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FLORIDA FEARS A SQUEEZE IF ORANGE JUICE TARIFF ENDS
The Buffalo News/Knight Ridder ^ | February 9, 2003 | Jane Bussey

Posted on 02/09/2003 5:10:11 PM PST by Marianne

CLEWISTON, Fla. - This town that citrus and sugar built seems to have stepped straight out of a movie set from the 1950s. Life revolves around high school football, church bake sales - and the U.S. Sugar Corp., which manages the orange groves and sugar cane fields that are the mainstay of the local economy.

But globalization is catching up with even sheltered Clewiston. Not only have restaurants like La Azteca and Julio's Cafe Tropical sprung up alongside Wal-Mart, but now a distant threat has emerged.

Under the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas, tariffs on orange juice could be eliminated, leaving Clewiston's - and Florida's - citrus industry vulnerable to stiff, and some say nearly impossible, competition from Brazil.

Unlikely as it seems, this town of 12,000 people, a two-hour drive north of Miami on the southern edge of Lake Okeechobee, is on the front line in the battle over hemispheric free trade.

"We thought it (the citrus tariff) was sacrosanct, and then we realized it was on the table," said Miller Couse, president and chief executive of First Bank in Clewiston.

"Removing the tariff would mean a huge hit," said Couse, who is also a local citrus grower. "It means the profit goes away."

The threat to the state's citrus industry epitomizes the critical choices facing communities and countries over deregulated trade. In Florida, where the citrus industry generates $1.6 billion in cash receipts and has an economic impact about 51/2 times that amount, or about $9 billion, it's a high-stakes issue. Agriculture is the state's second-largest industry after tourism.

The Free Trade Area of the Americas, or the FTAA, is the dream of Miami's trade community; in fact, the goal to have a hemispheric free trade pact in place by the end of 2005 was first announced at the December 1994 Summit of the Americas in Miami. Thirty-four countries in the hemisphere - all except Cuba - signed on for negotiating the deregulated trade agreement.

But the citrus industry is front and center in the struggle over trade. A top priority for Brazil is eliminating the tariffs - import duties countries charge to preserve an industry or help it compete against subsidized competition - on orange juice concentrate so Brazil can more easily sell to the United States. Without the 29 percent tariff on imported Brazilian orange juice concentrate, Florida farmers fear their industry simply could not compete and a town like Clewiston would suffer.

Wages, taxes and environmental and agricultural regulations make U.S. production more costly. Florida workers earn $60 a day; Brazilian workers earn $60 a week.

Brazil's citrus industry controls all the world's big markets except the United States, but their trade officials have made it clear they also want improved access to the U.S. market.

For true believers in free trade, it's a simple matter of letting the cheapest supply have the market. But for many in the Clewiston area, this citrus issue doesn't simply revolve around economics. It also brings into question food safety and security, commercial land development and the rural way of life.

"There is a fundamental decision we have to make: whether we will have food grown in the United States or in other countries," Couse said. "I can't believe our leaders can't see that at some point in this, someone can hold us hostage over food depending on how far we go with free trade."

But as U.S. trade negotiators frequently remind industries suffering from global competition, trade officials are in the business of negotiating trade deals. Both the textile and apparel industries have witnessed this firsthand and watched as textile mills moved overseas. So have many manufacturing industries.

This battle over tariffs and market share is fought out at the wholesale level. Anyone expecting much cheaper orange juice if Brazil becomes nearly the sole supplier has only to look at the experience of the Florida tomato industry, which withered under stiff competition from Mexican winter tomatoes without any noticeable relief in tomato prices for consumers.

The Florida citrus industry tried to drive home these issues in an Oct. 14 meeting with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick. The Washington official said he was happy to listen, but added: "At the end of the day, my job is about free trade and open markets."

Seated across the table from Zoellick in negotiations for a hemispheric trade pact are Latin American officials. Those countries, facing half a decade of low growth, are demanding access to U.S. agricultural markets, with shrill denouncements of U.S. tariffs and farm price supports on the rise.

At a recent trade ministers' meeting, Heinz Moeller, Ecuador's foreign minister, drew a resounding round of applause when he demanded access. "Developed countries should open their agricultural markets to underdeveloped countries," Moeller said. "Give us the opportunity now to grow richer."

These are war words for Florida citrus growers.

In the battle over tariffs, this global fight is really a competition between two states - Florida and Sao Paulo, the most prosperous state in Brazil and the location of almost all the country's commercial orange groves.

Sao Paulo state, with 1.8 million acres of citrus groves, has more than twice Florida's acreage of 797,000 acres. Together the two states produce 85 percent of the world's orange juice; Florida with 40 percent and Sao Paulo with a 45 percent share. While Florida's production supplies America's orange juice thirst, nearly all of Brazil's orange juice production is exported to Europe and Japan, some $5 billion a year.

