Ed Pawlowski wrote:
"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.

If you grew up in England then you might think it so.

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.

So you're saying that we now live in a doctorocracy where "health care
providers" get to tell us how to live our lives?

Metric users are becoming the majority.

Fine. When they do then they'll vote to change the system and it will get
changed. Meanwhile, get a life or take some Ritalin or do whatever you need
to do in order to obtain some _PATIENCE_.

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.

Yeah, like people walk into a car showroom and the first thing the do is
pull a fastener and check the threads to see if it's metric.

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.

You had to learn a new system in order to use Austrian made machines? What
system was that, or didn't you already know metric?

Please be aware that I've been USING metric for going on 40 years. I just
don't find it this totally wonderful life-improving convenience that its
advocates claim it to be.

Some of our industry tooling suppliers resisted the change and
started to lose a lot of business.

What change did they resist? Did the simply not make tooling for machinery
that was becoming popular? If so that's stupidity having nothing to do with
a measurement system.

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.

I don't see where buying the tools you need is "adapting". You're making
far too big a deal out of the metric system. I have tools that are English
system and tools that are metric and a few that are neither. I use
whichever tool I need for a job and don't really worry about it.

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.

"Adapt" all you want to. JUST DON'T GO AROUND PASSING LAWS THAT TELL OTHER
PEOPLE THAT THEY HAVE TO.