Did you ever hear this one? The first time that I ever heard it was in a documentary interview with a Russian General about WWII. The Germans had the best "Quality" equipment and the Russian had only what they could fashion together. How could Russia expect to win given this situation? What the Russians had was "quantity". It was the same for us in WWII. Our main asset was "quantity" pure and simple. That is what defeated both Germany and Japan. Our own Civil War was exactly the same. The North had the "quantity" and the South had the "quality" and you know how that battle turned out. This brings me to the point of this blog and it goes like this. "Low cost has a quality all its own". Now, what do I mean about this?
Look at many of our kids today. Notice how many will only wear cloths of a special brand? I know very young kids who demand that special brands and parents who go along. These are normally much more expensive cloths and as a result, the kid has to settle for fewer new cloths or the family has to give up something. This concept applies to all kinds of things, like toys, cars, computers, cell phones. I have heard people say that if they can not have the special brand or model that they want, then they don't want any. It seems like this concept has woven itself all through our society. You may even agree with this concept in many situations. It applies to food too. Many people would rather go hungry than to eat something that was of lower quality. You know this is true, but does it affect the bigger picture? Yes!
I just purchased a new 1-1/2" wood chisel for over $100 because I "wanted" it. I checked on Harbor Freight and I could buy a whole set of wood chisels for less than $10. Now, the Harbor Freight chisels are not as high a quality as the one I just purchased, but think of it this way. There are 10 times as many people out there who can not afford the $100 chisel and thus would have to go without any wood chisels if it were not for the low prices at Harbor Freight. Think of the "quality" of life for those people who could not afford the $100 chisel if there were no $10 set of chisels available? I think that you are starting to see the concept. To satisfy the greatest number of people, the first phase is to provide the lowest cost tools. It would be the same with shoes, cheap shoes vs no shoes. A company that made cheap shoes provides "quality" just as well as the company that makes fancy brand shoes.
Look at Obamacare. It started off from the point that at least 10% or 15% of our population does not have health insurance. That might be true, but it does not mean that they do not have or get adequate health care. I don't know of a case where anyone who did not have health insurance did not get adequate health care. Do you? No emergency room turns away sick or injured people with or without health insurance. So what was the "real" problem? I guess it was that too many people had "substandard health care". Why did Obama go for "Superior" quality rather than first getting basic coverage for those who did not have health care insurance? That is because he is as stupid as the young kids that I described above or their parents. Maybe, Obama knows how stupid the voters are and has no problem taking advantage of their stupidity.
Low cost has a quality all its own. We need to remember that and not get on our high horse and demand that we have the very best until everyone has the low cost item.
PS----Did you ever read the book " Two Years Before The Mast " by W. H. Dana? If you did, you may recall his description of the "Spanish Dandies" who strutted around Monterrey looking like little Banty Roosters. They all wore fancy cloths made in Spain in the dusty frontier town of Monterrey. They only had "one" change of cloths, but if they were willing to wear cheap locally made cloths they would not have smelled so bad.
