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Finance allah shmoop What is planned Obsolescence We officially nominate

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this business strategy for the top five dumbest business ideas

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in history In the late nineteen sixties the american auto

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industry was taking over the world America bought the most

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steel and rubber shipped vastly the most cars and came

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to dominate the banking and capital landscape Because this heavy

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industry had such global impact on so many levels a

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booming car industry pushed other countries to build roads and

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bridges and infrastructure like stoplights and gas stations It spurred

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interest in mining coal and steel and it brought nations

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together to build something well practical and you know fun

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Never drive it convertible in summer that's pretty cool music

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blaring and we like that But then came along well

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a bunch of idiots These were managers of the big

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car companies in the nineteen seventies who observed that our

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cars were lasting too long They were being too well

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made And if we continued to make our cars better

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and better so that they didn't wear out for twenty

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years Well then the they'd sell fewer cars presumably So

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what do they do Well they tried to make them

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Worse Yes You heard that right They actively tried to

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make american cars obsolete at some point not too many

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years after you bought one so that owners would have

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to turn them in and presumably by another american car

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from an american manufacturer All right Yeah They'd have to

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buy another car And another and another well The financial

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managers at the time had the arrogance that the u

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s auto industry was so powerfully dominant that nobody in

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the world would ever catch up or compete They thought

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they had so much room ahead of the japanese korean

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and german car makers that well we could afford to

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make them worse Yeah instead of a ten twelve year

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cycle from birth to death the managers of gm ford

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and others thought that if we created cars that died

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after six or seven years well people would be forced

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to buy mohr of them or rather buy them more

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often And you khun bet that the legions of mechanics

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might iss muffler shops and other repair areas Well they

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were delighted with this notion and highly supportive of planned

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obsolescence Unfortunately the us managers who made these decisions well

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they didn't get out much at least not to japan

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or korea and you know what happened Well look out

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the window over your parking lot you see on lee

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american cars not so much The japanese automakers stepped in

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with much simpler builds in their cars with fewer parts

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and better assembly and they were able to make them

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at meaningful cheaper prices Will the american auto companies couldn't

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change fast enough when they realized what a fungal mess

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they've made and wealthy us dominance in auto manufacturer ended

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quickly as buyers were introduced to a whole new and

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better way of driving courtesy of Well the japanese players

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mercedes and bmw also made big inroads at this time

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as well So whatever happened to the geniuses who planned

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this obsolescence pretty much nothing they're retired They took their

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pensions built good golf games and well that's about it

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Tesla could change things but well then again they might

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get so distracted chasing mars that only missed the game 00:03:22.92 --> [endTime] entirely but we're better known Juan

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