In article ,
PaPaPeng wrote:



As for [50 year old Zenith round-tube TV, an Osborne Computer] the old
wall-mount crank handle telephones and even more modern 'built like a
tank' bakelite dail tone telephones are collectors' items now. A
quick search on eBay will surprise you as to what people value as
collectables. But somehow I still can't picture a Made in China item
from Wally's making it into the shelves of collectables. There is no
local or Euro-centric content, a history of some (American) worthy
turning the raw material into a popular product that reflected the
life of their times. And this brings back my original musings about
the loss of heritage aritfacts, aka nostalgic collectables.
Collectables, at least within the Western and especially the North
American context is often more related to childhood than anything else.
Heck look at the money you can get for old lunch pails today from the
Baby Boomer's who grew up on them. Dolls are good, too. Many of these
could very well be Wally World China related in the next decades. Most
collectables are not the heavy oak furniture, etc.


What is happening in China today is truly astounding and equally
incomprehensible. Except that it works and the results
incontrovertible. Yup. They cost me my jobs, many times too, except
I made it to retirement in one piece. I am proud for China can at
last work for her advancement in peace and take its place among the
leading nations of the world. This can't be comforting for the rest
of the world that has to accommodate this development. I have no easy
answers to that.
I think wealth tends to moderate the desire to go about and
steal things. First of all, barring meglomania on the part of the
rulers, you don't tend to do things that take money out of your own
pocket and even the Chinese government knows the advantage of letting a
sleeping peasant lie.
My longer-term concern with the Chinese center on the demographic
outcomes of the one-child laws. Admittedly, when there are a few billion
people floating around a country, you do have a few to "give", but as
the last "real" generation retires, what happens when there are so many
fewer to support them. The other side of that is the high percentage of
males, nothing worse than a bunch of horny males having problems finding
a mate (g).
Both of these might trigger governmental "adventurisim" as both a
solution and a way to shift blame away from the Men Behind the Curtain.


As for the current thread on shoddy and toxic China made goods it will
pass just as past accusations of China in other areas had passed
before. It is product safety ignorance and not a conscious effort to
cut corners to make the extra buck. These oversights are easily
corrected. The competiton is far too intense not to respond to
customer demands promptly whether at the regulatory level or on the
production floor. It will not be a hot election issue by the time the
Presidential election comes around.

Went through the same stuff in the 60s and 70s with Japan
(from shoddy goods, to balance of payments, etc. etc. etc.) and this
will pass.