time changes, our race to the bottom for quality

[GroundedSailor]

Toyota Camry: 8,000 people employed in Georgetown, KY with an estimated 15,000 people making parts for the car.

For Fusion: 5,000 people employed in Mexico + 15,000 people in Mexico making parts for car.

How much of the money stays here (wages) vs leaves (profit) in case of the Camry and how much money comes here (profits) and leaves (wages) for the Fusion?

Not to mention the Engineering centers in Erlanger, KY and Michigan that Toyota has opened. Kia, Hyundai, and Honda have done the same.

I'm giving my money to who keeps the most Americans employed (as long as it's not a shit car in which case, I'll pick another one that's built here that I like).

Just saw your post. I would be interested to know where you got those numbers from?

AM also interested in your take on things like, where corporate profits go? where R&D money gets spent for the most part? Where all the tooling & die money gets spent? What about transfer pricing for parts made overseas for cars assembled in US?

FWIW I drive a vehicle largely made and assembled in US.


..

 

[First]

If we assume two things, that:

1) Raising American standards of living should be a primary goal of gov't policy, and that wage increases aren't the only way of achieving this.

2) That information is asymmetric, that not everyone knows the same facts and figures as everyone else.

Then a reasonable conclusion is that the price of food and consumer goods, in general, going down for well over a decade is in fact a direct benefit to Americans. The real, inflation-adjusted prices of goods going down and quality going up (quality has not gone down, that's utter nonsense) is clearly, we can all agree, a great benefit to Americans. Their standard of living is clearly increased by cheaper, higher quality products. It's also quite reasonable to say this is a direct result of international trade, few would argue this as it's pretty obvious that we have far more goods made abroad in China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and India than we did, say 30 years ago. So, to only mention that wages over the past 10 years has stagnated while ignoring the preciptious decline in goods prices is quite obviously only half the story (less, actually).

Now, part of international trade includes bottom-lining not just parts and goods overseas but labor too. We see this all the time with technical support and/or customer service in India/Philippines, and people complain and moan about it while simultaneously ignoring the fact that there's no way they could be open 24/7 if they didn't off-shore it. It's quite beneficial to consumers to be able to access services 24/7. In terms of parts, in the automotive business, due to Japan's more stringent emissions regulations, they trash automotive parts like transmissions after 60K-70K miles, and are able to resell them on the international market to the U.S. for deeply discounted prices we wouldn't be able to compete with here. This raises standards of living by itself, as getting a rebuilt transmission for $600 is better than the normal $1200 rate you'd find at a local shop. Stagnant wages may or may not be a direct result of international trade, it's tough to say since we've seen periods before in U.S. history where inflation-adjusted wages stagnated for a decade (not including the Great Depression). But on the other hand we've also seen worse employment numbers, not 80 years ago either, but just recently in 1980, well before international trade took significant hold and only a handful of years after trade with China finally began.

So people bitching and moaning about their personal experience with people losing their jobs to someone overseas like to focus only on what they see and not what objective reality shows; which is that there are multiple factors affecting standards of living over the past, say, 10 years and that stagnant wages over that small period of time are quite clearly over-shadowed by falling consumer prices, better quality goods and a flood of technological innovation and convenience that have undoubtedly raised standards of living during that same exact period. Focusing on the sob stories may be compelling but ultimately the alternative of overpaying for labor is worse. I mean, someone in this thread is telling people that a well-educated engineer is getting paid just $17/hr, quite clearly a total outlier and misnomer since the average engineer salary straight out of college is in the $50K-$80K range with benefits, something anyone can easily confirm with a Google search. So it really does no good to embellish.

 

[bfdd]

There is an educational arms race in this country at the moment and frankly, I personally believe it is causing more issues than it is solving. Not everyone can or SHOULD go to college, and the result is that we have a lot of people going through school, amassing a tremendous amount of debt, and settling for low paying jobs when they graduate because nothing else is available.

We've discussed this several times in this forum, but the continued bleating from the politicians that education is the answer and Americans will always be the innovators/designers/creative thinkers is absolute BS. The Indians and Chinese are very smart people and with all of our money pouring into their countries, they're eventually going to reach critical mass and then EVERYTHING will be done in those countries -- from design to implementation. What will be left for us?

The erosion of our manufacturing base is killing our country.

I completely agree with you on this. They literally tell you in school now a days that you cannot be successful unless you go to college and get a good degree.