To make up for shortfalls or because of taste preferences, Florida imports juice from Brazil and even smaller quantities from Belize, Mexico, Costa Rica and states like California.

Brazil's costs are lower, according to University of Florida agricultural economists Tom Spreen and Ron Muraro, who estimate production costs are $259.69 per acre in Sao Paulo and $721.68 per acre in southwest Florida, with labor making a large difference. With the recent devaluation of Brazil's currency, comparative costs for the country are even cheaper.

Muraro estimates it costs Florida citrus growers about 99 cents to deliver a gallon of juice to a Florida processor, compared to $1.06 (including the 29.5-cent tariff per gallon) for a Brazilian grower in Sao Paulo.

Without the tariff, he said, "the cost to the Brazilian to deliver the juice would drop to 78 cents a gallon, giving them a significant competitive advantage."

Meanwhile, some advocates of deregulated trade propose the United States should do away with growing its own food altogether. California agriculture Professor Steven C. Blank wrote "The End of Agriculture in the American Portfolio" in 1998, forecasting that in 50 to 100 years the American agricultural industry will be gone; growing fields churned under to make way for condominiums, golf courses and shopping malls. It is a future that Blank endorses.

But Mark Ritchie, president of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy in Minneapolis, said the public and policy-makers must think before eliminating tariffs that keep industries in business.

"Any proposal to vastly increase U.S. imports in anything has to be analyzed in its impact on the environment, trade deficit, family income and farm families," Ritchie said.

Food imports are particularly sensitive.

"When you import your food, you are both stealing your food from some place else, and once a year or twice a year you get a disruption: a longshoremen's strike, an E. coli outbreak or whatever," Ritchie said.

Finally, some areas, such as South Florida's wetlands, are too environmentally sensitive to withstand a massive influx of condominium communities.

"They (citrus growers) are in a state under tremendous pressure," Ritchie said. "Their only option would be to turn that land into development."


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government; News/Current Events; US: Florida
KEYWORDS: freetrade; ftaa; tariffs; wto
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"Meanwhile, some advocates of deregulated trade propose the United States should do away with growing its own food altogether. California agriculture Professor Steven C. Blank wrote "The End of Agriculture in the American Portfolio" in 1998, forecasting that in 50 to 100 years the American agricultural industry will be gone; growing fields churned under to make way for condominiums, golf courses and shopping malls."
". . .make way for condominiums, golf courses and shopping malls." Some future!!!!!
1 posted on 02/09/2003 5:10:11 PM PST by Marianne
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To: Marianne
(On the other hand, in the "you're not going to believe this" category, the following article was printed in The Wall Street Journal earlier this year. A few weeks ago, the The Journal reported that an attempt is being made to repeal "The Byrd Amendment". Of course Senator Byrd has vowed to fight the repeal.)

