Many of these "crap" items are actually of very good quality.

Technology have given us great production machinery. So a cheap power drill can be extremely good in relation to the cost.

Lots of people don't need professional gear because they don't have professional needs. Why buy an expensive power drill when you need to drill two holes/year? Why bind money in equipment you are not going to use?

So people buy expensive battery-driven screw drivers. And when they finally need them, the battery is dead. And even if high-end, they find that the local store do no longer sell a replacement battery but can order one that will arrive next week. The alternative is to buy a "no-name" product that costs the same as one battery of the brand product. And have maybe 70% battery capacity/strength but about same lifetime as the brand battery. if switching from Li-Ion to NiMH, the no-name product will be a bit heavier, but actually get better battery ageing than the high-end unit.

In a society the ones with the money can't afford to produce themselves because the production costs will be to high. So production has to be moved to low-salary countries. To still get income, the market must switch from a production economy to intead produce/sell ideas. So keep the real high-tech stuff. Which obviously requires that everyone do get good eductation, because the low-salary countries will quickly be richer, get more universities, higher salaries and stop producing and instead start working with high-tech and ideas.

No, Richard. You can't save US by wanting people to buy expensive brand-name products locally produced. The only solution is to make sure the local population has skills/knowledge at a level where they are competitive. US isn't working it its competitivenes but instead focusing on fighting in courts and killing companies while having the market starved because of patent portfolio companies just harvesting ideas without making efficient use of them - they just don't have the real knowledge about the areas the patents spans to really make good use of them. And their royalty fees are so stiff that the companies who do have the knowledge can't grow fast enough because of the fees.

Next thing - outsourcing isn't done because the staff is too lazy or doesn't show up. It's because management have for along time found out that they can still get management salaries for being boss over nothing. Outsourcing the operation means they get money but don't have to make decisions. And when they don't have local staff, they lose the knowledge about what they have been outsourced. So they start to make really stupid decisions what to buy and from whom. Oops, big company losses because no one have the skills. And the outsourcing companies quickly notices that the ones buying the services don't have the skills. So they can maximize their winnings by reducing the quality without being caught. Until they really are caught - oops we outsourced our IT department to a company that didn't had a well-working backup solution. Too late. Business closed...

In the end, the failure is spelled greed. Greed from wanting too much royalties. Greed from wanting management bonuses/salaries without having a department to manage. Greed from wanting to maximize profits and taking advantage of customers who don't have the skills to evaluate the quality of the purchased products.