 

[jackace]

If we assume two things, that:

1) Raising American standards of living should be a primary goal of gov't policy, and that wage increases aren't the only way of achieving this.

2) That information is asymmetric, that not everyone knows the same facts and figures as everyone else.

Then a reasonable conclusion is that the price of food and consumer goods, in general, going down for well over a decade is in fact a direct benefit to Americans. The real, inflation-adjusted prices of goods going down and quality going up (quality has not gone down, that's utter nonsense) is clearly, we can all agree, a great benefit to Americans. Their standard of living is clearly increased by cheaper, higher quality products. It's also quite reasonable to say this is a direct result of international trade, few would argue this as it's pretty obvious that we have far more goods made abroad in China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and India than we did, say 30 years ago. So, to only mention that wages over the past 10 years has stagnated while ignoring the preciptious decline in goods prices is quite obviously only half the story (less, actually).

Now, part of international trade includes bottom-lining not just parts and goods overseas but labor too. We see this all the time with technical support and/or customer service in India/Philippines, and people complain and moan about it while simultaneously ignoring the fact that there's no way they could be open 24/7 if they didn't off-shore it. It's quite beneficial to consumers to be able to access services 24/7. In terms of parts, in the automotive business, due to Japan's more stringent emissions regulations, they trash automotive parts like transmissions after 60K-70K miles, and are able to resell them on the international market to the U.S. for deeply discounted prices we wouldn't be able to compete with here. This raises standards of living by itself, as getting a rebuilt transmission for $600 is better than the normal $1200 rate you'd find at a local shop. Stagnant wages may or may not be a direct result of international trade, it's tough to say since we've seen periods before in U.S. history where inflation-adjusted wages stagnated for a decade (not including the Great Depression). But on the other hand we've also seen worse employment numbers, not 80 years ago either, but just recently in 1980, well before international trade took significant hold and only a handful of years after trade with China finally began.

So people bitching and moaning about their personal experience with people losing their jobs to someone overseas like to focus only on what they see and not what objective reality shows; which is that there are multiple factors affecting standards of living over the past, say, 10 years and that stagnant wages over that small period of time are quite clearly over-shadowed by falling consumer prices, better quality goods and a flood of technological innovation and convenience that have undoubtedly raised standards of living during that same exact period. Focusing on the sob stories may be compelling but ultimately the alternative of overpaying for labor is worse. I mean, someone in this thread is telling people that a well-educated engineer is getting paid just $17/hr, quite clearly a total outlier and misnomer since the average engineer salary straight out of college is in the $50K-$80K range with benefits, something anyone can easily confirm with a Google search. So it really does no good to embellish.

The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class: Higher Risks, Lower Rewards, and a Shrinking Safety Net

Her study and her information agrees with you that consumer goods have decreased in cost, but that has not changed the overall costs families are faced with. Her information also shows that other expenses have just taken their place and in many cases increased the burden on families. So yes the stagnant wages with higher risks and lower rewards is a BIG problem for our countries future.

 

[First]

^ Healthcare and education have increased in cost, I agree, but those don't turn out to be nearly the same magnitude in terms of pure arithmetic as food and consumer goods. Americans take for granted, greatly, how cheaply they can buy food, clothes, and electronics today. Of course, increasing healthcare costs and education aren't really closely inter-connected with international labor "competition", so it's sort of a different argument. Plus, with all due respect to Warren, she really does a disservice to her cause by generalizing these problems without actually addressing the numbers.

 

[Jaskalas]

Just saw the new ad of PizzaHut on TV and that got me thinking. I remember 15 years ago their large supreme pizzas cost around 18 bucks (plus tax) and now they are selling them for $10. There were $1 items on McDonald's menu then and they are still here after all this time. Many many other household items of all kinds are barely more expensive now than they were 15-20 years ago. All that sounds great until you figure out their quality all have taken a big dive over those years.

Well that's just depressing. No wonder Pizza sucks these days.

 

[jackace]

^ Healthcare and education have increased in cost, I agree, but those don't turn out to be nearly the same magnitude in terms of pure arithmetic as food and consumer goods. Americans take for granted, greatly, how cheaply they can buy food, clothes, and electronics today. Of course, increasing healthcare costs and education aren't really closely inter-connected with international labor "competition", so it's sort of a different argument. Plus, with all due respect to Warren, she really does a disservice to her cause by generalizing these problems without actually addressing the numbers.

