Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2004 07:08:07 -0500 From: "Chris Doss" <itschris13 at hotmail.com>
Soviet weapons and high technology were in demand everywhere. I know these are not consumer goods. What is so damn important about consumer goods anyway?
There is a question here that I would really like to ask, what the hell is meant by "consumer goods"? To me these are those things that one wants most of all to be produced, i.e. things you can use. In a discussion about Cuba last year we heard the same thing, "Oh well there aren't that many consumer goods, but who needs them anyway?" If we don't need consumer goods then what is it that we need from production? I guess there is something in American English usage that equates consumer goods either with luxury goods or high tech goods or a combination of the two. Placing myself within your universe of discourse then, let me ask about the following, is a screwdriver, a food bowl, a book, a pair of trainers, a CD, a bag of fertilizer, an axe, etc. etc. a consumer good? Which of these aren't?
For me, to say that you don't produce any consumer goods worth having is just to say that you don't produce anything worth having. And then, with this understanding, which I still somehow believe to be correct, it shocks me somehow to hear someone going on about weapons exports and then to ask what is so important about consumer goods. Now that is so very SU, isn't it?
Tahir