Dive Right In with Gwyn Brown from Tauranga Dive

I remember mowing the lawns when I was a teenager, had to really if I wanted my $10 pocket money for gas for my motorbike. The old man had this lawnmower that was 25 years old. Same blade, same engine, same body, still going strong. I've still got it, and it still works. It's now 55 years old. Bet you anything you like the new ones won't last that long. Admittedly, the body has rusted, the engine has had it too, it uses a metric ton of oil every mow, so in reality I don't use it anymore. Can't afford the oil, let alone the cancer risk standing behind it while it runs.

I went to replace the engine, but guess what. It was cheaper to buy a new one. Not the engine; I mean it was cheaper to buy a whole new mower. So I did. I gave in to the new ‘wave of cheapness' sweeping the world. Stuff coming out of Asia, mass-produced so cheaply that it's just not worth making it here. Supporting local business is hard if you know you are going to pay more for it.

But money talks doesn't it? It whispers it's evilness in both ears and we listen. We give-in to greed, and then spend the money we saved on other stuff that we don't need either but wouldn't have been able to buy if we hadn't brought the cheap stuff in the first place. Like those small cheap metal figurines, made out of some kind of tin material and for sale where everyone gets a bargain. We put them by the door, or in the garden, or on a shelf and people come round and see them, and go: ‘Wow, where did you get that inanimate object of uselessness? It's so desirable'. Why do we buy things we don't need with money we don't have to impress people we don't like?

I'm pretty sure manufacturers make stuff to fail. They have to. Because making it to last isn't good business practice. If everyone has one, and it still works, they won't buy a new one will they? That's why you are better off selling t-shirts and coffins. Everyone needs those, eventually. T shirts are cheap these days. Made in Asia and selling for $10 here. Makes me wonder what the seller buys them for. Probably $5, which means the shipping agent gets them for $4 from the manufacturer, who probably produces them for $1 each, leaving $2 for profit after paying his workers' wages and costs.

The good old worker in Asia, getting $1 a T-shirt. Bet they don't, bet they get more like one cent a T-shirt. It bothers me that 30 years ago I could earn $10 for mowing the lawns and today some people on our modern planet don't earn that in a week. God, how do they survive on that, how do they eat and pay a mortgage and buy useless inanimate objects to stick on their shelves so people can visit and wonder at it all. I suppose they don't have mortgages though when I think about it. Living in a shanty town is easy living. You only need dirt and a few sheets of corrugated iron. Probably the same stuff they make those cheap figurines out of.

Still at least their funerals are cheap, especially in India. No expensive coffins for them. Floating down the Ganges after a funeral pyre is free so I hear.

But I'm lucky I guess. If they didn't agree to work for such a low wage I couldn't wear my $10 T-shirt while I save for my $15,000 funeral.

The dilemma is of course do I protest about it? Or do I keep buying cheap T-shirts and take selfies in front of my pre-made shelving full of trinkets?

In an ironically strange twist of fate, I can buy cheap T-shirts, thus saving myself money with which I then spend on cheap lawnmowers, which keeps overseas people employed and my lawns mowed while not getting in trouble with the law for being naked.

This is in fact a symbiotic relationship. It's awesome. I get to keep my first world order of things, and they stay employed. Sweatshop conditions aren't that bad anyway so I've heard. At least that's what those shoe manufacturers say. And they wouldn't lie would they? We all know shoes aren't made to last. They wear out. They always have. Luckily for us I guess.