Yes, We Will Have No Bananas

NY Times ^ | 6/18/08 | Dan Koeppel

[LibWhacker]

ONCE you become accustomed to gas at $4 a gallon, brace yourself for the next shocking retail threshold: bananas reaching $1 a pound. At that price, Americans may stop thinking of bananas as a cheap staple, and then a strategy that has served the big banana companies for more than a century — enabling them to turn an exotic, tropical fruit into an everyday favorite — will begin to unravel.

The immediate reasons for the price increase are the rising cost of oil and reduced supply caused by floods in Ecuador, the world’s biggest banana exporter. But something larger is going on that will affect prices for years to come.

That bananas have long been the cheapest fruit at the grocery store is astonishing. They’re grown thousands of miles away, they must be transported in cooled containers and even then they survive no more than two weeks after they’re cut off the tree. Apples, in contrast, are typically grown within a few hundred miles of the store and keep for months in a basket out in the garage. Yet apples traditionally have cost at least twice as much per pound as bananas.

[Zhang Fei]

Once bananas had become widely popular, the companies kept costs low by exercising iron-fisted control over the Latin American countries where the fruit was grown. Workers could not be allowed such basic rights as health care, decent wages or the right to congregate.

More BS from the NYT. What other businesses in those countries had these "basic rights"? What the heck does he mean by "decent wages"? American wages? If everyone around the world were paid American wages, there'd be minimal trade involving non-unique goods, given that in many undeveloped places, you have to bring your own infrastructure - something including schools, roads, power plants, etc.

[saganite]

I’ve been reading for years hat bananas are on their way out anyway due to a disease that was wiping out plantations. Companies were looking for a new variety to replace the current banana.

[jaz.357]

This could really bum me up yes! NO?

[Zhang Fei]

The stupid moron who wrote this article is also seemingly unaware of the fact that banana companies have been only marginally profitable for most of the past two decades (and this may go back much further). The reality is that we eat a lot of bananas because they are cheap. The moment prices go up, consumption will crash, and a lot of those banana plantation workers will have to find new lines of work.

[kms61]

I enjoyed some delicious fresh cherries tonight. Considering that they come from Oregon (or in the off season, Chile,) and I’m in Louisiana, we probably won’t be getting them for much longer.

[Tanniker Smith]

I swear that I thought that this was some kind of joke when I heard about it on the radio. I was flipping the dial during commercials (everyone has commercials at the same time).

I thought that they were talking about "Big Oil" and all that stuff and then they started mentioning "bananas". Hell, it's some kind of put on, I thought. A sketch of some kind. (Did I stumble onto some kind of Prairie Home Companion imitation??)

But, no, this was serious stuff. Go figger.

[GladesGuru]

“Perhaps it’s time we recognize bananas for what they are: an exotic fruit that, some day soon, may slip beyond our reach.”

The Old Grey Whore screwed the pooch once again.

I grow the things in my yard. They are hardy, take care of themselves, and I don’t have to put up with the lack of taste in the Cavendish variety.

Rather than putting in a call to the Waaambulance of the NY Slimes article, perhaps someone who gives a d*mn should memo him about the following:

Were some of his friends (suggest to him that any conservative can explain what that word “friend” means) were to plant different varieties and cooperate on their own, rather than via gooberment mandate, they could enjoy really fresh, AND tasty bananas for quite a period of the year.

[LibWhacker]

Mmmm, cherries sound good! Peaches are in season right now in Calif and we've certainly been putting them away... Juicy and sweet!

[Tanniker Smith]

Cheapness does have a lot to do with it. It certainly isn’t a matter of taste. Bananas don’t taste as good as they used to, but they’re not the same bananas.

[HerrBlucher]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNMY212voKA

[Cacique]

btt

[Tax-chick]

Whatever. Quinoa is more nutritious.

[kingattax]

will the dumbocrats hold hearings and drag the CEOs of chiquita , del monte, and dole in front of a committee to investigate possible price gouging by “big bananas” ?

[Yardstick]

FIGHT BIG BANANA!

[MaxMax]

[SIDENET]

"Tough times, man. Tough times."

[Paladin2]

Let it go. Can’t we all move on? Whatever we do won’t reduce the price of bananas by tomorrow. We should just give up and let change overtake us.

[The Spirit Of Allegiance]

This commodity vs. oil could become a very 'slippery' slope. It just goes to show you can't compare apples and banana republics.

Somebody, peel me a grape.






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