I've got a problem!!

[cognos]

Ha!  

You're not disageeing with my definition at all. Those aren't my definitions. They are simple economic absolutes, without morals. No one could follow either philosophy to the absolute and get anything sold or bought!

You are in fact agreeing with me! The middle ground - success in a capitialist economy - must take in to account laws, societal mores, cultural differences, personal relationships, attachments and comittments, etc. - that makes any transaction acceptable - or even possible. In any good transaction, there is must be an explicit understanding on both sides that the seller has to make enough money to eat - and that the consumer has enough cash left over to buy food... dead sellers and buyers make for a poor economy indeed...

The drive toward less expensive products proves this. A product may be less expensive to produce in a country where labour is less expensive, the environmental or safety legislation is lax, or they use child labour, whatever... something out of one's particular comfort zone that they experience in their local work environment...

If the business that produces their products in this place then returns them to our country for sale, it is up to us - the consumer - to accept this less expensive product because of it's cheap price - but it's also up to us to make an informed  judgement, and decide if it's OK to ignore (and possibly accept) the real reasons of why it's less expensive... and finally, to reward that business for their decisions by making the purchase... that's a societal decision,  not an economic one.

If a person disagrees with the choice of that item for any reason - it's a good thing to be well-enough off economically to be able to pay the price premium, and select a product produced in our own country, or that of a trading partner, that conforms more to our sense of value and fairness. The middle ground. That's where I try to spend most of my money while I can still afford to do so, and where it's still possible to do. (Possible is a key word here... in the US and Canada - the nations that gave birth to radio and television for the masses, and where the great manufacturers once ruled the industry - tried to buy a US-made TV or radio lately?)

Which brings the question of who is more reponsible for the decline of local industry, and locally produced goods - the consumers who lust for more and cheaper goods, no matter where they come from, and ignore societal and environmental, costs... or the former local busineses who have shut the doors on their own local factories and put their neighbors and fellow citizens out of work, and moved their manufactories offshore... in the name of shareholder value?

What this has to do with the original question, I have no idea. But a good group of ideas, in any case, in my opinion...

[Lloyd]

You all know how I feel about the difference of cheap or frugal.

There 2 types of business. 1. order takers, and 2. service providers, some combine both.

Type 1. Under order takers you have a business that believes that there is a new customer right around the corner. Doesn't provide service and support, bc they know another fool is just waiting to enter the door.

Type 2. Service provider a business that believes it's easier to get repeat business then it is to get new business. Consequently they sell a higher quality product, bc they know it will deliver better customer satisfaction, which equals repeat business.

Our government is responsible for the flood of cheap crap, it has used it as a way to control inflation.

Lloyd

[cognos]

I subscribe to a slightly different take on that...

I believe that it's harder  - but best - to shoot for the long-term customer  - return business, if you will - because any fool can sell one thing to another fool once... Return business gives me a measureable way to judge the correctness of my business decisions...

I don't know if I subscribe to the theory that anyone's 1st world government is to blame - for much of anything, really... I look around my house, and I see a lot of stuff that my parents wouldn't have dreamed of owning, and we got by, quite well and happily, if memory serves... it was my own decision to own these things, and spend my money on them, to cosset myself with these incremental comforts and conveniences, and reward the companies for producing them... for that, I blame no one but myself... I mean, who is it that has convinced us that life is not quite right and we need Prozac to get by if we don't have a giant TV, 2 cars, a pool, or that we need the newest model, or that one must be constantly comparing our lifestyles to some advertiser's idea of an ideal? We've mixed up the meanings. No one knows how to have "enough" any more.

That's one of the attractions of this board to me. Members take recycled 19th century technology and use it to produce electricity for 21st century work.   I've got friends that have no idea how many KWHs they use per month - all they know how to do is bitch about the bill, and carry on without changing a thing. Somehow missing the point...

[DanG]

I believe there are two big problems you're encountering.

One is the rebate scheme was tailored by lobbyists to exclude all but that 1% the occupy wallstreet movement is yalping about these days.

The second is I think you are running into a supply & demand thang. With low volume in NY State installers are withholding certain services as you've discovered. Can we spell 'Monopoly'? If regulations for the last sixty years or so had not been a blatent protection racket for licensed contractors that might even be seen as a flavor of price-fixing.

For contrast shift to South Florida...

"We'll do it all or hold your hand or sit and laugh while you do it, makes no difference to us"  is a direct quote when the largest PV contractors in the State estimated a bid for my brothers house.

When all the options were explained the costs down South were such that it made little sense to do any of the work oneself - let the crews jump the job and have it done in a day or two to take advantage of crews geared up to the high volume of work (thus competition) available in the area.

With modern standards and codes written in stone there is no compelling reason NOT to supervise a DIY installation, that is with the correct Lawyerese contract language written in by the contractors and signed by the homeowner... basically a hold-harmless agreement that if/when something goes wrong its not anyones fault but the homeowner, that warranties and component exchanges are up to the owner, etc..

Remember we usually get what we pay for.

I think of that often from the $90 for 90 minutes plumber that lost (knotted) his fish tape down the sanitary sewer drill pipe on this lot. Turns out there is a main sewer tunnel sixty foot down and by luck of the draw this house sits above it. So, instead of being responsible for pipe change to the center of the street we have sixty foot of vertical 12"-bore-grouted-to-4" pipe AND a thirty-foot drift tunnel to get access to the lip of the canal.. and it all needs to be replaced. Oh, and all the existing material is Haz-mat and needs to be trucked six miles to get out of the system before it can be disposed of. So saving $60 bought us $15,000 worth of work when the City Utility folks had to come hook a chain to the plumbers snake and yank it free (from underground) with their special sewer canal crawling 4X4 pickup. Because the workers were called to this address a failing inspection was filed and it now sits as a lean against the title. None of the other houses were tagged even if theirs were worse off. Yum. Don't be penny smart but pound foolish!