built for service. Unfortunately, the consumer segments of the market have been under attack for quite a few years, crappy service and lifetimes are now the norm, there is little room to dispute these facts.

Until the consumer wises up and starts putting pressure on manufacturers to change their ways, it isn't going to happen, we have invited what is happening to us ourselves to a large degree. Long lasting equipment used to work just fine, it can work again, we don't have to toss everything in the trash today.

Frankly, most of the EU's nonsensical regulations would not be needed if we were still repairing equipment like we used to. These regulations are nothing short of Band-aids for serious problems. Eliminating or forcing recycling would not be necessary if we were repairing instead. Just look at the cost of all these regulations, guess who is paying for all of this....THE CONSUMER! Repairs just makes sense!

At the risk of self identifying, I challenge your statement:

" Anybody who argues that manufacturability (i.e. easy of making, not ease of repairing) is a plus is blowing smoke up their own butts! The only argument they can put forward in support of this fact is that this makes their jobs easier, it is no wonder they argue in favor of it."

I'm not smoking.

Every Company invests capital to manufacture, and you can bet that their goal is to minimize their cost of goods sold in order to have a chance at making a profit at whatever the market determines the price to be. Minimzing costs of manufacturing is critical if they are to even remain a business. THAT AIN"T SMOKE.

MArketing and contracts are effective ways to tie people up to expensive subscriptions but YOU DON"T have to bite at every piece of bait that is offered. I'm on year 4 of my Samsung Camera phone, it would be year 5 but the original seems to have been "waylaid" while I was standing on the rapid transit in Atlanta ...

I am certainly not nostalgic for the repairable technology of my child hood. It was repairable and that was because it needed repairs. They made that crap the best they could with acceptance plans for defectives, (dodge romig) Buying Known quantities of defectives in every purchase order. Puhleeze.

Vacuum tubes failing because of poor design? Well there must have been a lot of poor designs, because my little town had a dozen or so tv repair shops back in the day, and my dad and the guy across the street also did it on the side in their garages... The complaint wasn't always against the tubes per se; it was that we had to check them, to troubleshoot, to find what the problem was. Because the radio or tv had failed again. But often it was the tubes THATS WHY THEY SOLD THEM IN DRUG STORES>>>

You like having tubes blow out? Long warm up times on tv? Colors that wouldn't stay true? I like my solid state new technology just fine. I have no idea how old my current all in one tv- vcr- dvd unit is, but its at least 6 years old, and For what i paid for it, why would I want to put more time (my time is VALUABLE) or money (YOUR TIME IS EXPENSIVE TOO) into it.

ITS A SUNK COST!

Get over it. How many years did you get out of it? with reasonable care?

Its not a "classic" Its not going to be an antique. ITS a flippin tv. New technology on the way.

I will never be confused for old order amish. I have no nostalgia for the old days when things needed to be repaired.

Maybe my family bought things at the wrong end of the Cost price curve back then, Hmm RCA, SYLVANIA, FORD, GE, WESTINGHOUSE, BUICK, NOPE, We weren't buying cheap. But what we bought invariably needed repaired.

I challenge you to document that the 'repairable cars' of our past were more "reliable" than my honda civic today.

GM, FORD, CHRYSLER were the rip off artists in my past, passing the same % of defectives (LEMON LAWS WEREN"T WRITTEN BECAUSE OF HONDA OR TOYOTA DEAR FRIENDS) around between themselves.Customer got angry and changed brands, they still had same chance of getting a lemon from the other two. When the Japanese brought in quality systems and advanced technologies (what you are defining as nonrepairable) as standard, their gig was up.

By the way,the new technologies and manufacturabiliuty have reduced the actual mass per phone by about a factor of 32X- Old ma bell phone was about 8 pounds, new cell phone ~ 4 oz...I'd be even steven mass discarded wise if I replaced phone every two years and lived another 64 years, that would make me hmmm, about 120...

I can see the nostalgia of the bygone frontiersman that can cast his own bullets, forge his own steel, knap his own flints, mill his own powder, plant his own garden and butcher his own meat and makes clothes out of the skins. I can and have done all of these things. DOESN'T mean thats the best use of my time. Or my kids time.