My point is cost of living is cost of living, what the individual expense are doesn't matter. Either way people need a job that pays enough to meet those expenses. When our labor market, with a much higher cost of living, is forced to compete with a labor market, which has a much lower cost of living, it's not a fair competition.

 

[First]

My point is cost of living is cost of living, what the individual expense are doesn't matter. Either way people need a job that pays enough to meet those expenses. When our labor market, with a much higher cost of living, is forced to compete with a labor market, which has a much lower cost of living, it's not a fair competition.

Except the two variables aren't just "labor markets" vs. each other. If you study comparative vs. absolute advantages, you'll see that by and large both sides benefit on the net from trade. Labor is no different than goods in this scenario, it's just that people are involved and of course families and that is always emotional. But if you're dispassionate and just look at the facts, the cost of living has gone down for the middle class. Wages haven't increased fast enough, OK, that's one part of the equation.

 

[Acanthus]

If we assume two things, that:

1) Raising American standards of living should be a primary goal of gov't policy, and that wage increases aren't the only way of achieving this.

2) That information is asymmetric, that not everyone knows the same facts and figures as everyone else.

Then a reasonable conclusion is that the price of food and consumer goods, in general, going down for well over a decade is in fact a direct benefit to Americans. The real, inflation-adjusted prices of goods going down and quality going up (quality has not gone down, that's utter nonsense) is clearly, we can all agree, a great benefit to Americans. Their standard of living is clearly increased by cheaper, higher quality products. It's also quite reasonable to say this is a direct result of international trade, few would argue this as it's pretty obvious that we have far more goods made abroad in China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and India than we did, say 30 years ago. So, to only mention that wages over the past 10 years has stagnated while ignoring the preciptious decline in goods prices is quite obviously only half the story (less, actually).

Now, part of international trade includes bottom-lining not just parts and goods overseas but labor too. We see this all the time with technical support and/or customer service in India/Philippines, and people complain and moan about it while simultaneously ignoring the fact that there's no way they could be open 24/7 if they didn't off-shore it. It's quite beneficial to consumers to be able to access services 24/7. In terms of parts, in the automotive business, due to Japan's more stringent emissions regulations, they trash automotive parts like transmissions after 60K-70K miles, and are able to resell them on the international market to the U.S. for deeply discounted prices we wouldn't be able to compete with here. This raises standards of living by itself, as getting a rebuilt transmission for $600 is better than the normal $1200 rate you'd find at a local shop. Stagnant wages may or may not be a direct result of international trade, it's tough to say since we've seen periods before in U.S. history where inflation-adjusted wages stagnated for a decade (not including the Great Depression). But on the other hand we've also seen worse employment numbers, not 80 years ago either, but just recently in 1980, well before international trade took significant hold and only a handful of years after trade with China finally began.

So people bitching and moaning about their personal experience with people losing their jobs to someone overseas like to focus only on what they see and not what objective reality shows; which is that there are multiple factors affecting standards of living over the past, say, 10 years and that stagnant wages over that small period of time are quite clearly over-shadowed by falling consumer prices, better quality goods and a flood of technological innovation and convenience that have undoubtedly raised standards of living during that same exact period. Focusing on the sob stories may be compelling but ultimately the alternative of overpaying for labor is worse. I mean, someone in this thread is telling people that a well-educated engineer is getting paid just $17/hr, quite clearly a total outlier and misnomer since the average engineer salary straight out of college is in the $50K-$80K range with benefits, something anyone can easily confirm with a Google search. So it really does no good to embellish.

You are implying deflation has occurred in prices on normal goods.

This is not true.

 

[Acanthus]

Except the two variables aren't just "labor markets" vs. each other. If you study comparative vs. absolute advantages, you'll see that by and large both sides benefit on the net from trade. Labor is no different than goods in this scenario, it's just that people are involved and of course families and that is always emotional. But if you're dispassionate and just look at the facts, the cost of living has gone down for the middle class. Wages haven't increased fast enough, OK, that's one part of the equation.

Wages have stagnated vs inflation... Inflation is measured through the Consumer Price Index.

Neither core inflation nor full inflation have been negative for any relevant period of time, save our epically bad recession where prices have fallen due to demand going completely down the shitter.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally Posted by IndyColtsFan
There is an educational arms race in this country at the moment and frankly, I personally believe it is causing more issues than it is solving. Not everyone can or SHOULD go to college, and the result is that we have a lot of people going through school, amassing a tremendous amount of debt, and settling for low paying jobs when they graduate because nothing else is available.

