A Message from Eid, Eids TV, Berkeley, CA

When Eid's TV opened for business in 1973, 98% of the consumer electronics sold in the United States were made in the U.S.A. Today almost all of it is manufactured overseas.

The foreign corporations who dominate the American market today had inferior products before the 1970s. They invaded the marketplace, first by imitating American products and then by hiring top managers, engineers, and salespeople away from American companies, such as Zenith and RCA. They lured them by offering them much higher salaries and benefits. They paid them enormous premiums over their former salaries so far as to obtain know-how trade secrets, dealer lists and other proprietary information.

Once the foreign producers achieved significant penetration of the American market, they began to engage in price fixing schemes, primarily by offering much larger profit margins to the dealers who agreed to sell only at the corporate set "list prices" and by refusing to supply products to dealers who sold at a discount, for instance, an RCA TV with a wholesale price of $300 sold for $350 while, equivalent imported sets that wholesaled for $150 could only be sold at $500 according to the "list pricing" scheme.

Sales people were instructed to disparage American products as they were pressured to promote imports with much higher profit margins, and even given commissions directly from the manufactures. American made TV demo models were connected to deficient signals to make them appear second rate. Outright lies were told about the products under comparison, such as the claim that only the imported sets had the state-of-the-art "one gun" color picture tubes.

By the early 1980's, Eid's achieved gross sales twice that of the nearest Bay Area competitor. In 1984, one major foreign manufacturer, whose products accounted for millions of Eid's annual sales, demanded that Eid stop discounting below the corporate list prices, or face being cut off from further supplies. This company made good on this threat after Eid refused, going so far as to pressure alternative distributors not to supply Eid's TV with their merchandise.

Other major brand name electronics companies were recruited in this effort to stop Eid from discounting, along with several of the regional retail competitors, in effect forming a market controlling cartel against Eid's TV. They went so far as to rent a fake storefront across the street from Eid's TV, whose only purpose was to disparage Eid and his products. They never intended to back up the store with actual product. After Eid obtained several hundred color sets against the wishes of one large foreign corporation, bullet holes appeared in his store windows, and profanity graffiti was painted in front of his house on Euclid Avenue. He was forced to spend nearly one million dollars on security services in order to protect his family and employees. No governmental enity would do anything to stop these practices, even though they were overt violations of the laws against restraint of trade.

When Eid spent hundreds of thousands of dollars seeking protection from Federal and State courts to stop the foreign companies and their greedy retailers from interfering with his business, Eid did not get much help even after winning many suits filed against them. It only made them more angry and more determined to destroy Eid and his electronic empire. At the same time because of the large amount of money spent by these foreign companies and their lobbyists in Washington D.C., the Antitrust Laws were weakened by many and unjust rulings by Federal Courts "Judge Bork." There went any hope for correcting these wrongs as well as making any consumer electronics in America.

The foreign corporations spent millions to influence the coverage of these issues in the news media, effectively suppressing stories concerning their anti-competitive practices while obtaining favorable and misleading reviews of their own products imports were granted the prized "top rated" label even when they were known to contain serious design flaws and manufacturing defects. Glowing reports about foreign made TV sets sometimes appeared in American magazines even before they were actually offered for sale. As a result, the whole American consumer electronics industry was destroyed.

The foreign manufactured products that are offered for sale may be inexpensive, but they are of low quality and designed to be simply thrown away rather than repaired. The objective is destroy American manufacturing and dealer services as well, in order to keep the U.S.A. from ever producing competitive products again.

Today the U.S.A. has recorded trade deficits of hundreds of billions of dollars with Japan and China; their agents of influence spend hundreds of millions of dollars to lobby agencies of government.

Many past U.S. Trade Representatives, Senators, and Congressmen have obtained high paying jobs with foreign owned corporations; some of them even worked for these foreign competitors before entering U.S. government service.

If the American consumer continues to settle for a marketplace controlled by a handful of huge corporations all selling the same throwaway junk, the consumer will find that "choice" is an illusion, and that all the decisions have already been made.

Today American consumers continue to mindlessly accept this state of affair, and assume large chains offer lower prices when in fact most of the businesses today utilize the bait and switch tactic. If closely looked upon, we find that all name brands are sold at the same price at most chain stores.

Remember whenever you buy foreign made products your allowing your neighbor to lose his job, and maybe the next job lost will be your own.