I love living in yesterday's future. No desire to return to yesterday's technology.

milo 'I'm not smoking'

I understand both sides of this argument to an extent. Yes, it irritates me to undertake a repair and find myself facing a Rubic's Cube hidden in the middle of a Gordian Knot. Being of a parsimonious persuasion, I will fix it regardless of the irritation level. But it's still better than having to replace spark plugs and points every 10,000 miles, change my oil every 2,000 or 3,000 miles, tires at 20,000 - 30,000 miles, and having a car whose life expectancy is only 100,000 miles on average and gets 15 - 20 MPG.

As far as cell phones go, our plan is so cheap that we replaced the land line with a cell, have another for my wife and a third for my daughter which averages about $30 a month in total, which is $40 less than the last land line bill 3 years ago. These are the same phones save for one that suffered a misadventure.

We replaced our old 19 inch TV with a new 27 inch TV that we bought at an electronic big box. This outlasted the warranty by 2 weeks. After receiving no satisfaction from the big box or the manufacturer, we took it to a local shop known for good, honest service. They informed us that the big box orders in quantities so large that they can specify cheaper componentry be used by the manufacturer to hold costs down. The set bought from a small shop would not be the same set bought at a big box. Our set was not worth fixing.

So we bought a 32 inch. Name brand, not the cheapest in their series, nor the most expensive. (The difference being the number of scan lines). This has already lasted a half again longer than what the shop estimated it would, with the only issue being poor contacts in some of the buttons on the remote. The price difference between this local shop and the big box was under $50.00. And if it dies, I will have them look at it.

Better than me being the remote, my father telling me to go change the channel, adjusting the antenna, fine tuning the VHF and especially the UHF, vertical hold adjustments, horizontal flicker, and contrast settings, all adjustable from the front of the TV because of the frequency of use. And this was a good RCA.

So they don't make them like they used to; GOOD! If you shop with some care buying what you need, as opposed to buying just to have that new toy, you'll be a lot happier. Maintain what you can and use it within the limits of what it was designed for and it should last. That's why my car has over 200,000 miles on it and still runs well, I have tools older than my kids, and electric fans as old if not older than me.

I buy the best I can afford, and try to maintain it so I don't have to buy it again. So far, this paradigm has worked well for me.

Gee! I always wanted a car just for tinkering. You know, one that you don't have to have ready to drive at any moment and where you can tinker at your leisure. Its one of my hobbies.

AS far as TV goes. I have a question. Do you get more content on the screen with a 32" compared to a 19" screen? What additional content does that include? Just back ground scenery or do you see more characters? We don't have TV so I would not know. I have discovered a great form of alternate entertainment. Called books. You can absorb the story at your own pace. If you have to go answer a call of nature you put down the book and can pick up the story whenever you are ready. No matter how many times it is read it does not seem to wear out. Friends tell me their CDs wear out and become unreadable.

Cell phone for $30 / month. In this country the tax alone each month amounts to that. Actual service fees are much greater. We don't have so many service providers. And both companies lie about how much and where their coverage area extends.

I have noted a correlation between remote controls and waist line. Those people that I know who have remote control for everything invariably have much greater waistlines than those who do not have remote controls. Maybe its just a coincidence, but you can't help wondering.

You have a delightful sense of irony.

milo

I learned it from my boss. He happens to be a carpenter.

So far the "tinkering" on my car has consisted of about 40 oil and filter changes, 3 sets of spark plugs, tires, and brakes, 2 cv shafts, 1 new muffler and 1 carrier bearing in 205,763 miles over 10 years. I've yet to be stranded with this car.

We bought the TV for better detail at a distance, costs being about equal for smaller sets. I enjoy the science and history channels, and watch some news. Like your phones, there is no a-la carte for the cable, so for the 8 channels I watch regularly, I pay for 78.

Yes, I still read books too. I get into a couple of magazines but do most of my reading right here at my computer.

Still, the weather has done more to affect my waistline than a remote ever has; all this global warming has my garden looking like I planted it 3 weeks ago, and it wont stay dry enough long enough to paint the house. So I just ride my bicycle around until either bored or sore, and then go fishing.