We've discussed this several times in this forum, but the continued bleating from the politicians that education is the answer and Americans will always be the innovators/designers/creative thinkers is absolute BS. The Indians and Chinese are very smart people and with all of our money pouring into their countries, they're eventually going to reach critical mass and then EVERYTHING will be done in those countries -- from design to implementation. What will be left for us?

The erosion of our manufacturing base is killing our country.
[/QUOTE]

You are the one that pushed for this. You and your Republican buds and now you complain???

wtf , ALL YOU aMERICA HATING Republican PIECE OF SHITS

The answer is for you and your buds to go to China and India that you love so much and leave us real America loving Americans here to re-build it without your sorry asses.

 

[dmcowen674]

do we import gas YET?

I know that the world biggest refinery is set to go online in India and is to export gas to the US at some point)!

Actually I can see at least one good thing coming from importing the gas from India.

It will shut the mouths up of Republicans that constantly harp that there hasn't been a new refinery built here since 1979 which is complete bullshit anyway.

Not only has not been necessary for various reasons such as on site expansions but the fact that capacity was never a problem because they have actually shut most refining capacity down at them.

Whether or not it lower prices remains to be seen but they will be going from whatever they pay workers to get blown up here to pennies to blow people up over there.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

You are the one that pushed for this. You and your Republican buds and now you complain???

wtf , ALL YOU aMERICA HATING Republican PIECE OF SHITS

The answer is for you and your buds to go to China and India that you love so much and leave us real America loving Americans here to re-build it without your sorry asses.

Oh noes, another incoherent rant from the ultimate hypocrite who voted for Bush -- twice -- while I never did! BRILLIANT Dave, brilliant!

Time to take your medicine again, you delusional buffoon. You are someone who could definitely use some education since you're a clueless hack who can't even read. What's more, you're a crybaby who can't even manage to discuss anything because when you're confronted, you cry like a little girl and block people. Leave you to rebuild America? LOL, that's rich. You've done such a wonderful job at rebuilding things already -- like the bar you owned, for example.

You are the one who voted for Bush. I did not. Who is the "Republican-hating POS now?" That's right Dave, you. Now run along and fail at yet another aspect of life. I could just add you to my ignore list, but your posts serve to remind me of the ignorant, dangerous hacks out there.

Obviously you didn't read my response to your previous delusional babbling in this thread. You should read it, as you were thoroughly owned and humiliated.

 

[Modelworks]

I saw a news item about KFC. The franchise owners of KFC are suing the corporate owners of the company saying they have lost the focus of what the franchise is about and costing them money in the process. Their position is that KFC is about fried chicken, not baked, bbq, steamed or any other thing. The franchises are forced to buy the product and try to sell it and often end up having to discard it because customers don't want it.

People find out too late if you sell off your business to a corporation chances are that what made your business great will disappear and be replaced by corporate greed.

There is a book about KFC and its founding and it tells how the business started and how demanding Col. Sanders was about the franchises he had at the time. He went to one franchise and ordered a meal without anyone knowing he was coming. After tasting it, he went into the kitchen , told everyone to go home that this place was no longer in business , took the pressure cooker from the kitchen and placed it in the trunk of his white cadillac and drove off. His mistake is he sold the franchise as he was getting older .

How Col. Sanders felt about KFC after selling it:

That friggin' outfit ... They prostituted every goddamn thing I had! I had the greatest gravy in the world and those sons of bitches, they dragged it out and extended it and watered it down that I'm so goddamn mad."

In turn, justifying KFC's cost-cutting ways and it's penchant for making 'quality' subservient to profiteering, a Corporate exec. was once quoted as saying:

"Let's face it, the Colonel's gravy was fantastic but you had to be a Rhodes Scholar to cook it. It involved too much time, it left too much room for human error and it was too expensive..."

And (speaking to a reporter):

"If you were a franchisee turning out perfect gravy but making very little money for the company, and I was a franchisee making lots of money for the company but serving gravy that was merely excellent, the Colonel would think that you were great and that I was a bum..."[2]

And Colonel Sanders' said the following regarding the gravy produced by KFC Corp, in lieu of his own:


“My God, that gravy is horrible. They buy water for 15 to 20 cents per thousand gallons and then they mix it with flour and starch and end up with pure wallpaper paste. And I know wallpaper paste, by God, because I’ve seen my Mother make it! ... To the wallpaper paste they add some sludge and sell it for 65 or 75 cents a pint. There’s no nutrition in it and they ought not to be allowed to sell it.”

