Unfortunately for us Americans, we allowed the major industries of our time to promote "quantity over quality". The perfect example was our auto manufacturers. In the 60's/70's they were producing high performance "rust buckets" with nary a eye for quality. We had good skilled labor but allowed a corporate philosophy to breed which was interested in the bottom line.

At that time, a man named W. Edward Deming approached American manufactures about "quality in every product they build" and they laughed and brushed him off. He took his ideas on quality to Japan where they embraced his statistical approach to quality and hence we have products form Toyota, Honda etc. which give people/consumers what they wanted all along, namely "things built to last".

Here's a bit of info on Deming worth reading

http://search.yahoo.com/r/_ylt=A0oG7...Edwards_Deming