What Is Your Idea Of Quality?

Is there a true difference if something is made in the USA versus if something is made in China? Anyone that has handled a product made in China and compared it to something made in the USA knows the difference. Why can’t Chinese products usually compare in quality to those products made in the USA? Does it matter what you spend your hard earned money on? Do we live in a world where the term “disposable” has become everything we buy? Do we not buy anything for long term anymore? Is the price of something a considerable factor knowing you will have to replace it more often?

This post is purely observational as my nieces (3 & 4) were visiting last night and they both had a small toy they were playing with. One of the trucks was about a year old and was bought at a dollar store. The other truck was a metal Tonka truck that was mine from the 70s and was given to the 4 y/o because she saw it and would not take no for an answer.  Both trucks were worn, beat up, but still their favorite toy of the moment for the choices available. The one from the dollar store was missing all of its parts and basically could only be called a truck simply because I saw it when it was brand new. That old Tonka truck (40+ years old) was still going strong, it still had all of its parts, and I know when she is done with it I will once again put it up on the shelf. Where as the truck from the dollar store with end up in the trash. The old Tonka truck has been through me, all three of my kids, and now my young nieces. I have no doubt it will remain the survivor.

I suppose this is my point. Sometimes the quality you get is based on where the product was made. If you would have asked me when I was 5 if I thought the shiny new truck I was playing with would one day, 40 years later, be displayed on a shelf I would have told you “only if it can survive 100,000,000 more jumps off the roof of the shed into the sand box pit”. As time goes on I find that relics of the past are harder to come by because our past is being swallowed by the future. As technology moves forward kids don’t want trucks anymore. I would say my parents got their money’s worth back in the day.