Finally, Colonel Sanders was quoted as saying the following to a KFC Franchisee, after sampling his Corporatised gravy:

"How do you serve this God-damned slop? With a straw?"

Another example is walmart. Sam Walton is spinning at 10,000 rpm in his grave over what has been done with his original idea. If anyone remembers walmart when it first was starting to spread , early 1990's they had signs all over the store saying, Made in the USA , that was something Sam Walton was proud about and he made it a priority to use USA manufacturers. The way the stores have gone to China now would make him sick. After he died his children took over and the whole thing went downhill.

 

[Modelworks]

The real, inflation-adjusted prices of goods going down and quality going up (quality has not gone down, that's utter nonsense) is clearly, we can all agree, a great benefit to Americans.

I don't know what reality you live in, but quality will always go down when a corporation is involved. Any business based on profit will cut cost until they cannot do so any further without losing customers. That is the difference between small business owners and large corporations. Small business is usually started by someone who has an interest in the work they do and care about the quality of service they provide on a personal level. Corporations relate to business as a dollar sign .

A local shop that sells appliance parts will use higher quality , higher cost parts , not because he can't buy cheaper ones, but because he wants to provide a higher quality to his customers. A corporate chain will buy the cheapest parts possible and justify it by showing a spreadsheet on how the customers returns and complaints vs the profit made make that the right choice.

 

[Engineer]

Just saw your post. I would be interested to know where you got those numbers from?

AM also interested in your take on things like, where corporate profits go? where R&D money gets spent for the most part? Where all the tooling & die money gets spent? What about transfer pricing for parts made overseas for cars assembled in US?

FWIW I drive a vehicle largely made and assembled in US.


..

I picked the Toyota numbers up from a radio spot a few years ago. I picked up the Ford numbers from my last company doing business with them.

As for profits, I think that profits are dwarfed by wages. I may be wrong but I bet there is far more money pumped into the US economy by paying those that make the cars/parts than just bringing the profits back into the US from making the cars/parts elsewhere.

As for tool/die work, I think it's probably a high content from the local sources around the plant but since Mexico doesn't have a large skilled trade population, I could see it coming from places like Michigan. I know Toyota has lots of work done by local vendors (my company does controls work for them and used to help install good size conveyor projects, etc).

As for R&D, I'm sure that there is more spent on R&D by Ford/GM/Domestics here than Toyota but that's not to say that they Toyota doesn't spend money here. They do have the engineering centers here. Honda designed the entire Ridgeline truck here. Don't forget the fact that GM designed the new Buick entirely in Germany (where it is also built).

As for parts from foreign countries, I don't have enough stats on that to say one way or another. I know that many foreign automotive companies like to buy from their own countries. With that said, if you can open a branch of a native company in the producing country, they will generally buy from the local branch. My last company did just that by buying a Korean supplier and then opening a branch in Alabama, which now supplies both Kia and Hyundai their brake/fuel assemblies. Since the Korean company is 60% US owned, part of the profits stay here and since 100% of the workers are here, all of the wages go into the US economy.


I personally think that the wages of 20,000+ far outweigh any profits coming back, especially since those wages go to the typical middle class family and not the investor class that typically gets the profits.

Automotive companies, for the most part, don't like to ship parts very long distances because of potential disruptions of the supply chain. All it takes is one "widget" missing and the entire line shuts down. Not saying that they don't do it, but I know that several have "balked" about moving operations even to Mexico (for parts suppliers) because the cross-country shipping of parts was one more potential block to daily production.

Edit: One thing I noticed in my previous company is that the amount of Mexican labor was ALWAYS underestimated. Not sure whether it was this way with other companies or not but quotes would be one for one Mexican labor vs the same amount of US labor. Many US plants would quote automation vs Mexican labor and would lose out barely. However, once in the Mexican plant, labor was almost always double (i.e. double the number of expected workers). Pissed off lots of the US plants (now closed) because they could have competed with automation if allowed. Again, not sure of other companies, just an observation.

 

[LegendKiller]

This isn't just exclusive to American manufactured products. More and more I am becoming disgusted about TVs. I had a 52" DLP TV that has a bad ballast after 6 years. I mean, really, my boss has a 18 year old Sony Trinitron that hasn't needed one part. He paid $1,200 for it then. I buy a $2,500 TV 6 years ago and now I need to repair it for $200 on a *remanufactured* part because the company doesn't make parts for it now.

