The Union’s ‘Shoddy’ Aristocracy

I find historical revelations, such as the widespread profiteering during the Civil War, to be immensely interesting and instructive when considering contemporary issues in the US. It's fascinating to learn that the word 'shoddy' originated from the deceptive manufacturing techniques employed by clothing manufacturers during this war that poorly served the soldiers in the war but enriched many unscrupulous businessmen.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/09/the-unions-shoddy-aristocracy/?ref=opinion

"One writer for the New York Tribune painted an equally graphic picture: “Shoddy” was, he wrote,

'poor sleezy stuff, woven open enough for seives [sic], and then filled with shearman’s dust. … Soldiers, on the first day’s march or in the earliest storm, found their clothes, overcoats, and blanket, scattering to the wind in rags or dissolving into their primitive elements of dust under the pelting rain.'"