Word: production
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Paradoxically, many U.S. consumers are discontented even while they are the envy of contemporary civilization ?the best-fed, best-clothed, most pampered people in history. Most companies have a self-interest in promoting product safety and performance, if only to induce customers to buy and buy again. Since the large majority of consumers do exactly that, businessmen understandably believe that they are producing the kind of merchandise that the nation wants. The average buyer probably gets more value for $1,000 spent in a current mail-order-house catalogue than in an edition of 50 years...
Today's consumer is better educated than his forebears and thus less willing to accept the exaggerated salesmanship, misleading advertising, shoddy goods and even bits of deceit that buyers once considered natural hazards of commerce. He is justifiably confused by product guarantees written in incomprehensible legalese, by conflicting claims
...UNSAFE OR IMPURE PRODUCTS. Consumers can get information about the nutritive value and ingredients of dog food more easily than about some forms of canned meat; the chairman of the Senate Consumer Subcommittee, Utah's Frank Moss, likes to point out this discrepancy by reading the can labels to his audiences. When Consumers Union analyzed federally inspected pork sausage, inspectors found that one-eighth of the samples contained "insect fragments, insect larvae, rodent hairs and other kinds of filth." Investigators for the National Commission on Product Safety have found many potentially lethal toys on the market. Eleven Philadelphia children recently...
...errant manufacturers or merchants. If found guilty of deceptive trade practices, manufacturers would have to bear all legal fees and pay damages to all who sue. Nixon disappointed consumer advocates, however, by proposing that suits be limited to eleven specified offenses, including worthless warranties and false claims for a product. Moreover, consumers would be unable to go to court until the Justice Department had first established fraud through a lawsuit. Even Mrs. Knauer, the Administration's own adviser, wanted much broader measures. "Timid tiptoeing," complains Nader. "Politics turned the message into Swiss cheese...
Still, U.S. consumers stand an increasing chance of winning in Washington. The Veterans Administration recently agreed to make public its comprehensive test data on hearing-aid performance. Nader wants the General Services Administration, the principal federal purchasing agent, to release its vast store of product information, which includes test results on goods as varied as bed sheets and flatbed trucks. Legislation is now in preparation to 1) require producers of household poisons to render their containers "childproof" by making bottles and packages harder to open, 2) set up more stringent health rules in fish-processing plants, and 3) force manufacturers...