Anyone have a good experience with Black & Decker lately

Around here I would call it Gone Eccentric. They might have been right or wrong in getting out of the Power Transformer business but that left six thousand without jobs a few years back. Recently Plastics brought fifty or sixty people from India and Mexico here to train as accounts payable/receivable clerks and help desk assistants. Those people eventually went back to their countries with the jobs that were done here. Of course, the people doing the training here in the States are now unemployed. They may "Bring good things to life" but they can ruthlessly destroy good lives also.

Bill

or Generally defective.

Touche

Fred, I grew up way back when in a home that had to deal with GE and all the crap they dish out. My old man was an electrical engineer working in one of their industrial divisions servicing motors and generators. I still hate GE with my heart and soul to this very day. It wasn't untill my old man tried to got the union in that he got a decent wage. It took over a year with GE pulling every criminal, dirty trick it could to bust our efforts. They even hired teamsters to come in and terrorize the families. I took more than a few licks on that one, not to mention me and my father having our cars bashed up on several occasions. I wouldn't pollute my piss on a GE product.

I hear you about that. Typical plantation-minded company best I can tell.

One good thing about them.... they bought one of our major competitors a couple of years ago. Now our company spends over half the time fixing their products in the field and the other time replacing them!!

"meatball".

GE used to make really top notch stuff, sometime back in the 70's though they started getting cheaper and at some point they passed a point of no return. Today for the most part, GE is junk, the once renowned name is forever tarnished.

| GE used to make really top notch stuff, sometime back in the 70's though | they started getting cheaper and at some point they passed a point of no | return. Today for the most part, GE is junk, the once renowned name is | forever tarnished.

A lot of these old line names seem to be rented out to 'improve' crap these days! You can usually tell when you see them used on some totally 'wrong' product. "Bell and Howell Triple Head Shaver - As Seen On TV" comes to mind. Bell and Howell Shavers??? What happened to their projectors?

Bell and Howell is the brand of parts systems that I repair in car dealerships. Same logo, so I know it's the same group. That scares me!!

Will

Back in the '60s (and possibly earlier) GE was a innovator in production shortcuts. Since they also developed and manufactured electron tubes and plastics, they took advantage of it in their consumer product development. Their TVs were the first with polarized power cords, presumably to assure acceptable performance.

From chapter 5 of 'Perfectly Legal' by David Cay Johnston:

'Jack Welch left GE in September 2001 after 41 years. His final salary and bonus totaled $16.7 million. He also left with stock options worth a quarter of a billion dollars and a pension that shareholders were told was worth more than $9 million a year.'

This did not include the perks that were paid by GE, including a Boing 737 for his personal use (page 61).

I guess that GE was doing fine for some.

Geo

B&H were also in the military manufacturing business (Radar/Periscopes etc.)!

| From chapter 5 of 'Perfectly Legal' by David Cay Johnston: | | 'Jack Welch left GE in September 2001 after 41 years. His final | salary and bonus totaled $16.7 million. He also left with stock | options worth a quarter of a billion dollars and a pension that | shareholders were told was worth more than $9 million a year.' | | This did not include the perks that were paid by GE, including a | Boing 737 for his personal use (page 61). | | I guess that GE was doing fine for some. | | Geo

See "America: What Went Wrong?" by James B Steele, Donald L. Barlett

Reader's quote ===>> "America: What Went Wrong" is just as important and relevant today as it was when initially released. America's overall economic situation is much worse today than it was when this book was initially published. This book accurately forecasts the problems America has as it loses its manufacturing base and became a service-oriented society (Wal-Mart supposedly has 700 Chinese factories of its own). Now the multi-national's factories are fleeing Mexico in 2002 for the slave-like workers of China. Unsettling for sure, I challenge you to read this book and don't be surprised if you re-read parts of it as the late 1990s Clinton/Greenspan artificial economic bubble unwinds into a 1930s style worldwide economic depression.

GW

Bell and Howell were into just about all types of manufacturing years ago. Especially the photographic industry. Gunsight cameras, belly cameras etc... Then there's all the actual general photgraphic cameras from still to mopic.( in the 60's they marketed the most popular work horse 35mm around under the pentax label. Spotmatic was it's name.) Then of course there's all the WWII era cameras they made for th military which were used right up to the late 70's.( their 16mm combat movie cameras the KM, KLM, KRM 70 series. I used them during my combat camera days.) They also made slide strip projectors as well as movie film projectors. They started out as principally a grinder of optical lenses and grew from there.

Yet when I worked for them as an electrician's assistant they often tried to cheat me out of my pay.(late paychecks, short paychecks etc...)

Thanks for the reference. I'll check if my local library has it.

Geo

Some patriots, these CEOs! Sell the nation down the tubes just to raise EPS.

Lenin is supposed to have said something like this:

Don't worry about the capitalists; they'll sell us the rope to hang them with.

:-(

David

Sounds like a familiar story - a company makes a name for itself in one area, then establishes a good distribution network. Then some wall street gobbler buys it for it's distribution network and used it to sell cheap junk and trinkets. Then they unload the shell of the company after they have sucked all the value out of it and run off their senior tech staff.