[midoridensha]

>Trends in Japan and projections for a few other places ignore the numbers for China and India with over 1.5 billion

No, they don't: the birthrates of Japan and China are actually very similar. (India is different.) China is of course much larger, but it's a geographically larger country anyway, and always has been. It's facing the same demographic problems, if not worse.

>Why can't we just produce something of quality that will last and provide it to a stable market? Greed and insanity.

Are you talking about frying pans, or computers? Do you really want to be stuck with a high-quality computer from 1975? Or a television from the same era? Modern electronics use far less energy than stuff from a few decades ago. With clothing, you have a good point though, but here again, who wants to dress like it's 1975?