Posted by JD Seller on September 06, 2014 at 18:36:14 from (208.126.198.123):
The post below about the cost of household appliances started me thinking about value and quality.
A new car in 1956 would have been around $1000-1200 with few features and no way you would get 100,000 miles of use without major repairs. That $1000-1200 would be $8750-10,500 in today's money.
So on the surface it would seem that the 1956 car was "better" value. You have to consider that todays car will have the following things that the 1956 car would not have: 1) Expectations to last in the 150K mile range with no major maintenance. 2) Air Conditioning 3) Power steering 4) Fuel injection and better fuel economy. 5) Many safety features that have made car fatalities be much lower per 1000 miles driven.
So if you figure these things about double the value of a car today then the value is about the same.
Now on common appliances the figures would be different depending on whether you want to add in energy consumption. My brother has a IH refrigerator that was built in the late 1950s. It still works well. It is a energy hog compared to a new one but it is also 60 plus years old. I don't think that a refrigerator bought today will last 60 years. I have trouble getting 10 years out of them.
Now lets look at equipment. There are tractors in general use that where made in the 1950-1960s. There are many JD 4020 and IH 706s on feeder wagons around here. I mean on serious farms not a guy playing with farm equipment with a city job.
I am pretty sure that todays tractors with so many computer components will not be running in 50-60 years. I wonder if 25 years might not catch some of them.
Corporate American will push to quit providing parts on older models as they will say it "costs" too much. When in reality the equipment built to day has built in obsolescence. They do not build the "best they can. They build the most they can for this amount of money. Bean counters control production today as much as the engineers.
Have you noticed that just about all of the normal consumer goods you buy are not repairable. You just replace the whole unit. You don't have your cell phone "repaired" you just get a new one.
The culture has changed too. Most people under 40 do not even think of fixing most common things. They just throw it away and buy "new". So I am not sure that even if the manufactures built better stuff that people would give anymore for "good" quality stuff anymore.
Walmart sells the cheaper products not the "best" products. Too many shoppers/consumers today look at price only. Not total cost/value. My wife does this on a lot of stuff. I really have to watch what she does this on. My kids do that on things too.
An example. Her sweeper broke the beater. She was just going to get a new one. The old one was just a little over 18 months old. A new one was going to be around $150. I replaced the beater for around $30. She would not have even tried to fix it.
My Grand daughters "have to" have a hair dryer. Life would end if they can't dry their hair. LOL Their dryers do not last very long. When they moved last year they had a box of 6-8 dryers that would not work. I know a new dryer is under $20. So I took that box of dryers. I was able to fix about half of them. Some just had a broken wire or bad switch. So I gave them the working ones back as spares. Now they bring me the non working stuff and "we" try to fix it. They all know how to solder and replace a switch on things.
So I think that the value of things varies just like it did 50-60 years ago.
The one major thing that has improved almost beyond belief is medical care. Things are treatable today that would have killed us just 25-30 years ago. I am not talking about cost jut the ability to "cure" things.
So while I think that I was lucky growing up when I did, and kids today are missing out on that, I would rather be getting old today over then. How many of you fellow posters would have sub pare lives if we where 50 years in the past on heath care???
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Today's Featured Article - The Day Mom Drove the 8N - by Brian Browning. My Dad was wanting to put in a garden but couldn't operate the 8N and handle the old horse drawn plow he had found and rigged up to use with the tractor. Well, he decided to go get Mom out of the house and have her drive the tractor while he walked behind the plow. You got to understand that while my Mom is a hard worker who will always help whenever she can... she had never operated farm machinery before that day. Dad got her out there, explained how the clutch was the same as in our o
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