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Tegger[_2_]

wrote in
:

Wouldn't be too bad if you could buy decent quality CFLs - but
everything today is a crap-shoot. Doesn't matter what you pay for them
they are all cheap chinese crap.

China is, and from what I've read always has been, the intended
manufacturing location for all CFLs.

A couple of years ago, I read a newspaper article about the CFL matter.
According to the article (newspaper name unremembered now), the major
light-bulb makers were in possession of North American factories that were
reaching the ends of their productive lives, were expensively unionized,
and were in need of extensive and expensive overhaul.

The makers were reluctant to pour large amounts of new money into an old-
technology product that had slim margins to begin with, so they decided to
develop and promote a relatively new technology that carried much higher
margins: CFLs. Since CFLs required brand-new machinery, the makers could
justify new plants in places where labor was very cheap. Guess where?

How many CFLs are made in North America? I'd wager...few to none.

Since CFLs are extremely expensive compared to incandescents; often produce
unattractive light; "light-off" slowly; contain mercury; have limited
application, consumers were understandably reluctant to purchase them. For
this reason, governments in the First World were intensively lobbied by
bulb makers (among other groups; for their own reasons) to have
incandescents banned.

--
Tegger