.....Ever wonder where the word "FACTORY" came from? It's slang. In the 19th century places that manufactured things were called "manufacturies" and their uneducated workers started calling them " 'facteries".

..... Those of us who grew up between 1945 and 1973 remember how rich this country REALLY was. AND HOW WE ALL SHARED IN IT. I grew up along the East River docks in Brooklyn which was NOT a "middle class" neighborhood. But we had many factories and we'd get jobs in those factories until we reached the middle-class by EARNING it. The factory jobs paid enough so that only the FATHER of the family HAD to work and he could support the whole family by himself. The mother would stay home and make sure the kids grew up DECENTLY as they would have parental supervison and someone to go to when in trouble. The kids could also see that TIME was on the workingman's side. The longer he worked, the more money he made. The passage of time made one rise upwards financially. The kids SAW that they had a future and that the future was on their side. America was like that from 1945 until October 1973. In 1973 the OIL CRISIS hit and America's industrial base has been going downhill ever since. This has destroyed people's hope for the future and has led to much of the misery we have today. BEFORE 1973 UNDERCLASS PEOPLE COULD GET WORKING CLASS JOBS AND RISE TO THE MIDDLE CLASS. The working class was the TRANSITION class. It was the LADDER. With NO working-class industrial jobs that eventually pay middle-class wages we wind up with a FEUDALIST system in which people STAY in the class in which they are BORN! The year 1973 was also the year that the USA lost its Tariff protection but whether this was a coincidence or one caused the other is debatable. But the OIL CRISIS and the TARIFF COLLAPSE were two things that ruined American Industry. .......................under construction 6--00