What about vacuum cleaners? Should I buy that Dyson, which is nothing more than a barrel of oil (plastic) or buy a Kirby that is made out of metal. Which one will last 20 years? Every other vacuum cleaner is such a piece of shit, none are good quality and the companies don't stand by them.

More and more I am realizing how disgusting we've become as human beings.

Just now, a commercial about how to make your house smell better with "scented oils". 100 years ago we were lucky to have a nice house, now we spend tons of money making them smell like Summer Lilacs with Vanilla.

What the fuck?

 

[dmcowen674]

This isn't just exclusive to American manufactured products. More and more I am becoming disgusted about TVs. I had a 52" DLP TV that has a bad ballast after 6 years. I mean, really, my boss has a 18 year old Sony Trinitron that hasn't needed one part. He paid $1,200 for it then. I buy a $2,500 TV 6 years ago and now I need to repair it for $200 on a *remanufactured* part because the company doesn't make parts for it now.

What about vacuum cleaners? Should I buy that Dyson, which is nothing more than a barrel of oil (plastic) or buy a Kirby that is made out of metal. Which one will last 20 years? Every other vacuum cleaner is such a piece of shit, none are good quality and the companies don't stand by them.

More and more I am realizing how disgusting we've become as human beings.

Just now, a commercial about how to make your house smell better with "scented oils". 100 years ago we were lucky to have a nice house, now we spend tons of money making them smell like Summer Lilacs with Vanilla.

What the fuck?

But like Charrison and Indy Fan, you pushed for all this crap all these years, how in the hell could you reverse yourself on this now?

 

[LegendKiller]

But like Charrison and Indy Fan, you pushed for all this crap all these years, how in the hell could you reverse yourself on this now?

Pushed what crap? Seriously dave, your levels of incompetence and idiocy are approaching epic heights.

Hey, how are those lawsuits against Anandtech going? Did you ever get your subpoena for user information? Did some lawyer laugh you out of his office?

How's your hurricane/tornado/earthquake/engineering/financial/economics/manufacturing/IT PHD program going for you?

What about the earthquake and the bridge supports in the MSP bridge? Wrong there.

Seriously, just go away dude.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

But like Charrison and Indy Fan, you pushed for all this crap all these years, how in the hell could you reverse yourself on this now?

Please quote one post from me where I "pushed" outsourcing and said it was a good idea. Until then, STFU you freaking failure.

 

[hal2kilo]

People like Charrison and IndyFan stay in the US because it is people like us who built this country, unlike whiners like you. Why don't you try reading my posts before making such ridiculously stupid comments? You know, like the post I said we should outsource executives:



You know, the posts where I said companies outsourcing should be taxed out the wazoo?



Or would it be the posts where I say that outsourcing manufacturing will be the death of the US?



Yeah, you caught me Dave. I'm REALLY supportive of outsourcing! Now that I've owned you (or really, you owned yourself), crawl back under your rock.

I see you changed your handle. I see the tet a tet between you guys is still the same though.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I see you changed your handle. I see the tet a tet between you guys is still the same though.

I won't let Dave say such ridiculous things without challenging him to provide proof, which he can't.

 

[Cerb]

Just now, a commercial about how to make your house smell better with "scented oils". 100 years ago we were lucky to have a nice house, now we spend tons of money making them smell like Summer Lilacs with Vanilla.

What the fuck?

Not only that, they don't even smell like lilacs. They smell like scented detergents. Given how expensive they are, this only increases the WTF factor.

 

[cubby1223]

Just saw the new ad of PizzaHut on TV and that got me thinking. I remember 15 years ago their large supreme pizzas cost around 18 bucks (plus tax) and now they are selling them for $10.

Pizza Hut pizza sucks. We have better options now. Finally got a Lou Malnatti's close enough, $15 for an amazing large thin crust pizza there, Pizza Hut's quality sucks they haven't done anything to make me want to buy their food - that is how business works.

Had pizza from a local restaurant just yesterday, well it was half-price night $6.25 for a medium, absolutely fantastic taste. Pizza Hut's "supreme"? I don't want their pizza even if it were down to $5. Maybe Pizza Hut is racing to the bottom, others are excelling. My town there are currently 7 pizza joints, pizza hut is #6 in quality they at least edge out Little Caesar's. I rarely see anyone dine in there anymore. So many better options elsewhere.

 

[JSt0rm]

my car and my beer were both made in Belgium.