GRIND ALONG: This Alarming Decade

Turntables, charcoal grills, corn poppers and bug killers were down. Nearly everything else in the electrical-appliance category was up in sales during the past 10 years, according to a 1983-92 statistical review of the industry published by Dana Chase Publications’ Appliance magazine. People who think of the ’80s as a non-stop shopping spree and the ’90s as (so far) a model of parsimony may be interested to note that average annual unit sales of consumer electronics items were 27% higher for the years 1990-92 than for the years 1983-89; and for personal-care appliances, annual unit sales in the ’90s have been averaging 67% above those for 1983-89.