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After WW II, the United States was 50% of the world economy. The US had a huge labor shortage. Low skill workers could command high wages because they were in short supply and there was no competition elsewhere. That was a 1-shot-deal that will never happen again. We now have a huge glut of unskilled labor. If they demand too much in the way of wages, the jobs that can be moved elsewhere move. The ones that can't be moved get automated as much as possible. The 1950 version of the American Dream is indeed dead. To command high wages, you need to have 21st century job skills where you can out-perform people in lower cost regions; or you need to pick a job that can't be moved.
I think the work ethic has changed. For a huge cross section of the country, there are a long list of job categories that are "beneath them" even though many of them pay pretty well. People what what George Jetson paradied in The Jetsons. A job where you hit a few buttons in an air conditioned office, something else does all the work, and you're paid good money for doing it. Before WW II, most jobs involved physical labor and/or repetitive task factory work that most people don't want to do today. Those jobs now are mostly staffed by immigrants who are willing to do the work.
I think television has created a huge sense of entitlement. Everybody wants to live in that luxury home on the TV house shows. Everybody wants to drive a new high end car. Everybody needs a $1,000 iPhone X. Everybody feels entitled to a 5%er lifestyle and feels that they're being ripped off because they're on the outside looking in. That gives us Occupy Wall Street and Bernie. To be a 5%er, you have to be born smart, get yourself properly educated with 21st century job skills, and then pay your dues establishing your career before you get paid like that. It's easier if you grow up in an affluent leafy suburb so the deck is kind of stacked against average and poor people ever getting there but it's certainly possible with parenting that imparts the right educational and work ethic. Certainly lots of Asians & Indians immigrate to the US with nothing but the shirt on their back and their children make it to the 5%er category. They work for it and they're so successful at working for it that the elite universities now have to apply quotas or they'd be majority Asian/Indian.
Of course, none of this has much to do with the whole "poor quality" thing other than that lower income people tend to buy "fake rich" poor quality items to mimic the 5%ers. The Walmart version of many products isn't anywhere near the quality of the premium version of those products. That's come up a number of times in this thread.
You are a breath of fresh air. So much wisdom! Agree 💯
Seems that back when I first joined CD I asked a very similar question. Why can't I find decent sheets and towels anymore?
The answer I was given was that the companies went out of business and things are made overseas. I wanted my Stevens sheets and my (forgot the name) towels but they were nowhere to be found. Just cheap, thin, junk sheets and towels. Used to get 200 count cotton percale sheets and they were like silk. Now they offer much higher thread counts but the cotton isn't any good to begin with. Maybe it is with Ralph Lauren, but I don't know of any others.
Same with the furniture companies, I was told. Used to be Thomasville, Hekmann, Drexel Heritage, etc. now all that's left that's half way decent is Ethan Allen, which was never really considered to be that good. But I'd take it now over the junk that's available out there.
But you can go to a Salvation Army or Goodwill store and sometimes still find quality sheets and towels. I go to a lot of different thrift stores and yard sales looking for the quality items that are no longer available.
I don't know where you're shopping, but you don't have to pay over $100 to a good quality set of sheets. I got some great sheets at Sam's Club that are high quality and have lasted for years.
Toilet paper SHOULD be thin, for environmental reasons. We also have low-flow toilets, which can't push through those big wads of towel-like toilet paper.
I have noticed that towels fray...even in my front load washer w/o an agitator.
I don't eat pizza except in a blue moon, so don't know about that. I did get a frozen pizza from grocery store last year...it was really good. They say Papa John's is good, for takeout. I don't ever order takeout anything, so don't know.
Houses ARE made cheaply, now, compared to the old days. Double pane windows HAVE to be replaced ($15,000 at least), whereas if you stick with quality single pane...you'll save in the long run even w/high energy bills because you won't have to replace them.
When you buy a house, look for an old one, spend below your budget so you can spend on updating it or repairing it. You'll have a much better house than anything new.
BTW...every generation says this. I suspect it's true, too, with every generation. The more people there are, the more things have to be built & made and distributed quickly.
So as more and more people are born, this issue will get worse. The earth's population will double in a certain number of years, if you can imagine that. The earth will be hotter, much more crowded, and more and more disaster events like floods & hurricanes. But I won't be around to see that, I suppose.
