[raybbr]

... when 50 years ago, one could buy beautiful oak, cherry or mahagony furniture and really have something to be proud of.

You really are an anachronism. Don't you know that today we live in a throw-away society? Everything is, or has to be, replaceable. How else could we support our consumerist society? How dare you suggest that instead of consumerism we believe in the sovereignty of America and the superiority of the American people as a society? Don't you realize that only the very rich should be allowed to buy quality goods? The rest of us should satisfied with cheap crap, produced simply so that we can buy it so that the corporation will garner more profit.

I think I am being mostly sarcastic.

[Taliesan]

The rest of us should satisfied with cheap crap, produced simply so that we can buy it so that the corporation will garner more profit.

This is a hallucination. Reality is the opposite of what your eyes see.

Corporations produce cheap "crap" because the "us" wants it.

[Steve_Seattle]

"The rest of us should satisfied with cheap crap, produced simply so that we can buy it so that the corporation will garner more profit."

Ok, what's your solution? But before you propose your solution, here's what you're tinkering with: a country in which most people own their own hones, own one or more cars, a computer, washer and dryer, electrical appliances, indoor plumbing, access to health care, free public education, etc, and with unemployment generally half of what it is in the socialist economies you seem to be promoting. Remind me what it is you are trying to fix.