It is a sad truth, that the political pursuit of 'environmental' regulations, frequently masked by the term "efficiency", is achieving the exact opposite of its intention, and ruins the quality of the objects it regulates on the way.No worries, though, the rich folks at the top never have to worry about their quality of living - after all, they can afford the expensive tools that work almost as well as the better, cheaper devices of the past; not to mention having servants to operate them for it, and other who would buy new ones when they break.
In the 'good old days' (which was until not long ago), if you built an appliance from a respected company, you knew it was built to last. Today, it is built to break, so you will have to continue buying replacements - at a premium price.
Or maybe it's just that the Chinese can't built a bloody mixer like the Germans could?
As for the article, here's an excerpt to whet your appetite:
In 1996, top-loaders were pretty much the only type of washer around, and they were uniformly high quality. When Consumer Reports tested 18 models, 13 were "excellent" and five were "very good." By 2007, though, not one was excellent and seven out of 21 were "fair" or "poor." This month came the death knell: Consumer Reports simply dismissed all conventional top-loaders as "often mediocre or worse."
How's that for progress?
Read the whole thing at the Wall St. Journal.
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