Also, saying that math can express most anything is a pretty strong assertion.
Godel's completeness theorem proves that mathematics is infinite, that is, no collection of mathematical rules and structures can ever be called finished or complete. There's no reason to assume that includes expressing emotion, epistemology, etc., especially because it is known there are different sizes of infinity, but it is clear that math can express an awful lot. Of course there's plenty of reason to conclude that math can't say much about something like ontology, because questions like "what is really real?" (as one of my many philosophy books puts it) are so terribly ill defined that they evade even rudimentary logic.
As American consumers, we pay less for cheap plastic crap now.. at the expense of our jobs and quality.
Ultimately, American consumers caused this problem, because they sought the best value for money. Nobody forced Americans to by products made in China - they chose to, by taking the money out of their pocket and putting it on the counter.
Don't forget that all very powerful corporations have well funded marketing departments, whose entire purpose is the manipulation of people into parting with their money; the perfect advertisement would hook 100% of its audience, which is no different than mind control. If you ask me, the advertisements have been plenty more than effective enough for a long time. Did you know that people didn't really wear deodorant until shortly after shortly after WWII? One of the earliest incarnations was a concept of Bristol-Myers. Then all of a sudden here we are and deodorant is apparently as essential as water. The entire culture was manipulated into thinking that people "stink," which is true but misleading. Consider that deodorant works by blocking the apocrine glands in the armpit, apocrine glands being the special ones that are only found in the armpits, at the areola, and around the genitals. Is it really a leap to assume that if we have any pheremones, that's where they come from? And that by blocking our "stink," we are blocking one of the few ways in which we can sense and communicate with our fellow humans, one that might actually be rather developed after so much evolution? There are some businesses that are making a lot of money based on the misconception that deodorant is necessary; we have been convinced that we need absolutely need so many things when we really don't.
It's pretty clear that the quest of continually increasing profit is naturally anti-people (and unsustainable) because it demands the subjugation of people (employees) in order to undercut the market; it's also in a corporation's best interest to maximally inflate the price of a good over its material cost, which implies maximally taking advantage of their customers (who are people). It's really too bad that instead of using our gift of consciousness to enhance life on Earth and beyond (as the logical conclusion of evolution might suggest we do), we have chosen the strange purpose of trying to get a big number written on a bank slip. What's probably worse is that this culture of greed transcended single individuals and has become the sole drive of large and powerful organizations.
Lots of folks confuse bad management with destiny. -- Frank Hubbard