Interesting Story (OT)

[Jeff Tanner]

On Tuesday, December 2, 2003, at 06:55 AM, Marcel Carey wrote:

> So I guess soon enough WalMart will sell asian pianos???

No, they're on Ebay.

>
> Cheap imports really hurt the piano industry in North America if you
> ask me. Japan took us by low prices and killed many of our factories.
> Mind you our quality was not what it should have been, but just the
> same, piano craftsmen lost their jobs.
>
> Just my 2 cents,
>
> Marcel Carey, RPT
> Sherbrooke, QC


This is exactly the relevance of the story to our list.  Not to 
mention, the shrinking state budgets due to loss of income taxes on the 
jobs which are being moved overseas, which, in turn, cut our 
maintenance budgets and keep our CAUT salaries at the levels where we 
are forced to buy everything at Wal Mart.

Wal Mart affects everything about what we do.  Why don't you try to go 
out and find a decent tool at your local hardware store?  You can't.  
Because we have here the same effect as the Aeolian effect had on the 
piano industry, which was a recent topic.  Wal Mart, Home Depot, and 
Lowes offer mediocre to cheap quality tools to compete with each other, 
squeezing out higher end tools, because they simply aren't carrying 
them.

In our own piano industry, we've seen the number of suppliers of 
quality domestic tools and supplies dwindle to one (with exception of 
course, of some smaller tool makers), with foreign Asian imports 
controlling the costs - and the quality - of the domestic tools and 
supplies we can purchase.

Now, if Wal Mart could sell health insurance....

Jeff
Jeff Tanner, RPT
School Of Music
University of South Carolina