Listen…I grew up during the 1950s and 1960s, after WWII where we made there was immense technological innovation, with television and stereo and satellites and transistors and integrated circuits and computers….dishwashers and whole house air conditioning. Cars got automatic transmissions and power windows and A/C.

Computers went from big massive units that took hours to perform minor computations to desk units that can do audio and video editing. Flat panel displays replaced CRTs and solid state devices are replacing mechanical hard drives. We have cell phones that are better than Star Trek communicators and tablet computers, multi-channel audio/video systems that can also remotely control a whole plethora of other functions.

But this stuff has been around for years.

When I was growing up, if you bought the latest model it in most cases was an improvement over what came before it, always better picture and sound. Additional channels on TVs. Stereo sound instead of monaural. Transistor instead of vacuum tubes.

Today however there has been no major improvement in technology for the consumer. An old cell phone works as well as a new one. A new computer is only necessary to run the latest operating system, which in the case of Microsoft or Apple is just the same thing but with more eye candy that serves little or no good purpose.

Most of the innovations are still in the labs and won’t hit the market for quite some time. And today’s products are likely to outlast their owners unless physically abused.

So why do we turn out boatloads of crap that we really do not need ? Only to have our old crap wind up in Asia or some such.