Private equity destroys everything it touches
except for the shareholder's wallets. sometimes.
Also Barnes & Noble weirdly
Brands got worse on purpose
51–60 of 179 posts
Re: Brands got worse on purpose
#52Support brands with values and local manufacturing. For example: American Giant, Origin, Crye Precision, Randolph Engineering, American Optical, and many more.
I can confidently say I use and enjoy almost all of those brands. A great litmus test for whether a company makes good products is whether they make them locally enough for the CEO to regularly visit the factory. A somewhat humorous example is System76, where their US built stuff (cases, keyboards) are made with relatively thick aluminum and are surprisingly sturdy, while their laptops can be flimsy and are less rugg…
You can notice the quality difference when things are actually built to last. I work a lot with electronics and need good work-holding tools. I didn't use to focus on that and just bought cheap crap. I then heard of PanaVise (made in Reno, NV) and got their tools, absolutely SOLID. Over-built, heavy and built to LAST!
Re: Brands got worse on purpose
#53Private equity destroys everything it touches
except for the shareholder's wallets. sometimes.
We really shouldn't be creating and allowing a society where the rich can get rich off of destroying the quality of life for everyone else. Smells like guaranteed eventual revolution to me.
Also, don't these people understand that they are destroying everything they was good. Like, surely they understand through all the corporate speak and distended responsibilities that they are directly making everyone's lives worse, for profit. If they do it to toys, to electronics, to websites, apps, then they do it to housing, to Healthcare, to education, to food, to survival itself. These people are literally, intentionally ruining as many people's lives as much as possible in the most effective way they can other than walking down the street shooting random people. Likely, the distributed and multiplied increments of shittifying add up to much more than killing some people, and yet we let them get away with it.
Is there any kind of legal framework that can take into account quality of life? I assume it would be pretty distopian in other ways. But when the "market" exists only to consolidate power into rich peoples hands so they can steal more and more and more from people who aren't rich, isn't that at least a crime of the soul?
Last question. If every hedgefund, private equity group was dissolved overnight, and prevented from ever being recreated. The owners forced to find a way to survive that didn't destroy others hard work, what would we lose? I'm sure they provide some kind of actual service for literally anyone other than making rich people richer right? But what? What is it that these financial frameworks actually do that helps anyone?
Re: Brands got worse on purpose
#54Love Pendleton but they have moved some production to Mexico and other spots. Check before you buy For example, Pendleton Ganado Matelassé Blanket | Belk https://share.google/0QaaEXgLnNu0EKClr
Author here. Good catch... you're right. The wool is still woven in Pendleton and Washougal, but finished product sourcing is a mix and some blankets are now assembled offshore. Will update the Ledger entry and the essay today.
Re: Brands got worse on purpose
#55I hate to be the guy to say it, but this is just capitalism working as intended.
I'll repeat my definitions/understandings of capitalism as generally understood within the USA today:
1. strong entrepeneurial culture, limited obstacles from government when starting new business ventures and/or products & services
2. a "free" market, meaning that in broad terms government does not control prices nor what can be bought & sold or how much or when it is sold
3. distribution of profit generally goes to capital (stockholders) rather than employees.
None of these require enshittification. I also believe that we could have a thriving and vibrant economy without #3.
Re: Brands got worse on purpose
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know what the right term is but yeah it's not quite inflation. IIRC households pre-ww2 were spending 15% of their budget on clothing, and the farther back you go the higher that gets even to the point where the concept of "budget" breaks down and the entire family's activities were oriented around procuring food and cloth. Good fabric has always been and is still very expensive! We have created much cheaper a…
> if you want the quality your predecessors had you better be prepared to look 15% of your household budget in the face But why? That would imply productivity in the industry hasn't risen at all. Which isn't true. Look at televisions, for example. 1% of what they cost in 1960 and 1000x better. (Don't @ me with "smart TVs have ads now". You know what I really mean)
Tendency for the rate of profit to fall.
Re: Brands got worse on purpose
#57The author of website will be flooded with submissions about almost every known brand.
Instead of ledger of bad brands it should track brands that remain, - it will be a lot easier and less work.
Re: Brands got worse on purpose
#58Super interesting -- outside the premise which we all know to be true. What is their goal here -- to crowdsource information so that we have a public record of note for companies? What are they planning to do with that information etc?
Author here. The goal is a permanent public record of who owns what, and what that ownership has done to the product, so consumers can make informed purchasing decisions. The long-form essays are the investigations, the Brand Ledger is the ongoing reference. Readers tip me on brands to dig into, and entries get updated as news and reader reports come in.
Consumers have power to affect change with their dollars... providing they have the right information
Re: Brands got worse on purpose
#59Support brands with values and local manufacturing. For example: American Giant, Origin, Crye Precision, Randolph Engineering, American Optical, and many more.
+1 on Origin. 100% of their good are built from American-grown/made materials, built by American hands. It's wayyyy more expensive than most common brands ($99 for a pair of jeans), but if you compare them to "luxury" brands like Lululemon, it's comparable and wasn't manufactured using slave labor.
Personally, I love using Origin for everything I can afford to use them for. I acknowledge not everyone has the privilege to spend $99 on a pair of jeans, but if you find yourself able, I think it's worthy to support American manufacturing.
Re: Brands got worse on purpose
#60Betteridge's Law of Trademarks: anything called "Authentic Brands Group" is as far away from authentic as possible.
There's a broader law: If it needs to insist on what it is, it probably isn't. E.g. "People's Democratic Republic of Foo".