Is built-in obsolescense really a good thing?

I was just getting started on a blog post the other night when I noticed a foul odor coming from my dishwasher.

A grease tray for my George Foreman grill had slipped out of the trays and next to the heating element, which was dutifully heating up as a load of dirty dishes was about to be washed. The heating element melted a nice hole along the side of the tray, rendering it unusable.

I opened windows, turned on fans and began searching on the net for replacement trays. I like my George Foreman grill and use it often. It wasn't until I was looking for grease trays that I realized how old it was. I couldn't find the right kind of trays anywhere online.

How long have I had this grill? I wondered. 10 years? It still works great. Why get rid of it?

I finally found some trays online that looked like they could do the job, so I checked on pricing. For two trays, plus shipping, I'd have to pay nearly $40.

Out of curiosity, I looked at what new George Foreman grills cost. I could buy basic models for about that same price. I was left shaking my head.

My options were to buy replacement trays or buy a new grill for pretty much the same money. What would YOU do? It's a no-brainer.

But the grill I have now still works fine, and I could spend that money on credit card debt instead. So that's what I'll do. I'll put foil over the big hole in the tray and see if that does the job.

Still, I found myself wondering if our "replacement" mentality on products these days is wise. Yes, the economy depends on people spending money. But money's tight these days, and folks need to be careful how they spend it. That means making things last....patching holes in clothes.......doing without if necessary......until conditions improve.

Yet when the market makes perfectly good products obsolete simply by not manufacturing replacement parts, it makes that balancing act far more challenging for those facing tough times. Rather than improving conditions for common folks, it only makes things more difficult for them.

There's something inherently wrong with that.

An account of the riots in London

Rioters have ravaged London for the past three days, and reports now indicate the riots have spread to Birmingham and other cities in England. The original riots began in the Tottenham neighborhood of London over the police shooting of a man there.

The riots are being fueled by 20-somethings, I'm told by Twitter followers who live in the U.K. Here's an account of a mob striking at a restaurant in London. Scenes like this should send a shiver down the spine, because with economies wobbling you wonder how soon they could happen elsewhere - even here.

Putting Wichita's layoff numbers in perspective

In less than a week, three airplane manufacturers - Cessna, Hawker Beechcraft and Bombardier - have announced layoffs that will trim nearly 7,000 jobs from their Wichita payrolls.

That's an awful lot of people...so many, in fact, that the total is higher than the populations of nearly half the counties in Kansas. I took a look at the 2000 Census figures for Kansas counties, and counted 50 that had populations of less than 6,900.

50...out of 105!

It'd be like firing everyone in Harper or Ellsworth County. Or everyone in Hodgeman and Stanton and Wallace counties combined.

The aircraft layoffs in the last week don't include other companies that have cut their workforce, or the nearly 500 that Hawker Beechcraft cut in a previous round of layoffs in November.

I've heard this plunge compared to the recession that struck just after World War II, as a post-war economy struggled to find its footing. But the Marshall Plan was soon passed to rebuild war-shattered Europe and eastern Asia, and it created an economic boom unparalleled in American history to that point.

I'm hard-pressed to come up with a modern equivalent that will revive America's - or the world's - economic fortunes. That's not to say we're doomed, but it does suggest answers will be harder to come by and slower to perform.

For all those being handed pink slips these days, that's unwelcome news indeed.