I do wish we had Costco nearby, it's been mentioned a couple of times on the thread. We do go to Sam's often. That's the last place I made a major towel purchase a couple of years ago ... thick, plush, not cheap ... already fraying at the edges. I will look for sheets there, thank you!
Good tip about the single paned windows, too! We are currently house hunting ... not to get bigger and better, mind you, our house now is very beautiful. But we are at 10' elevation in hurricane country, we flood very easily. Looking to buy an older (50's-70's) brick home at high elevation (over 65'), just for peace of mind and insurance costs.
I'm old enough to know there was a lot of junk being turned out 50 years ago. The good stuff survived leading many to believe that products were better made back then. Also, product cycles. Phones used to be designed to last 40 years, and one could expect to use one that long. Now, people discard them after two.
This is in addition to the mass marketing, made in cheap labor countries, and planned obsolescence previously mentioned.
Here's what the rich are buying in the way of appliances today. You won't see this stuff in a department store, unless the clerk is making more money than the average college professor, and the greeter offers you a glass of champagne when you step out of the limo.
Most of these companies will send an impeccably dressed Vassar graduate to your front door in order to demonstrate their products in your home, and to ensure that you can properly modify your home to install their products as applicable. Thus, an engineer smoking a pipe will most likely tag along too, and take up some room in the private charter jet.
La Cornue Grand Palais Stove Range - 47,000 dollars and up. Buy one... because the handmade beauty and craftsmanship alone makes it worth the cost of brain surgery. Looks like something from Vanderbilt Mansion.
Meneghini Arredamenti Refrigerator - Starting at 41,000 dollars and going way, way up from there, to things that are custom designed and installed. It doesnt' even look like a refrigerator. It looks like a time machine from a 1920s sci-fi movie.
Hammacher Expresso Machine - 8000 dollars. Looks like a copper R2D2 sitting on a Waffle House grill made of copper and platinum. And even though it costs almost as a 2 week cruise to the Bahamas for two - it still isn't as expensive as the Hammacher juice maker, which cost 9000 dollars. A juice maker. 9000 dollars. It squeezes oranges into juice mind you. That's all it does.
And there are appliances that make pasta, and dice boiled eggs and all kinds of other stuff that the rich buy from specialty markets that cost more than you and I make in a year.
Quality is there. But, I think I can get pretty good juice out of my 20 dollar WalMart gadget.
Thank you for your helpful posts!
Obviously we aren't millionaires, if we were I sure wouldn't be griping about towel quality on City Data
I know where the wealthy shop. Where can the average person buy new, good quality towels and linens that last for years? Is it an illusion? It's been stated here that Walmart, Target, Bed Bath & Beyond, Macy's are all inferior quality (in spite of still being expensive in some cases), and Sam's towels are fraying on me. Is there some secret towel and sheet society I should know about? Hunting through millions of bad towels to find a good one seems ... preposterous. Flying in a pipe smoking custom towel maker who owns Turkish cotton fields isn't exactly in the budget. I feel like people just settle for the crap being peddled in the marketplace because what choice do we have? Some people don't mind buying towels, sheets, clothing every year ... but I do. Who has the time to investigate towel quality? Yet here I am ... looking online at Turkish towels as we speak. (Did you know L.L. Bean sells a single towel for over $50?)
Last edited by SouthernProper; 09-16-2017 at 02:20 PM..
After WW II, the United States was 50% of the world economy. The US had a huge labor shortage. Low skill workers could command high wages because they were in short supply and there was no competition elsewhere. That was a 1-shot-deal that will never happen again. We now have a huge glut of unskilled labor. If they demand too much in the way of wages, the jobs that can be moved elsewhere move. The ones that can't be moved get automated as much as possible. The 1950 version of the American Dream is indeed dead. To command high wages, you need to have 21st century job skills where you can out-perform people in lower cost regions; or you need to pick a job that can't be moved.
I think the work ethic has changed. For a huge cross section of the country, there are a long list of job categories that are "beneath them" even though many of them pay pretty well. People what what George Jetson paradied in The Jetsons. A job where you hit a few buttons in an air conditioned office, something else does all the work, and you're paid good money for doing it. Before WW II, most jobs involved physical labor and/or repetitive task factory work that most people don't want to do today. Those jobs now are mostly staffed by immigrants who are willing to do the work.