HOST OF COMPANIES POCKET WINDFALLS FROM TARIFF LAW
The Wall Street Journal
By Neil King, Jr., Staff Reporter
December 5, 2002
     NORTH EAST, Md. -- When making Fourth of July sparklers lost its shine, the Elkton Sparkler Co. in 1999 shut its factory here and became an importer of sparklers instead.
     Yet this year, it rehired a skeleton crew, cranked up its old boiler and started making sparklers again. The reason: Elkton wanted to take advantage of an obscure new law that is showering money on certain U.S. manufacturers.
     The law, the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act of 2000, works like this: Manufacturers that successfully petition the U.S. to impose tariffs on imports they claim are being "dumped" -- or sold for less than fair-market value -- are allowed to keep the proceeds of those tariffs. Elkton and its archrival, Diamond Sparkler Co., had successfully protested cheap Chinese imports in 1991; the U.S. then hit the Chinese makers with import duties.
     The Byrd Amendment, as the new law is known, creates a practice found in no other country, where the proceeds of tariffs generally are placed in the government till and not given out to specific companies. Indeed, that's how it used to work in the U.S.
     To foreign companies and other critics, the Byrd Amendment, named after Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, amounts to a double whammy: The U.S. not only whacks foreign manufacturers with hefty tariffs, but it also rewards their U.S. competitors. So when Elkton started importing, the tariffs it paid helped Diamond get a government check for $1.6 million.
     The law has triggered bureaucratic skirmishes and legal spats unusual even by Washington standards. In Louisiana's Atchafalaya Basin, hundreds of crayfish farmers and processors are vying for a portion of $8 million in duties on Chinese imports. A clutch of U.S. candle makers is clamoring over $65 million collected from Chinese candle companies that must pay 54% duties to get their products into the U.S. Only rarely is the disbursement simple. Maui Pineapple Co., for instance, is the sole candidate to receive this month about $500,000 in duties on imported Thai pineapples. Congressional forecasters figured the Byrd Amendment would dole out $39 million a year. In fact, the Treasury Department will soon cut checks for the latest year totaling nearly $320 million to companies including the J.R. Moon Pencil Co., the Bonanza Crawfish Farm, U.S. Steel Corp. and Gates Rubber Co. On the paying end are companies from Chinese pencil makers to Italian manufacturers of industrial belts.
     Companies for years have sought government protection from imports they say are unfairly subsidized or sold below their fair value. Help, when it comes, usually takes the form of tariffs. California garlic growers in 1994, for instance, won 299% duties on garlic from China. The tariffs are intended to help U.S. companies compete by putting their products on a level playing field with the dumped imports. But until last year all duty collections spilled into the Treasury's general fund.
     Enter Sen. Byrd, a master Washington wheeler-dealer. In the fall of 2000, the veteran lawmaker slipped the Subsidy Offset Act amendment into an agricultural spending bill. Then-President Clinton railed against the amendment but grudgingly signed the bill, which took effect last year.
     Sen. Byrd continues to champion the law. "We should not back away one whit from providing support for American industries, especially in such precarious economic times," he said yesterday in a statement. "If the duties collected were simply poured into the general Treasury, the companies most affected by these harmful unfair trade practices would lose the opportunity to invest in themselves."
Ball-Bearing Bonanza
     The amendment's chief beneficiaries for 2001 were two ball-bearing companies whose lawyers helped to write the legislation, congressional staffers say. Torrington Co., a unit of Ingersoll-Rand Co., Woodcliff Lake, N.J., took in $63 million in Byrd money last year, and Timken Co., Canton, Ohio, fetched $31 million. The two companies also expect to receive the bulk of this year's payout from ball-bearing duties -- an estimated $70 million collected from bearing makers in Japan, the United Kingdom, Romania, Sweden and six other countries. Timken recently agreed to buy Torrington.
     Timken has for decades invested heavily in research and development, a company spokeswoman says. "The Treasury Department payment clearly recognizes just how important such investments are to developing innovative technology."
     The Byrd Amendment authorizes the U.S. Customs Service to disburse the tariff revenues. Dumping duties on, say, canned mushrooms or iron castings pile up in separate accounts. Every year, U.S. companies that can show they supported a dumping case -- and have continuing manufacturing operations -- apply to receive some of that money. The cash is doled out in proportion to each company's claimed expenses, so that large companies typically get bigger slices of the pie.
     Companies are allowed to request reimbursement for nearly all their production expenses, including research, capital and material costs, but not labor. Since the legislation is retroactive, companies can claim expenses dating back to when the protective duties first took effect. Pushing it to the hilt, companies last year put in requests for $1.2 trillion, or about 10% of the U.S. annual gross domestic product. Ball-bearing maker Torrington, which had sales last year of $1.1 billion, sought reimbursements of $23.4 billion.
     "To us this is essentially recovering money that we were entitled to years ago because of predatory international competition," says a spokesman for Torrington parent Ingersoll-Rand.
     The biggest Byrd Amendment beneficiaries aren't the country's steelmakers even though they represent the largest share of the 337 active antidumping and countervailing duty cases. Steel and iron companies last year collected only about $29 million, or 14% of the total. That's because imports on many steel products have declined sharply since tariffs were imposed.
     Instead, the main beneficiaries are companies such as New Jersey pasta maker A. Zerega's Sons Inc., which took in nearly $2.3 million last year from pasta companies in Italy and Turkey. More than a third of all this year's Byrd Amendment money will go to companies selling candles, pasta and crayfish tails, imports of which have remained strong despite their high tariffs.
