Driving to work this morning I began to wonder. No, not about why that clown in front of me just cut me off, but rather how as a nation we’re prepared to deal with an entire generation of unskilled laborers.

With yesterday’s news of GM looking to buy out every higher-paid worker to hire in an entire workforce of lower-paid employees, my thoughts wandered to the coat that I was wearing. My dad gave me one of his old formal winter coats, a charcoal gray overcoat of surprising craftsmanship. Was my father rich enough twenty or thirty years ago to buy a boutique coat? Surely not. He’s one of the cheapest men I know. Yet still this coat is in pristine condition, and shows no sign of wear. I wish 99% of my clothes, even ones bought within the past year, could be described similarly.

We all know that mom-and-pop stores have been going the way of the dodo for decades, swallowed up, devoured by global chains looking to boost only their profit (at the cost of lower quality products). But what saddens me most is the idea that, if we ever realize (collectively) that what we’ve lost is of value, that well-made products of all types are a good thing, it might be too late to turn back.

From colonial times onward here in the US, we’ve passed down generational knowledge of how to perform specific tasks with care, grace and attention. But now that the family jewelers, craftsmen, woodworkers and clothiers are virtually extinct, who will teach a new generation how to go back to that, to return to the notion of taking time to do the job right?

If this coat ever gets ruined, and I’m forced to buy a new one, I’m positive that it will wear out in a few years, rather than lasting thirty or forty. And it will likely cost an arm, a leg and possibly more to get one of moderate quality, which I won’t do. And thus I’m left continuing the cycle of disposable goods, which I loathe.