Home appliance cost in hours

This is from the Carpe Diem site written by Mark J. Perry. Manufacturing workers can now buy 11 appliances with 152 hours of labor what used to cost them 886 hours of labor back in 1959.

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Reply to
Dean Hoffman
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Could say the same about most products made by increased automation or robots. Should apply to cars too.

Products that have become increasingly expensive like medicine and education not only rely on the same number of workers but even piling on more workers. Both should be amenable to automation like computers for teaching and medical devices for diagnostics.

Reply to
Frank

Only problem is there are no manufacturing workers left to buy them. ;)

But that's OK, Trump is going to solve the loss of manufacturing jobs. According to him and his simple mind, it's because of "currency manipulation" by China and Mexico. He completely neglects the huge differences in wage rates, environmental regulations, required health insurance, OSHA regulations, cheap energy costs with China burning coal, etc. And then we all know that because of automation, today far less labor is required.

The other night he made another stunning display of ignorance. He said "we have a $58 bil trade deficit with Mexico. The wall will cost $10 bil. You think I can't make that deal?" What "deal" is that? The $58 bil deficit is because Americans buy more goods from them than they do from us. Which is what one expects when it's a modern super power economy trading with a less developed country. So, what "deal" is he even talking about? How does one trade a trade deficit for a $10 bil wall?

Reply to
trader_4

| This is from the Carpe Diem site written by Mark J. | Perry. Manufacturing workers can now buy 11 appliances | with 152 hours of labor what used to cost them 886 hours | of labor back in 1959. |

That's quite an intellectual can of worms:

  • Accuracy?

It's interesting, but is it true? There are a lot of factors hard to calculate. What exactly does manufacturing mean in each era? How exactly did the Fed calculate their numbers? In 1973 I was making $1.90/hour as a drug store clerk. In

1975 I was making $5.05/hour, but that was only because I was doing back-breaking warehouse work, on the night shift, with a Teamsters union payscale. Yet they say manufacturing jobs were averaging $3.95/hour in that time period. Could that be because far more people were unionized, or are the numbers faulty? There's no way to know, really.

  • Bias?

Did you know that the AEI, who published this article, are a right-wing, pro-business organization? They call themselves a "think tank", which essentially means a propaganda manufacturing and lobbying operation. Their "About us" blurb sounds libertarian. One of their "scholars" is Dick Cheney! Could they possibly print anything that *doesn't* say everything's hunky dorey for blue collar workers? The whole purpose of the AEI is to publish propaganda like this in order to mold the opinion of readers like you.

  • Product comparability?

What about quality? A toaster back then was heavy steel and lasted many years. A toaster today is light sheet metal and burns out quickly. Likewise with stoves. The new ones have electric ignition, but they're little more than sheet metal boxes. Many of those items work better than the older versions, but are also more cheaply made, with shorter life spans.

  • Real relation to cost of living?

Then how do we calculate other cost of living factors into it? If this is the good old days, then why is it that a high-paid white collar worker can't afford a condo, while in 1973 a janitor could raise

3 kids and own a house? People on many tropical areas can have a roof and food while not even working. They don't need central heat and their groceries literally grow on trees. Their cost of living is near zero. Are they better off than us,or are they worse off because they don't have cars or cable TV? If there's no easy answer to that question then what does it really mean that I can buy cheap toasters?

  • Dubious ethics?

Manufactured goods are generally cheap, but of poor quality, and the cost savings is mainly derived from exploitation of others. Cheap clothes come from China or Brazil. Cheap appliances come from Pacific Rim countries or China. Much of that work is done with virtual slave labor. Elimination of tarrriffs and trade restrictions means that rich American business owners can do business free of American legal and ethical restrictions. (Tim Cook even has the nerve to claim that Apple's offshoring of billions to avoid corporate tax is "outdated" and harmful.) NAFTA gave us more slaves in Mexico. TPP will open up new slavery opportunities in Asia. All of which gives us cheaper prices but a worse economy, because jobs are leaving the US. And what does it do to a country spiritually that we create an economy based on slavery we don't acknowledge? For awhile there was the popular scam that the US was transitioning to a "services economy". But along with the scam of "inevitable globalization", that idea has lost its credibility in the light of day. The whole country can't be wealthy waiters and waitresses, or "consultants".

  • Social factors?

Another intriguing point that's partially related: Juliet Schorr, from Harvard, did a study -- I think it was back in the 80s -- which she based a book on, called Overworked America. In it she documents how the only modern appliance that saves time is the microwave. We actually do more work now, cleaning our houses more often, washing our clothes unnecessarily, etc. We're uncomfortable with the freedom these conveniences have created. In the 50s there was an idea that modern convenience and automation would lead to a 3-day work week. But we didn't consider two big factors:

1) Exploitation by the rich: Higher productivity has only led to a greater salary disparity between workers and business owners. Most people are not benefitting. Instead, CEOs typically make 450 times what workers make, whereas it used to be more like 20 times. We're turning into a banana republic.

2) Existential doubt: Most people can't handle having

4 days off every week. Many people do work or create busyness schedules for themselves that serve little purpose aside from giving them a sense of purpose. We're a productivity-obsessed culture.

That exact same issue is coming around again now. In just the past few days I've seen articles about how AI and robotics will eliminate lots of jobs. So we face the same question again: Do we enforce a sharing of the wealth or do we just let the economy sink further and let homelessness increase while jobs disappear. I can guess what AEI "scholars" will say on that score. They'll probably cite studies showing, essentially, that idle hands are the devil's playground, so that any sharing of wealth would necessarily be harmful to society.

