OT- Whats the worst effect you ever bought? Play with?

[Hides-His-Eyes]

What should have happened is your economy should have matured from producting goods to producing expertise...

and fair's fair mate, "made in the USA" just meant "Junk you didn't need to have imported" a lot of the time.

[glesconz]

Without one single doubt, the utmost ever worst POS I bought was the BOSS Turbo Overdrive OD-2.....ever seen a re-issue? nope, and you wont cos these things are horriffic! The idea is the 'normal' drive is the same as the Super Overdrive SD - 1. Flick the knob and you get real cool distortion. In reality the normal OD sounds muddy and no matter of twiddling gets a good sound and flicking to Turbo is just as bad, just louder with more hiss..

Two options -
1. Use as a doorstop, paperweight, etc
2. Get it modded, which I did and it now is my main OD pedal. Yay!

These may suit someone..but remember - they had a short life span (9 yrs) and died quietly....9 yrs too many I say!!!

[Paul Marossy]

What should have happened is your economy should have matured from producting goods to producing expertise...

and fair's fair mate, "made in the USA" just meant "Junk you didn't need to have imported" a lot of the time.

There should be workers at all levels. America is not comprised of only really smart people who have everything done for them by someone else. Besides, if all you produce is "expertise", one day it will be stolen from you and then the slave will become the master because they are the ones who reap all the benefits - ie China will be "king of the hill" economically in maybe 5 years, not the U.S.

I don't agree with your second statement. If you go back far enough, like the 50s/60s/70s, things were BUILT TO LAST. Now I really think that they design things to wear out in a few years so you always have to keep buying new ones. That is IF you can find ANYTHING that is truly made in the U.S. anymore.

[Govmnt_Lacky]

I don't agree with your second statement. If you go back far enough, like the 50s/60s/70s, things were BUILT TO LAST. Now I really think that they design things to wear out in a few years so you always have to keep buying new ones. That is IF you can find ANYTHING that is truly made in the U.S. anymore.

+100 

[geertjacobs]

Now I really think that they design things to wear out in a few years so you always have to keep buying new ones.

It's called planned obsolescence.

[Paul Marossy]

Now I really think that they design things to wear out in a few years so you always have to keep buying new ones.

It's called planned obsolescence.

Well, I'm NOT crazy after all. At least I don't think so... 

[DougH]

This thread is another example of why I don't like threads that start with
"What's the best/worst/most/least/... effect/amp/guitar/tone... ?"
You usually get one opinion from each person, they're all different, and they all depend on the individual likes of the responder - which means they're of little or no value to someone other than the responder, because there is no guarantee that anyone else will feel that way.

I like broccoli, hate okra, and can take or leave cucumbers. What's the best vegetable? Who's the prettiest girl? What's the best car?

Human preferences are real, but they don't correlate with anything except the person preferring them.

OTOH maybe it's just a fun thread (that should probably be in the lounge) where people share funny stories about stuff they bought that they didn't like and why they didn't like them. IOW- not really all that serious nor intended to be analyzed.

[R.G.]

That is IF you can find ANYTHING that is truly made in the U.S. anymore.

I hate it about myself that I find myself quoting lines from popular songs as bits of wisdom these days, especially when it's from Bob Dylan, but it happens. From Dylan's Slow Train Coming: "... economics is above the law"

In the late 1990s, it was obvious that there were two types of manufacturing companies in the USA: those that were manufacturing offshore, and those that were going broke. The rise of the MBA mentality (what I refer to as "MBA Disease") ensured that manufacturers would engage in a race to the bottom for labor costs, because for every manufactured product, there are only a few classes of  costs: materials and processing costs, labor costs, overhead costs, and advertising. Materials and advertising were not something that was readily cut, as failing to advertise amounts to suicide. Overhead costs was what paid the bosses and MBAs and could not be cut without pain to the cutters. That left labor. The MBA term for lower labor costs wherever you have to go to get them is "a race to the bottom".

