GE exiting appliance business

NEW HAVEN, Conn.- General Electric Co. said yesterday that it plans to sell or spin off its iconic appliance business that for a century sold refrigerators, air conditioners and ovens to millions of homes.

[WHAT A PITY]

Another "American industrial age" icon passing into history. Used to be that G.E. meant an item was high quality, American-made, constructed to last, and were dependable appliances. Several of my relatives worked for G.E. in Bridgeport and these were good jobs with fine benefits. I suppose like all the other cheap crap American consumers are now having jammed down their throats, plastic and paper appliances from China and Japan will be the norm in our future. You can tell your grandkids that there was a time when America was the gold standard for superiority in craftsmanship and design and employees took pride in their quality. Now its all disposable and on its inevitable march to the junkheap.

[WHAT A PITY]

As a follow-up, living in a climate of long, very hot summers, our central air conditioners used to have a 10 year warranty. Several years back they were downgraded to a 5 year warranty. This year, I understand from a neighbor that they are giving ONLY a 1 year warranty and that the a/c's are made only in China and Mexico (that's what I meant to say above, Mexico, not Japan). So pretty soon we can probably expect to have (no building codes) rice paper houses, mud huts, straw roofs, the same kind of shoddy construction that makes their third world countries so prone to total destruction in a natural disaster. Look all around you friends and TRY to buy American, I know it isn't easy, but our genius is regressing.