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> Pretty sad and worrying to think that since then an entire generation has gone through that school with no opportunity to learn how to actually make a physical good with their hands.

Welcome to globalism? 98% of the physical goods you buy are made in the developing world, there's not much point in acquiring these skills here.

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A crappy assemble-at-home Target organizer costs like $20 and probably cost a fraction of that to manufacture, but a fancy artisanal lacquered organizer made by the hobbyists across town can be sold for several times the cost of supplies and labor.

But a lot of folks feel the squeeze so they buy the crappy Target one instead.

This reminds me of my neighbor who had recently retired and began a side business making furniture in his garage. He was just looking to make a little beer money, but his business grew quickly just through word of mouth and he was complaining to me that now it was more of a job than he had before he retired. He was thinking about shutting the whole thing down.

If artisanal, hand-crafted, built-to-spec, lacquered organizers became a big enough business, there will be, before the year is out, a school in Vietnam that will train thousands of people how to build them, by hand, to-spec, artisanally for <$1/hour.

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