In MBA-Think, the only reason you ever get something made by labor that costs anything above minimum wage (if any!) is if you can't get cheaper labor that can in fact do the job. In the 50s-80s, that largely meant Europe and North America, where the technology was developed and implemented. Adam Smith would have been proud of the action of his invisible hand that then went to the rest of the world to teach them how to do the more advanced processes that made labor more attractive there than in high-wage countries. It's interesting to me that Chinese businesses are busy with a second wave of offshoring to even lower-wage places, including Vietnam and Africa.

The real underlying truth is that over time there can not possibly exist differences in price for the same goods unless there are barriers to moving them side by side. The barrier may be distance or physical barriers like oceans - which we've disassembled with cargo ships - or educational, which we're disassembling with technology transfer, or legal (import that and I'll put you in jail or shoot you), or societal (Japan's meaning of the term "rice farming" as i understand it.) But when there is no barrier, there can be no price difference for identical goods.

And one commodity that gets bought and sold is labor.  In a truly fluid, world wide market, there can be no difference in the cost of => labor <= because prudent businessmen will go for the cheapest labor that will get the products made. And if they do not do so, there is legal precedent for shareholders to sue or replace them for NOT maximizing profits by racing to the bottom.

The "One World" thing has interesting consequences beyond singing Cum-Ba-Ya around a campfire, doesn't it?   

[thedefog]

Now I really think that they design things to wear out in a few years so you always have to keep buying new ones.

It's called planned obsolescence.

True, and it makes no sense to produce tech products that last. That would be a complete waste for both the consumer and producer.

Yet, you can still go out to the store and buy a US made Kitchen Aid mixer that will last you the next 30+ years. So we do still make things that last forever, it's just that we're biasing our judgment on things that have few parts that don't wear down a whole lot over time against things with thousands of small parts that can fail in a moments notice that we don't plan on using forever anyway.

[Paul Marossy]

That is IF you can find ANYTHING that is truly made in the U.S. anymore.

I hate it about myself that I find myself quoting lines from popular songs as bits of wisdom these days, especially when it's from Bob Dylan, but it happens. From Dylan's Slow Train Coming: "... economics is above the law"

In the late 1990s, it was obvious that there were two types of manufacturing companies in the USA: those that were manufacturing offshore, and those that were going broke. The rise of the MBA mentality (what I refer to as "MBA Disease") ensured that manufacturers would engage in a race to the bottom for labor costs, because for every manufactured product, there are only a few classes of  costs: materials and processing costs, labor costs, overhead costs, and advertising. Materials and advertising were not something that was readily cut, as failing to advertise amounts to suicide. Overhead costs was what paid the bosses and MBAs and could not be cut without pain to the cutters. That left labor. The MBA term for lower labor costs wherever you have to go to get them is "a race to the bottom".

In MBA-Think, the only reason you ever get something made by labor that costs anything above minimum wage (if any!) is if you can't get cheaper labor that can in fact do the job. In the 50s-80s, that largely meant Europe and North America, where the technology was developed and implemented. Adam Smith would have been proud of the action of his invisible hand that then went to the rest of the world to teach them how to do the more advanced processes that made labor more attractive there than in high-wage countries. It's interesting to me that Chinese businesses are busy with a second wave of offshoring to even lower-wage places, including Vietnam and Africa.

The real underlying truth is that over time there can not possibly exist differences in price for the same goods unless there are barriers to moving them side by side. The barrier may be distance or physical barriers like oceans - which we've disassembled with cargo ships - or educational, which we're disassembling with technology transfer, or legal (import that and I'll put you in jail or shoot you), or societal (Japan's meaning of the term "rice farming" as i understand it.) But when there is no barrier, there can be no price difference for identical goods.

And one commodity that gets bought and sold is labor.  In a truly fluid, world wide market, there can be no difference in the cost of => labor <= because prudent businessmen will go for the cheapest labor that will get the products made. And if they do not do so, there is legal precedent for shareholders to sue or replace them for NOT maximizing profits by racing to the bottom.

The "One World" thing has interesting consequences beyond singing Cum-Ba-Ya around a campfire, doesn't it?   

The problem is that it is not a one world economy. So what businesses think is good for them personally, collectively is not good for the nation because it weakens the economy more and more because there are less and less jobs for the people living here. And if people don't have jobs, they can't buy the cheap stuff from China because they all have the jobs that people in the U.S. could have. I don't see how this can go on indefinitely without there being dire consequences some day. The U.S. is teetering dangerously close to another financial collapse as it is. What are we going to do when no one will lend us any more money to increase the national debt some more? One trillion dollar bills end to end would stretch to the sun. And we have over $14,000,000,000,000 worth of debt now.

