The following appeared in a memo from the new vice president of Sartorian, a company that manufactures men's clothing.

"Five years ago, at a time when we had difficulty obtaining reliable supplies of high-quality wool fabric, we discontinued production of our popular alpaca overcoat. Now that we have a new fabric supplier, we should resume production. Given the outcry from our customers when we discontinued this product and the fact that none of our competitors offers a comparable product, we can expect pent-up consumer demand for our alpaca coats. This demand and the overall increase in clothing prices will make Sartorian's alpaca overcoats more profitable than ever before."

Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.







Response


The author states that the overcoats of Sartorian’s alpaca will be more lucrative due to high demand and escalation of garment prices. After scrutinizing the prompt, it was found that the author's argument is marred by a mass of superfluous details and it is based upon few assumptions.

The author mentions that due to a decrease in the supply of good-quality wool fabric, Sartorian manufacturing company decided to terminate the fabrication of popular alpaca overcoat. The new president assumes that high-quality wool fabric is the primary material to manufacture alpaca overcoat. In the absence of the recommended quality of wool fabric, it is impossible to produce alpaca overcoat. However, it is based on an assumption that only that type of wool fabric quality is able to generate alpaca overcoat. If the quality of the wool fabric is deemed necessary and there is no other better ersatz to make the alpaca overcoat, then it is possible to stop the production of alpaca overcoat. Assume that there are other better substitutions for the raw material (wool fabric), then it is impractical to stop the production of alpaca overcoat, given that the high demand of the overcoat.

In the subsequent sentence, the author informed that there is a new fabric provider and it is possible to restart the creation of alpaca overcoat. However, it took five years for the Sartorian manufacturing company to locate the new fabric supplier. The author assumes that the new fabric supplier is able to provide the wool fabric to make alpaca overcoat. However, why does the company required to take five years to find another supplier? Is there no one else produce the same type of wool fabric with equal quality within the five years? The author did not provide further information regarding this matter. If there is such information, then it is practical to halt the manufacturing of alpaca overcoat for such a long period of time, given that the high request of the overcoat.

In addition to that, the author indicates that there is an outcry when the company terminates the alpaca overcoat and the fact that there are no competitors that are capable of making the similar product. The company anticipated that there will have a lot of people will purchase the overcoat after the company resumes the production of alpaca overcoat. However, that outcry was five years ago. The author assumes that the demand is still high. Having said so, it is too hasty to draw the conclusion of high demands after the fabrication of the overcoat terminated five years ago without conducting a survey and further analysis about the demand of alpaca overcoat. If the demand of alpaca overcoat drops and there are not many people willing to buy the overcoat, then the author assumes that there is high demand of alpaca overcoat may not be true.

As a conclusion, the author’s argument based upon various assumptions without further providing information regarding the issue. If the vice president is able to provide more details or evidence to support his stand, then it might be plausible to suggest that it is profitable due to high request and elevation of clothing price than ever before.