my god given rights to buy cheap crap at walmart

Whooooo! This is about my favorite debate! It boils down to a few root questions: 1) Why is something made in the USA so much more expensive?2) Is it actually better if it's made by good ol' American workers?3) What is QUALITY? (lifted right out of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance!)Here's my take - and remember, it's merely one man's OPINION:Americans are universally the most overpaid workers in the world. We are also subject to the lowest commodity prices of any developed nation. The "free market economy" model provides us with the widest variety of choice for an incredibly variety of just about anything. Places like Wal-Mart reinforce the ideal that Americans should not have to pay market price for ANYTHING. Historically, America has been the land of the innovation, the invention. Henry Ford didn't invent the automobile, but he invented a way to make thousands of them quickly. Americans were the first to fly. We figured out most of the alloying processes used in modern metallurgy. We invented nuclear power, for crying out loud, and nuclear weapons. Woven carbon fiber - 3Al/2V titanium - 6061-T6 aluminum. All invented by American braintrusts. We didn't invent the bicycle, but we came up with the OCLV process. We're thinkers, but we're arrogant. We pay less for goods than anybody, but we demand more wages to support our incredibly decadent lifestyle- more cars per capita than any other developed nation, more brands of toothpaste to choose from, more outrageously large new homes with fourteen bathrooms. It's our birthright. This is why US-made products cost so much more.Adding to the dilemma, we're pretty damn lazy as a nation. American workers have lost their attention to detail on the whole. In the post-WWII halcyon days of American industry, we took pride in the products we made. A car cost what a car cost, and the quality was unparalleled. Chrome was thick and highly shiny. Interiors were upholstered! There was very little cost-efficiency conciousness, because the quality of the finished product was what mattered, something we could take pride in - the cost was simply what it cost. Our workplaces were well-appointed, and none of our jobs were at stake.In the ensuing decades, the global market has opened, which is not necessarily a bad thing, only the playing field isn't level. China and Tiawan and Mexico don't have environmental policies to raise the cost of manufacturing. They don't have liability insurance or health insurance. Their raw materials cost a fraction of what American materials cost, because the level of quality control is much lower - the materials are much less consistent and rarely inspected at the molecular level for purity, quality, etc.. Their worker base competes at a fraction of the cost of American labor. They are socialist countries, so much of the revenue generated goes to the state, not the stockholders. Workers may or may not have pride in their products - I imagine they do, and probably moreso than the average American, just from their philosophical basis of existence - but they put in a week's work for less than an American makes in a single hour.Now we have to compete on this grossly skewed market playing field, and the only way to do that is by cutting costs, because Americans want all our **** cheaper in spite of ourselves. We shoot ourselves in the foot over and over. We buy the cheap crap, because it's cheaper (or we demand that similar American product be offered at a competitive price). We rationalize that "in the free market, American companies cannot afford to put their heads in the sand..." So then in response to OUR OWN demands, American companies move production to China or Mexico to cut costs, laying off thousands of American workers who then go on the dole, raising costs to other American companies in the form of unemployment taxes and the like. These folks are now making less, so they MUST buy the cheap crap in order to continue putting gasoline in the family truckster. The companies that try to stay onshore see the writing on the wall, and reduce costs by cutting benefits to workers, such as healthcare and retirement funds. Morale suffers because amenities such as coffee pots, daycare, and hour-long lunches are cut, overtime is refused. The workplace has become someplace we want to leave, where it's not about doing a good job, but rather how to make the weekly 40 hours pass as quickly as possible. When morale drops, so does quality of work. People are daydreaming, or worrying about how the car payment and the mortgage payment are going to get paid this week - when they used to be taking pride in the finished product.The solution isn't easy - it's been a three decade walk into these woods, and it won't turn around in an instant. The government could help by imposing high tariffs on all imported goods coming from these countries with low human rights and worker rights standards, and lower environmental standards. It would help for the cost of imported goods to be raised to a level that represents an American wage-earner's comparable goods. It would then cost more to buy the imported goods, and more of America's companies would benefit by keeping jobs here. We could also benefit from a gross adjustment of subsidized consumer goods (such as gasoline), which in the short term would tank the economy, but in the long term could raise the standard of living by insisting that things cost what they ought to cost. Why do I want a cheap car - do you have any idea how much potential energy exists in a car doing 70? Why do I want cheap plane tickets? For that matter, why do we want cheap bicycle frames? When I'm screaming down a twisty mountain descent on my road bike at 50 mph, I do NOT want to be stoked on how cheaply I got it. We have stopped making quality goods because we can get new stuff so cheap when the cheap stuff breaks.What is QUALITY, anyway?-Sorry for the disjointed ramble. This IS the short version.Peace-