[Govmnt_Lacky]

Any chance we can get back on topic fellas?

Whats the worst effect you ever bought? Play with?

[thedefog]

Any chance we can get back on topic fellas?

Whats the worst effect you ever bought? Play with?

Hahaha, I still say that zoom multi-FX crap thing. I think it was the Zoom 505. It was the first effect pedal I ever bought myself, and I was 15 when I bought it. I think I even may have sold/traded in my Dad's Boss CE-2 towards it.

[Govmnt_Lacky]

Hahaha, I still say that zoom multi-FX crap thing. I think it was the Zoom 505. It was the first effect pedal I ever bought myself, and I was 15 when I bought it. I think I even may have sold/traded in my Dad's Boss CE-2 towards it.

[nick d]

                 In a strange way the Zoom was the BEST pedal I bought - WHAT?? -I hear you all cry!!!
                 
                    Well , if it had done all the things it was supposed to do , I would not have had to re-learn
                     all the stuff I used to do , i.e. building my own pedals , like I did 30 years ago.
                     
                     I still use the Zoom regularly : as a tuner !!!!!!

[R.G.]

Any chance we can get back on topic fellas?
Whats the worst effect you ever bought? Play with?

Actually, they're the same topic: "hey, what opinion do you have?"

No technical content at all. You can sub in any noun for the XXX in "What the worst XXX?" and get pretty much the same replies.

[Hides-His-Eyes]

Now I really think that they design things to wear out in a few years so you always have to keep buying new ones.

It's called planned obsolescence.

And while there's no law against making crap, putting delibberate planned obsolescence into goods is illegal here in the UK (e.g. ICs in the battery that force it to limit the possible charge)

damn government regulation will be the death of us, right? 

[bluesman1218]

Quick, somebody ask RG a Tech question! Only kidding, RG. just cruising by and being a smartass. BTW, as a songwriter (getting even more off topic) I put a lot of love in my song titles and like it when they are properly identified. The correct spelling is Kumbayah, although it has been spelled many ways.... and now, with a C. OK, back to our regularly scheduled programming.....

[markeebee]

There have been a number of threads bemoaning the globalisation of manufacturing over the last couple of years.  In most of them, there's an undercurrent of "I can't believe those funny ltlle yellow men have STOLEN our power by making slaves of little children". 

I worked on my first 'offshoring' project about fourteen years ago in Nasik, India.  Subsequently, I've helped setup electronic and electrical manufacturing infrastructures in China, India, Sri Lanka and Cambodia.  But mostly China, been there about eight times.

I'm here to tell you that these are sophisticated, well funded, well equipped, well managed facilities.  The operatives in the facilities are no less happy than factory workers in the UK (or the States , I guess).  No-one is being expoited, no-one is having their civil liberties crushed (not at work, anyway).  I'm tired of uninformed rednecks bleating about "working for a bowl of rice a day".  Most of the operatives I met have a relatively good lifestyle.  They have MTV on satellite, if they want it, it's just that they don't often want it.  Maybe their expectations are less, but who are we to say we're right and they're wrong in that regard?

The reject and rework statistics for the goods produced are no worse (and usually significantly better) than similar mass/batch production facilities in Europe - their "quality" is just as good as ours.  If you make ten million widgets ANYWHERE, there will be some dodgy widgets amongst them, fact of life.  No, these factories are not good at innovation, or industrial artisanary (booteek), or incredibly tight tolerance work......but neither is anybody else, in those kind of volumes.  Get real.

The shock and outrage at America's failing hegemony seems to me to be a product of lethargy, arrogance and stupidity.

Let the off-topic shitstorm of hate begin.....



 

[markeebee]

And let's be totally clear about one thing:  99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% of companies exist solely to make money for their shareholders.  They're not charities, providing jobs for the feckless.

Blimey.  I am generally a lefty, by the way.  I must be cross about something.....

[markeebee]

And Behringer V-Amp.