"J. Clarke" wrote in message
...
Ed Pawlowski wrote:
"J. Clarke" wrote in message

The hold-out is that the US is still at least somewhat responsive to
the will of the people and the public doesn't _want_ some bizarre
French system
crammed down its throat.

So instead of getting paid in dollars and cents should we change to a
system of farthings, shillings, or ringgits?

Why should we change _anything_?

Dollars are 10 based, just like metric, and it works. You seem to think is
is bizarre.



Much of our country happily works with metric every day and have for
decades. Those people don't look any worse for wear.

Are they the majority? If not then what right do they have to impose
their
system on the majority?


They are your health care providers for starters.

Metric users are becoming the majority. Forward looking companies are
making their products with metric hardware so they can export them. Too
often, people lose sight of the world economy and the requirements of some
countries with standards. They don't want inches any more than we wanted
metric imported cars. That has been a sticking point with exporting in the
automobile industry for many years.

When our company started buying Austrian made machines, it was a little
learning curve. Like others I was a bit apprehensive about learning a new
system. Once I did, I found it easier to work with, as have all of our
supervisors, maintenance people, and so forth. Some are just afraid of
change, afraid of having to learn a new different system.

Some of our industry tooling suppliers resisted the change and started to
lose a lot of business. There has not been a US maker of our type of
equipment for over 25 years so it was adapt or lose. A few went out of
business, the others easily adapted and are doing well. In the future, it
will be adapt or die. Do you want to be a part of the rest of the world?
Perhaps you don't have to, but with more and more of our business being
international, I prefer to adapt. Doing our little part of offset the trade
imbalance.