What is Waterford Crystal without Waterford?

I have watched the management of Waterford Crystal over the past few years, and have been amazed at how clueless they are about their product. Like most bean counters, they have sought to reduce expenses by pushing production into Eastern Europe and any other place where they could drop the cost of production. They must be insane! It’s the only conclusion that makes sense. They have been behaving as if their product is a commodity item like an automobile, or a toaster.

Waterford Cystal and Wedgewood ARE the labors and works of Waterford Ireland and Wedgewood England! Anything else is a fake, even with a waterford/wedgewood label on it, they are FAKES! Waterford Crystal is a luxury item that speaks to Quality not quantity. It means workmanship that a slow and skilled workforce imparts on each and every cut of the crystal. If you want bulk fakes, go to China!

The marketing of Waterford should be on the Apple model, special, and elegant, Not like Microsoft where ‘good enough’ and high volume turnover is the measure.

Now that the bean counters have closed Waterford, THERE IS NO WATERFORD accept no substitutes!

Delusional greed in the financial sector

At a previous position, I worked with a major financial company. Insurance, investing, retirement and what not. And while attending a meeting with the business ‘customers’ of the ID department. I was nearly physically sickened by their use of the terminology ‘manufacturing a new product’. This is a financial institute, not a manufacture of real products. So when they created a product they meant a paper house contract. The sickening part was how they declare how much money the company would make from the future ‘customers’ of the product. Not that the ‘customer’ wouldn’t have earned some modest income from the ‘product’, it was just that the vast majority of any profits would go to the company, with the customer taking all of the risks. More over, the ‘creator’ of this new product would be richly rewarded in advance of any company profits from the product hence creating a motivation to ‘create’ more of these types of ‘products’. Greed, promoting Delusions that reward more greed. This is true nature of the financial issues we face and any congressman claiming market forces will fix the problems is blind AND stupid and otherwise, just a fool, and should be removed from office.


If men were angels, no government would be necessary.
James Madison

So a Free market we cannot afford. We must have government to control the Raw Greed on Wallstreet!