[quote=briansd1]
For example, take Ikea. They brought designer furniture to the masses. Of course the durability of their furniture doesn’t compare to the solid oak furniture of the past. But that oak furniture was crudely designed, finished, and expensive. Looking inside any old house that’s never been updated in decades and you’ll see the “quality” of the past.

Now young households can furnish their apartments cheaply and nicely for a certain period of time, then move on.

Today, we have so many more choices that our grandparents didn’t have. Granted, many of those new products are of bad quality. But we don’t have to buy them.[/quote]

I think that is an aspect of this argument. The quality/longevity and the necessity to purchase sooner b/c the product is not as good. You can look in an old house from, say, 1890-1920 and see the quality. They don’t make things as good today, IMO. Heck, look at houses from the 1950’s and they are rotting away compared to a house built in 1910, say.

I can only imagine what the houses built during this last boom will look like 50 years from now. Won’t matter to many of us. Just saying quality of things have deteriorated. Cheap. But not just in price.

BG – true about companies overseas that employ here. Your example, foreign company, but *made* here.