Dweezil Dwarftosser wrote:


Nope. From everything I've seen in the past few years, it
was the idiot, strip-mining MBAs demanding more profits this
quarter, pressuring buyers and store managers to replace the
stuff on the shelves with something containing a higher profit
margin. So they dropped the el cheapo model, the mid-range,
and the high end - replacing them with only one offering: an
inferior Chinese model bought for a song, but selling at 80%
of the excellent-quality high-end version price.
Since it is the only widget available, those who *need* a
widget buy it.

Could you name a few products that people *need* where only an inferior
Chinese model is available?

--
Susan Hogarth
"We dissent, secondly, because the powers vested in Congress by this
constitution, must necessarily annihilate and absorb the legislative,
executive, and judicial powers of the several states, and produce from
their ruins one consolidated government, which from the nature of things
will be an iron handed despotism, as nothing short of the supremacy of
despotic sway could connect and govern these United States under one
government."
- Minority opinion on the ratification of US Constitution