No pride, no quality? "Name" companies fail To meet their promises

 

I LOOOKED UP AT THE CEILING LIGHTS and noticed that yet another Obama bulb had burned out, well short of its advertised 10 thousand hour functional life.

There are only a handful of companies putting their label on the Curly Florescent Lights (CFLs) sold in the U.S., not all of which are U.S. companies. (Phillips, for example, is a Dutch company with headquarters in Amsterdam.)

No matter what company’s label is on the box, ALL the CFLs are made in China. I have checked a number of stores and the country of manufacture always is China.

NO QA/QC IN CHINA. Americans should know by now that Chinese products, especially (a) low end products or (b) products that have no competition from U.S. and Canadian companies - such as CFLs - are notoriously shoddy; there is little, if any quality assurance or quality control in Chinese factories.

Back in the day, in the early 50s, Japanese products had a well-deserved reputation as shoddy. Cheap, but shoddy.

Some companies that imported Japanese products that cost more than a few dollars - $100 35mm cameras, for instance - performed their own QA and QC on the products once they arrived on the U.S.' shores.

Honeywell was one such company. If a camera had HONEYWELL stamped on the pentaprism, Honeywell stood behind the camera, knowing it passed its own U.S. based QA/QC inspection. (I owned a Honeywell Pentax H3v that survived my work as a reporter, then was used by a friend who eventually gave the camera to his son-in-law.)

Today, most Americans have confidence in Japanese-made products. They may not be innovative - the Japanese are great at copying other's ideas and then improving upon them - but they, generally, ARE reliable products - Nissan nee Datsun, Honda, Mitsubishi (cars and planes), and Toyota are Japan's flag bearers in the transportation industry. But, while once "cheap" in all meanings of the word, Japanese products now have both QA/QC and higher price tags.

The CFLs imported into the U.S. are SUPPOSED to be checked for compliance to Energy Star compliance.

According to the Saving Electricity web site (http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/cfl.html), under the subheding "CFL longevity," we read that

It's no secret: the cheaper CFL's often burn out quickly. Sometimes even a batch of name-brand bulbs can be bad. I strongly recommend you buy only CFLs with the Energy Star seal or that come with a warranty. Energy Star bulbs have to meet strict specs for lifespan, and they have to maintain 80% of the initial light output at 40% of their rated lifetime.

It's a myth that frequent cycling (turning lights and on off) greatly reduces CFL life. When CFLs fail, it's generally because they were cheap and poorly made, not because they were turned on and off too much. In Consumer Reports' rigorous testing, after 3000 hours with frequent on-off cycling, most of their CFL's are still going strong, and the Energy Star bulbs are lasting longer than the non-ES bulbs. And to get the Energy Star label, 5 of 6 test bulbs have to stay alive after being cycled for half the number of stated life-hours. For example, a bulb with a claimed life of 6000 hours is turned on for 5 minutes and off for 5 minutes, a total of 3000 times.

Even the Energy Star requirement of 80% of the initial light output at 40% of their rated lifetime is not encouraging.

The failure rate, at least in the bulbs in my use, seems to be excessive.

I HAVE returned a bulb to a retailer and the retailer DID provide a replacement, but any saving I might have enjoyed by using the Obama bulb was cancelled out by the cost of returning the bulb.

We no longer have a choice of light bulbs - we can buy ones made in China or we can buy ones made in China.

I suppose the old saw "You get what you pay for" holds true for the Chinese no-quality products; still, it would be nice of the companies putting their labels on the product cared enough about THEIR corporate image to take some responsibility for the products that bear their logo.

Honeywell had it right - back in the day.

President Sneaky Right action Wrong method

 

ONCE AGAIN President Sneaky has made what I consider a correct move but in a, what seems typical for him, sneaky manner.
First it was Obamacare. American needs a national health care system. That the Obamacare needs lots of work to make it usable is another matter, but it was a step in the right direction.
Now, Cuba.
The U.S. has attempted - and failed - to embargo Cuba for more than 50 years. The Castros still are in charge even without their former backers, the now-defunct - perhaps temporarily defunct - Soviet Union.
Obungler saw the embargo failed to benefit the U.S. or the "oppressed" Cubans who remain in Cuba. (There are so many Cubans in South Florida - Cubans who swore they would go back "just as soon as" that if you don't speak Spanish you don't do business in Dade County.)
Nixon (re)opened China to the U.S. - a mistake since China now "owns" the U.S. China it may be recalled was the chief sponsor of North Korea and of what was North Vietnam; in other words, no friend of the U.S.
Reagan saw the Berlin wall come down and lead detent with the former Soviet Union. We have - or perhaps soon "had" thanks to Mr. Putin - business relations with the former enemy. The Soviet Union and the U.S. were combatants in a cold war and a number of proxy hot wars (including Israel and its neighbors) since the end of World War II. Like China, no friend of the U.S.
Never mind that before the guns had cooled in 1945 the U.S. was rebuilding Germany and Japan at a cost U.S. manufacturers still are paying.
Cuba NEVER was an enemy. It never attacked a U.S. operation, and with the Guantanamo base, it had (has) plenty of opportunity.
THE PROBLEM with the president who would be king is that he is trying to rule by fiat, by executive order.
He's not the first to issue executive orders, nor will he be the last.
But he is sneaky about his intents.
The U.S. has a congress and a supreme court that are supposed to be equal with the executive branch. They are supposed to work in concert.
Obungler contends that he can't get anything thorough Congress because of the nasty Republicans.
Granted, the two parties probably have never been as diametrically opposed as during the current administration, but past administrations with a congress controlled by the opposing party HAVE made great progress.
Obungler acts like a thief in the night, sneaking his desires into law by either by-passing Congress or by inundating Congress with bills of thousands of pages and demanding immediate passage - don't bother to READ the bill, just pass it - which is how we got the Obamacare kludge. (Again, IMO the U.S. needs a better social welfare program.)
The U.S. can afford this if it will stop sending money - and jobs - across the border and overseas to countries that should stand on their own financial feet. How many American dollars go into foreign rulers' pockets rather than to the people for whom the money is intended?
I agree with President Sneaky - we should deal with Cuba as the U.S. deals with other countries. There may NOT be an immediate improvement in what Americans term "basic rights," but there also won't be a degradation of what rights are extent now. Over the long term I think - I hope - that commercial and social intercourse with the United States will benefit the average Jose Cuban.
It may LOOK as if the U.S.-Cuban detent is one sided, with the U.S. giving up everything and getting very little in return, but in time, the Communist influence will diminish as even the (aging) government will once again realize the benefits of democracy.
TO THEIR CREDIT, the Cubans of South Florida have so far kept their expressions of their pro or con opinions of Sneaky's latest fiat to verbal sparring; let's hope it stays that way.