Milo wrote: I can see the nostalgia of the bygone frontiersman that can cast his own bullets, forge his own steel, knap his own flints, mill his own powder, plant his own garden and butcher his own meat and makes clothes out of the skins. I can and have done all of these things.

Sounds like you were into pioneer re-enactments of some kind. Kinda fun as a hobby. Did that myself. But I agree, its not as good a way to live as the present. But I don't necessarily agree everything modern is good. TV shows are for the most part too filled with sex, violence and general mayhem. Who wants to watch that? Quite frankly there is nothing inspiring about any of the current shows or movies. Yes I do see some of them when visiting other people. I just don't have TV at home.

Phones cell or otherwise. When I make a point of visiting a person in person, I find it incredibly rude for them to immidately jump if the phone rings and then proceed to yak away for a long time while ignoring me. Hallo! I came in person to visit you. Who is this that is interrupting us. The president? Only one person in a hundred excuse themselves then answer the phone saying, "I'm busy right now, can I call you back?" A very few will ignore the phone and say "never mind. The answering machine will get their number. I'll call back later". The one exception is a friend who is periodically on emergency standby and he has to answer in case it's a work call for help.

Milo I think you missed the point about repairability. I was talking about the fact many products are now designed specifically to prevent them from being repaired. Sooner or later everything mechanical shows wear in bearing surfaces. When an assembly is designed so it cannot be opened without breakage , that is not acceptable. Why are so many printers tossed into the garbage when the only problem is an ink spill tray that is overfull? A $10 replacement tray would be an acceptable solution. But they are not available. I have washed out several of these and they work perfectly without smearing ink. But to disassemble the printer. Now that is a challenge! I have been told by the service shop that such printers are not intended to be serviced. It cuts into the company's profit. Hell they make enough gouging us for under filled ink cartridges as it is. I could go on with a long list; but . . . . the knowledgable people reading this already know and the rest are not interested.

I get it.

But How long is a reasonable life?

I sold steel to Lawn mower companies once upon a time. Their goal was 600 hours useful life.

That was one company and one price point.

I really don't believe that things have to go on for ever. I guess we all buy into the idea of a finite life span. I don't really think 10 years life for a fan is mandatory. Its a sunk cost.

I agree with you about inkjet printers- piracy. But like the razor company, they practically give you the printer, to hook you to their ink.

Fixing things can be rewarding hobby, but Its no longer mine.

At my Salary grade, and with the limited time off available, and what I like to do with it, taking apart the toaster to fix it when i can buy another for $10 ( or $100! ) doesn't make sense.

The issue that you raise but didn't articulate is packaging these days. They make that so that it is not reassembleable, to discourage returns.

Want to send something back, find your own box.

mi "good little consumer, I guess" lo

Milo you raise an interesting point. "how long is a reasonable lifetime?" I agree it depends; nor do I think it has to be infinite. What I do object to is throwing out perfectly good and still functioning parts because the manufacturer packaged or assembled it that way. Wearable parts should be easily replaceable in short order. This minimizes how much waste goes into the trash. Bearings, switches, fuses and such do wear out and the time is dependent on frequency and duration of use. And we have done a lot to reduce wear factor by a magnitude. Car ignitions no longer have points. And the solid state module last ten or twenty times as long. Great! If the replacement module takes half an hour to replace that is also great. But if they tell me I have to buy a whole new distributor or (gasp) a whole new motor as a replacement, that is going too far. And that is exactly what they are doing to printers at this time. Not to mention many other things. Assembling an electric motor without any lubricant in the bearing, that is being dishonest with the consumer. It is tantamount to sabotage to cause premature failure. Think of it another way. If things are repairable , then we have employment for a lot of small businesses and these are the people who make up our society. To me that is preferable to spending the same money to line the pockets of a few super rich business owners while our society is being destroyed by unemployment and the often attendant crime increase as people try to survive by any means possible.

This sort of problem is an issue which pivots on the differences in political/economic societies. The easy route for most people is to think that government can fix it, and that all that is required is enough force by government to make corporations comply. Many problems have and are being solved with this method... and it only prolongs and extends the pain.

