This of course is the result of pinheads and executives at, WalMart(GE’s largest customer for dishwashers) , GE consumer durables division and Maytag who decided closing down the US manufacturing plants and outsourcing the labor and manufacture would secure increased short term profits, accolades from shareholders and Wall Street analysts, and the padding of the executives’ golden parachutes.
Meanwhile the whole scheme is now an albatross, the executives are shown to have never cared in the first place as they have moed on to savage a new corporation, and the manufacturing towns in the US are still struggling after the loss of the jobs from the GE shutdown.
GE will now have lost all cost benefits from moving the manufacture of dishwashers, and they are now trapped in Mexico, and in the meantime, the US consumer/taxpayer is forced to buy lower quality goods because Wal Mart execs demanded cost cutting so severe it results in house fires and possible deaths.
An interesting article on appliance quality from Samurai Appliance Repair Man and an exerpt:
http://fixitnow.com/wp/2005/02/15/is-there-a-washer-and-dryer-worth-buying/
“...other manufacturers seem to go out of their way to make it difficult for independent servicers to obtain technical service information on their products. GE is especially bad in this regard. Speaking of GE…
Avoid GE appliances and all GE brands. They charge a premium for their products yet their repair frequency is as much or more than other brands. And the repair will cost you more because GE parts can cost two to three times more than comparable parts for other brands; it’s not like they’re better parts, either– GE just charges more for ‘em. Why? ‘Cuz they can. Appliance techs often joke that GE stands for Greedy Electric. But, sadly, the real joke is on the schlumps who buy GE appliances.”