Remember that big pencil you used as a child? You know, the Dixon Ticonderoga? Turns out its history is emblematic in many ways of the last hundred and fifty years of America's history.
"Joseph Dixon didn't invest someone else's money in a hedge fund and call himself a businessman. He built things. He made things. He built and made America. And it never would have happened without government.
In the 1980s, merger and acquisition mania struck the Dixon Company like so many other companies built by an American with an idea. It was merged and re-merged, re-engineered and restructured. It passed from one investment banking consortium to another. The factory closed in 1984. You can still buy a Ticonderoga pencil as I did for my nephew, but on the back it will say "Made in China." In 2007, the big, beautiful, old brick factory in Jersey City was turned into high-end loft condominium apartments. You can buy a one-bedroom for $345,000 and up."
Read the full article at The Daily Kos
Be seeing you
No comments:
Post a Comment