Free Trade Platform

Last week The Frau and I assembled a new queen-size platform bed for the city apartment.  Yup, no more camping on the bedroom floor with the dogs.  It's a Newhouse Platform Queen Rails finished in Vintage Mahogany.  For the record - I know this is not mahogany.  It is mahogany finish.  For what we paid we might have purchased a tiny mahogany stool for a small child.

It was purchased on the internet for an exceedingly affordable price and delivered last week buy some guys driving a semi-load of furniture they were delivering across the vast expanse of our Great America.  There was much swearing and cursing on the morning of delivery because they could not maneuver their semi through the construction equipment.  All the boxes had to be dragged the distance of a couple of city blocks, lifted over the rails of the patio and into the apartment. 

That evening the assembly was accomplished - but not without the accompaniment of additional swearing and cursing.  The instructions indicated it was a one person assembly but I will tell you that was a two person assembly.  The good news was that the only tool needed was an allen wrench - supplied with the hardware. 

Assembled platform bed (sans mattress) replete with Belgian-style linen headboard.  

Nice fit and finish, durably constructed and very affordable.  For the record I know that this is not real Belgian linen.  For what the Frau and I paid we might have purchased enough real Belgian linen to attire a small doll for a small child. But I digress.  

After the assembly we bagged all of the packing plastic and broke-down and flattened all of the cardboard packing material for the recycling bins in the underground parking garage.

I found this on the inside flap of one of the larger boxes.  

That is not German, French or Latin and certainly not English.  Carefully inscribed with a Sharpie Pen in a steady hand were these Asian characters.  I haven't a clue what they say - nevertheless I would suggest that who ever packed the product for assembly did a terrific job of it as not a single board arrived with a scratch or dent.  No missing hardware either.  

It's a nice bed at an affordable price manufactured and packed by some reasonably-skilled people in Asia working their way up the economic ladder.  Unless someone in this country does something really stupid and embargoes this type of trade - with time enough people in the world reach the working class and maybe even the middle class rung of the ladder.  I think it is a better life that that of a peasant and the entire world is a better, more prosperous and more peaceable place as a consequence.  
  
I have a bad feeling about someone who has proposed protectionist (socialist) walls to free trade.

Raising a toast a free trade platform (bed).