--- Michael Pollak <mpollak at panix.com> wrote: >
> On Tue Mar 13 2001, Brad DeLong wrote:
>
> > > Is there any reason why Chiquita still punches
> so far above its
> > > weight? It's as if our foreign policy were
> still being run by
> > > United Fruit.]
>
> > Is there any reason why Europe should be shafting
> Western Hemisphere
> > banana producers?
Dear me. Brad, do yourself a favour, stay out of the Chinese eating joints for a while. They're destroying your tastebuds. A dollar banana is only barely a banana, compared to a Caribbean banana. On gastronomic grounds alone, the EU is justified in shafting Chiquita. The dollar-banana producers are committing an act of violence against the public by driving their inferior product into the supermarkets, thus further degrading public taste.
>
> So are you saying the US government favors Chiquita
> over Dole and Del
> Monte, to what appears to be its own detriment,
> because Chiquita's cause
> is so just?
>
> (Just as a nitpick, the EU protects some Western
> Hemisphere producers in
> the Carribbean, no? I thought they were in fact the
> most banana-dependent
> (and inefficient) economies, who had the most to
> lose if if Chiquita
> wins.)
Specifically, the EU protects the banana-growers of Jamaica, the Windward Isles, Belize, Surinam and France, IIRC. They aren't really inefficent; they just suffer from the fact that they are trying to produce bananas, rather than bloated yellow cucumbers, stuffed with equal portions water, starch and commercial fertiliser.
dd
===== "Imagine the Duchess's feelings You could have pierced her with swords To find her youngest son liked Lenin And sold the Daily Worker near the House of Lords" -- Noel Coward
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