Reply to
Mayayana
*** (Tim Cook even has the nerve to claim that Apple's offshoring of billions to avoid corporate tax is "outdated" and harmful.)

That should have read that Tim Cook thinks the tax regulations are unfair and outdated. He portrays Apple as being into being a sleazy tax cheat because in a fair system Apple wouldn't need to pay tax. :)

Reply to
Mayayana

Apple isn't a tax cheat. They are following the law, minimizing their taxes within the law, just like you and most other tax payers do. And he's right, the tax law is screwed up. We have one of the highest corp tax rates in the world. What we need is a lower tax rate, in which case companies like Apple would bring that money home.

Reply to
trader_4

On Wed, 09 Mar 2016 07:32:22 -0600, "Dean Hoffman" wrote in

One other factor that needs to be considered is the life expectancy of the appliance. I would guess that a modern appliance, e.g. a blender, doesn't last nearly as long as a 1959 blender.

Reply to
CRNG

I don't know if I want my appliances to last as long as they used to.

A 1959 blender spun a blade.

A 2016 blender can be programmed for different consistencies, food items, etc.

Our old blender had to be started and stopped to prevent cavitation - the blade just spinning in a void and doing no work. Our new blender starts and stops itself to allow the food to settle back down around the blade. The smoothie button takes one push to run a pre-programmed sequence of starts and stops to create really good drinks.

A 1959 range had little to no insulation and not only over-heated the kitchen but caused severe burns on the hands of 2 year old girls who used the oven door to help them stand up on Thanksgiving morning.

A new range can be pre-programmed for temperature and cook time, can actually monitor the food temp, not just the oven temp, and is much safer and more energy efficient.

Who knows what the next generation of appliances will be able to do?

As long as I'm not replacing them the every year, I don't mind a shorter lifespan considering how fast the technology gets upgraded.

Reply to
DerbyDad03

engineering and technology have created machines that have reduced the amount of work needed to be done by people.

We need to revamp the economic system so that __everyone__ can benefit from this, not just those that own the macinhes.

M
Reply to
makolber

Everyone is already benefitting, as evidenced by the greatly reduced number of hours of labor required to purchase the new appliances.

Reply to
trader_4

No doubt because the labor costs involved in MAKING them have moved to "cheaper markets"?

I wonder what the same chart would look like for the Chinese market?

I'd also like to see the annualized TCO to indicate what the REAL costs of each item happen to be. I see a LOT of stuff binned that sure doesn't LOOK very old/worn!

Reply to
Don Y

How many times do they have to buy replacements for the 2016 appliances because they don't last nearly as long as the 1959 ones?

Perce

Reply to
Percival P. Cassidy

Exactly. Or, if you can keep them running, how much does it *cost* to do so?

Washer/dryer had close to 20 years on them before SWMBO just decided she didn't like looking at them and wanted replacements. New washer lasted 16-18 months (in a household that does very few loads) before needing service (which, of course, would have been out-of-warranty).

Refrigerator is 20+ years old. SWMBO also tired of looking at it. OTOH, after seeing the prices of new, hearing about typical life expectancy AND the washing machine experience, decided ours doesn't look too bad after all! :>

[You can buy a CAR for the price of some of these new refrigerators!]

Freezer has been in the (hot) garage for more than 20 years. It was 20 years old when we moved in. Wanna bet we wouldn't see half that with a new unit? And, new units aren't as easy to defrost as this one (we can empty it, defrost it, and refill it in less than

15 minutes!)

Friend makes smoothies. He's on his third blender/juicer in probably

5 years. We juice 200+ pounds of oranges (granted, different technique) annually (325 pounds this year) with our antique "Acme Juicerator" (half expect to see Wile E Coyote doing an advert for them!) and have done so for 20+ seasons.
Reply to
Don Y

Impossible to make a truly accurate comparison. Last toaster I bought was a good quality model that cost $50+, but on the next shelf they had one for $8. In 1959 you could not find one equal to the $8 toaster made in China (as was the expensive one)

I do recall spending $169 for a B & W 19" TV 50 years ago when I was making about half that a week. Two weeks wages now would buy be a few

65" TVs today.
Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

No, those people that have been replaced by a machine and loose thir jobs are not benefiting.

Suppose we take development to an extreme Nth degree, and machines do everything and noby has to work excrpt only one guy has to push the button to turn it on....

does he get all the money and everyone else none?

How do you divide the fruits of society if machines do all the work? Is it Utopia or Distopia?

Mark

Reply to
makolber

You can't push the button on the machine until somebody builds the machine. The toaster assembler may have to get additional training to do a new job though, just like the guys from the buggy whip factory did.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

A quote, from way back. When you lose your job to robots, become a robot repairman.

I've known people over the years, having lost jobs doing this or that. In the Reagan years, you just went and got another job. In the Obama years, you just stop being counted as unemployed.

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

I don't think many people are being replaced by machines as compared to being replaced by "cheaper people".

Also, a fair bit of stuff simply isn't getting done -- things that we were accustomed to having done in decades past (witness IVR systems that push the cost of customer support onto the customer; product forums that expect customers to support each other -- instead of having genuine support staff; pre-release product testing -- instead of getting lists of bugs from folks foolish enough to be "early adopters"; etc.)

Get a job fixing machines?? :-/

Reply to
Don Y

We went around on this in October 2013. As some of kind of proxy for overall living standards, which is what AEI's Perry is implicitly inviting readers to do, it's misleading. Liars, damn liars, and economists.

Reply to
Neill Massello

And paid 5% on passbook savings accounts. Try getting that today.

Reply to
Neill Massello

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