What most people don't realize is that this method does not work in a free market. Nobody responds well to force, and nobody stays motivated under it. Ever!

What is required is for the customers to demand, and only to purchase products which correspond to a better plan. It really is simple supply and demand. When the customer buys it, they are giving tacit approval to that product. The customer must first be educated in the principles of effective purchasing. Broad public education is the hinge of any lasting civilization, especially in the free market of goods and services. Always.

America was supposed to have been founded upon these sort of ideas, and stay away from government force applied to the markets. It was supposed to be a free enterprise economy.

When a large percentage of customers choose to purchase goods on the basis of quality over price, they begin to change the nature of their economy for the better.. Look at the Japanese following WWII. Deming showed them their national trends of purchasing poor quality materials, and trying to manufacture quality goods for international trade with them. You can't get a silk purse from a sow's ear. Quality begets quality all the way up the value chain, including the strategic design philosophy.

Chris

It also pivots on the daft concept that we must have constant 'growth' and excess 'profit' >
Now I know a bunch of guys will jump on me and say there's no such thing as 'excess proffit'... but how much do we need?
Sustainability is the word. If you have a one man company which makes enough to give you a reasonable income, replace machinery, pay for development etc, why do you need over and above that. Some of these corporations that make billions are obscene...the 'profit' should be the living standard of the employees..
Oh I can't be arsed...yada yada Bankers yada yada...I'm sure you can write it you selves by now...
Del

Perhaps this will help, Del: _{^{please excuse the national stereotypes, they're used for effect}}

An American is holidaying in a remote Greek village. For the first week he watches the fisherman who lives next to the villa in which he is staying.

Each evening the fisherman goes out to fish, coming back just after dawn with his catch, which he sells at the dock. For the rest of the morning he mends his nets and services his boat, if it needs it. After a long, long lunch time, the fisherman spends the rest of the day snoozing in the sun, watching the children play on the beach, smoking and drinking coffee with his friends.

After a week of watching this, our American, a rich, successful industrialist with a string of factories and service centres across the US, approaches the fisherman as he's finishing his lunch.

"You know," he says, "You could have a much better life if you just worked harder."

The fisherman is puzzled and slightly amused and asks the American to explain.

"You're wasting so much time when you could be building up your business. I've watched you - lazing about all afternoon. Why don't you go out fishing with the afternoon fleet too? That would make your more money. do that for a few years and then you could afford another boat - then it really starts. You could employ someone to sail that boat - you only really start to make serious money when you have people working for you. Another couple of years and you'll have two more boats; a few more and you'll have a decent fleet. And then, you can retire from the sea and let your employees do the fishing while you enjoy yourself on shore, comfortable in the knowledge that there will always be an income for you."

The fisherman scratched his beard for a moment. "Forgive me, " he said, "I'm just a simple fisherman. But why would I want to work like a dog for 10 years in order to have the leisure that I enjoy now? I make enough to live. If I need more money sometimes, then I just fish a little longer to make that money. I am happy and I can watch my children grow."

The American looked at him and left without another word.

Yup the version I know is a Native American _{(ok red indian )} sitting by the riverbank making mocassins.
There's one a bout a cat making bows too I believe
Del

Great Del

You said it. I am very happy to see such analysis from one (cat) from western country. It is opposite to consumerism. It is very near to Indian and Chinese philosophy (due to which Indians have fallen back in so called prosperity race).

If we really think about what you said "Sustainability is the word. If you have a one man company which makes enough to give you a reasonable income, replace machinery, pay for development etc, why do you need over and above that", many problems of the current world will be reduced. We are running behind our pseudo needs.

_{Do you know any cat doing business for any profit? Still all cat families are happily living(though human beings are troubling them.}

My dad's 79 Ford F150 lasted until 2004. My 2001 Mazda 626 lasted until 2009. Now I could have replaced the transmission on my Mazda and then drive it for another 5 years possibly but the cost to replace the transmission was more than the best case blue book cost of the car.

The problem with making laws to force companies to make better products is that it needs to be done worldwide in order to prevent one company from destroying the competition with cheaper products. If the Democrats and Republicans in the US can't get along I don't know how people around the world will be able to come to an agreement.