Yes US companies could do a 4L container of paint but this would create an extremely severe backlash among painters in this country. Until construction goes fully metric and walls are in meter sizes, the gallon paint container and square foot will rule.
And until industry does it fully as a whole, trying to change it over will just result in a lot of annoyed customers who will not buy product that's not labelled in the units they are familiar with. I'm not saying it won't happen, I believe it will, but there will be some severe resistance to doing it. I know of painters who actually got jobs painting walls in metric countries and refused to do them in SI, instead buying gallon jugs if possible and measuring the wall in square feet :). It's this attitude that we have to overcome, and overcoming it for Americans doesn't mean forcing but rather explaining to the American public why this change is beneficial. No one moves without a little push, but the American tendency is to push back :). If you can explain it well and make a valid case for it, the US industry will switch one by one. Persuasion and a steady guiding hand between the federal government and the states will in the end be the thing that changes the US to a fully metric country, the only question is when. Mike On 3/11/07, Daniel Jackson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Stephen, Canada needs to be more like Germany. Look how well Germany is doing: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601100&sid=a_BpetWkysRM&refer=germany The German economy actually surpassed that of the US in 2006. And that was real growth, not deficit inflation that the US calls growth. Metric sells. Germany engineers, designs, sells and services metric products. Metric is what sells, metric is what customers world-wide want to buy. The figures show it. If this wasn't so, then they would be buying US products and not German. Note the key events: Construction jumped 4.1 percent in January from a month earlier Demand for plants, machinery and other so-called capital goods climbed 4.5percent from a month earlier For now, improved job prospects and demand in markets outside the U.S. are shoring up the economy. These are all measurement sensitive industries. They are all metric, they demand only metric and they are booming. Germany is moving away from the US market, the market Canada thinks is so easy to do business with. As a result they are prospering. They found that the vast metric world is a better market for their goods then the US. But then again, Canada's loss is Germany's gain. I guess some dogs just prefer to wait for scraps from the master's table instead of searching for something better elsewhere. That is fine until the master no longer has any scraps to give. Dan ----- Original Message ---- From: Stephen Gallagher <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, March 11, 2007 3:25:55 PM Subject: [USMA:38145] Re: Label Typo The advantage Canada has with being metric is they don't have to depend on the US for all of their trade. Maybe so, but but having the US on their doorstep means that its the quickest and least expensive market to which they can transport their goods. ------------------------------ Don't get soaked. Take a quick peek at the forecast with theYahoo! Search weather shortcut.
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