Finishline: Maintenance is an Investment, Not an Expense
Back in the late '60s, the syndicated "blue-collar" newspaper columnist Eric Hoffer wrote a column which always stuck in my mind. The problem with the U.S., Eric wrote, was lack of maintenance.
He was right. The 1960s were the era of disposability and planned obsolescence. Automobiles and appliances were replaced rather than repaired. Convenience food packaging was disposable, not yet recyclable. U.S. industrial plants were feeling competition -- ironically -- from defeated World War II enemies Japan and West Germany, who had replaced their bombed-out facilities with superior technologies.