Maudib,

I have to disagree with you. This "mentality" of you get what you paid for that's ingrained in the American consumer and exploited by corporate America, is completely wrong.

I spent over 30 years working in the field service support business for semiconductor companies. And I worked for several organizations. One thing that was paramount in every successful company I worked for was that "the customer is always right". It didn't matter if we were talking about a $500 copier or a multimillion semiconductor production tool, "the customer was always right". What that meant to the field service organization was basically that when the customer asked you to jump, you were only allowed to ask them how high.

I am sure that taking in consideration the starvation wages the manufacturers are paying to third world workers in Asia. These companies (i.e. Lanier) are making quite a juicy profit on each kit. The fact is that when a distributor orders a specific design from an Asian manufacturer they are required to order a CONTAINER full of product MINIMUM. That leads me to believe these people (i.e. Lanier) are paying pennies on your dollar. I refuse to be swindled by these greedy companies, and if they are running around like chickens with their heads cut off because they can’t handle the volume of work selling their products is creating, well they should not try to bite more than thy can chew. They should hire more employees to handle the excess business and invest money in replacement parts stock inventory. No wonder American workers are underemployed or mostly unemployed, because these companies don’t want to invest in OUR workforce, they rather exploit some poor peasant all the way across the Pacific than pay decent wages and benefits to some fellow American. There is no reason whatsoever that any consumer in America should settle for second best because they paid lower prices. The least you can do is never, ever buy any more of their products. Just take a look around in present day America. Corporations like GM are constantly blaming their employee’s benefit programs for the reason they are going bankrupt. They refuse to admit that their poor engineered products, manufactured under a minimum of quality control have alienated the American consumer. We prefer the foreign built automobiles because of their quality, value retention, and the customer support they provide. Nothing that has to do with cost of purchase.