I think television has created a huge sense of entitlement. Everybody wants to live in that luxury home on the TV house shows. Everybody wants to drive a new high end car. Everybody needs a $1,000 iPhone X. Everybody feels entitled to a 5%er lifestyle and feels that they're being ripped off because they're on the outside looking in. That gives us Occupy Wall Street and Bernie. To be a 5%er, you have to be born smart, get yourself properly educated with 21st century job skills, and then pay your dues establishing your career before you get paid like that. It's easier if you grow up in an affluent leafy suburb so the deck is kind of stacked against average and poor people ever getting there but it's certainly possible with parenting that imparts the right educational and work ethic. Certainly lots of Asians & Indians immigrate to the US with nothing but the shirt on their back and their children make it to the 5%er category. They work for it and they're so successful at working for it that the elite universities now have to apply quotas or they'd be majority Asian/Indian.
Of course, none of this has much to do with the whole "poor quality" thing other than that lower income people tend to buy "fake rich" poor quality items to mimic the 5%ers. The Walmart version of many products isn't anywhere near the quality of the premium version of those products. That's come up a number of times in this thread.
So a 5% lifestyle is owning a 2 bedroom house in a bad neighborhood?
Seems that back when I first joined CD I asked a very similar question. Why can't I find decent sheets and towels anymore?
The answer I was given was that the companies went out of business and things are made overseas. I wanted my Stevens sheets and my (forgot the name) towels but they were nowhere to be found. Just cheap, thin, junk sheets and towels. Used to get 200 count cotton percale sheets and they were like silk. Now they offer much higher thread counts but the cotton isn't any good to begin with. Maybe it is with Ralph Lauren, but I don't know of any others.
Same with the furniture companies, I was told. Used to be Thomasville, Hekmann, Drexel Heritage, etc. now all that's left that's half way decent is Ethan Allen, which was never really considered to be that good. But I'd take it now over the junk that's available out there.
But you can go to a Salvation Army or Goodwill store and sometimes still find quality sheets and towels. I go to a lot of different thrift stores and yard sales looking for the quality items that are no longer available.
Really? Thomasville and Drexel aren't even good anymore? And Stevens towels and sheets aren't available anymore, either? We do a lot of thrifting, good quality clothing, some housewares. It's sad to think that the best days of hard working, industrial America are behind us. Someone said looking back at the good old days in nostalgia was worthless. I disagree. I believe it's been called The Greatest Generation. Look at us now.
Make it cheap, so you keep buying it. vs Making it quality and you will never have to buy it again, business wont thrive as much. That is the only thing i can think why the quality has gone down hill.
I'm old enough to know there was a lot of junk being turned out 50 years ago. The good stuff survived leading many to believe that products were better made back then. Also, product cycles. Phones used to be designed to last 40 years, and one could expect to use one that long. Now, people discard them after two.
This is in addition to the mass marketing, made in cheap labor countries, and planned obsolescence previously mentioned.
Appliances and furniture really did used to last for decades. The towel thing probably seems petty and silly, it's just my observation over 24 years married, realizing we seem to be going through towels at an alarming rate ... which got me thinking back to my childhood when our towels just lasted and lasted and lasted. Then I realized that sheets are terrible quality and not as crisp and heavy as those when I was a kid.
I remember when VCR's came out and microwaves became mainstream. They were very expensive! My parents paid a lot of money for those, and their stereo system. But sheets, towels, appliances, furniture ... just seemed to stand the test of time in a way that I'm not seeing in my life today.
What are your perceptions on all this? Aside from the junk that was mass marketed in the 70's and 80's, what differences do you see in everyday quality of merchandise? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
The U.S. has turned into a mass production, disposable society. I've lived 79 yrs now and NEVER owned a bath sheet. Towels have worked all my life. And one can still find good quality at good prices.
I still own and it hardly has a scratch on it, my bedroom furniture my ex and I purchased from "the factory" in the early 60's...solid as a rock cherry wood and just beautiful. I try not to think what will happen to this beautiful furniture when I'm gone.
That expression "the good old days" holds a lot of truth as I can compare the old times and today.
As far as the American Dream, it's become the nightmare in Cal for apt dwellers. Affording an apt is a major issue. One can still buy a "cheap" house in PA and OH and parts of the midwest.
A bath sheet is just a towel, they are sometimes called a bath sheet. Often bigger than standard towels. Where do you buy your towels? The good old days, indeed ... there's a lot to be said for them. Maybe we can get back some of it ... at least the things that were good for our country.
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