     Word of the Byrd bonanza seeped out slowly at first. "But it's not a secret anymore," says Jeffrey Laxague, the Byrd program administrator at the Customs Service, who's been swamped by letters and phone calls from companies and their lawyers seeking to qualify for Byrd funds. Nearly 1,200 companies have sought reimbursements this year, a 30% jump from 2001.
     "It's the money that's driving all this," says Mr. Laxague. The single largest blitz of inquiries came this summer from the nation's beekeepers, who had heard -- wrongly -- that a fortune had built up on honey duties from Argentina and China. "It was nothing but beekeepers for days," he says. Honey duties, enacted late last year, won't be ripe for disbursement until 2003.
     U.S. trading partners have blasted the Byrd Amendment as violating international trade rules by unfairly favoring U.S. companies. The World Trade Organization, in a September ruling, agreed. More than a few U.S. companies are of the same mind. "The Byrd Amendment is just bad trade policy," says William Lane, a Washington lobbyist for heavy machinery maker Caterpillar Inc. "It promotes litigation, violates our WTO commitments and undercuts U.S. competitiveness."
     But Congress and President Bush don't appear ready to bend. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick -- despite his free-trade leanings -- appealed the WTO ruling last month. Sen. Byrd and other influential members of Congress have said they will fight any effort to repeal the law.
     The Byrd law is replete with the sort of ambiguities that keep lawyers busy. Trickiest of all is the requirement that companies show they supported the original case that resulted in dumping duties being enacted. Some of these cases date back to the 1970s and 1980s.
     The fight over who was and wasn't a supporter has been particularly heated in the candle industry, which won stiff import duties on wax candles from China in 1986. The imports kept arriving and the duties piled up. But who should get the proceeds?
     For Jay Urwitz, one of a slew of corporate lawyers in Washington who are working the Byrd account, the answer is simple: Candle Corp. of America, the industry's largest employer. "I think it's only fair that my client get some of the cash," says Mr. Urwitz, of the law firm of Hale & Dorr.
CHECKING THE WRONG BOX
     But Candle Corp.'s claim was rejected by the U.S. International Trade Commission, which has the task of sorting out which companies supported past dumping cases. Candle Corp.'s problem is that it offered only conditional support for the tariffs on a 1985 questionnaire that the ITC distributed to candle makers. Then, in a follow-up questionnaire in 1986, a Candle Corp. official checked the "Don't Support" box. The company, a unit of Blyth Inc., Greenwich, Conn., has appealed the ITC's rejection to the Customs Service.
     The ITC similarly nixed the big Yankee Candle Co. of Massachusetts from a list of qualified recipients. That provoked a heated letter last month from the state's Democratic Sen. John Kerry, who argued that pouring "an enormous infusion of cash into the hand of a minuscule fraction of the industry [would] irrevocably alter the domestic marketplace."
     The ITC also rebuffed a Louisiana purveyor of crayfish and alligator pelts, PS Chez Sidney LLC, saying the company failed to support slapping duties on Chinese crayfish imports in 1996. PS Chez Sidney filed suit against the ITC last month on First Amendment grounds in the U.S. Court of International Trade in New York.
     "This is a free-speech issue," says William Brown, the company's lawyer. "We believe it is unconstitutional to provide government benefits to those who support them and to punish those who don't."
     Companies are eagerly eyeing some new pots of cash that could pay out big. Canadian softwood lumber, as of this year, is subject to import duties averaging 27%. Already the timber kitty holds $570 million and is expected to top $1 billion by next spring. The money could start to flow to U.S. timber companies as soon as next year. Canada is fighting the tariffs at the WTO.
     Elkton, the sparkler importer that nevertheless applied for Byrd money, used to crank out a million sparklers a day in a cluster of squat, concrete-block buildings set amid weeds and rusty trucks at the top of Chesapeake Bay. It still owns the little factory complex, about two miles from its warehouse and offices on the other side of town, but not much happens there nowadays.
     David Shivery, the company's vice president, unlatches a padlock and yanks open the door to a dark chamber he calls the wire-straightening room. "I'm pretty sure that over all those years we made more sparklers than Diamond, and we haven't got a penny of the Byrd money," says Mr. Shivery.
     Coils of sparkler wire lay 10 deep on the floor, but there are no workers to cut and straighten them, and won't be for some time. After the production burst in September, Mr. Shivery figures Elkton may make another batch or two sometime next year.
     "When there's money out there like this, why not take advantage of it?" says brother Charles Shivery, who heads the sparkler business his father founded in 1945.
     At rival Diamond Sparkler, last year's check for $1.6 million "put us in the black for the first time in years," says William Weimer, Diamond's general counsel. One of the last sparkler makers in the U.S., Diamond also expects to get much of this year's estimated $700,000 payout, collected from Chinese producers that pay a 93% duty to ship their goods to the U.S.

(emphasis added)

2 posted on 02/09/2003 5:16:07 PM PST by Marianne
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To: Marianne
Bump for later reading and thought.

Thank you .
3 posted on 02/09/2003 5:18:52 PM PST by Kay Soze
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To: Marianne
You mean consumers will get to pay less for oranges?

That sucks!

We should all decide to suck it up, and pay more for oranges, so that these people can stay employed.
4 posted on 02/09/2003 5:20:55 PM PST by MonroeDNA (dware ROCKS!!!! 101 mussels in one sitting, rasied over $2000 to keep the lights on at FR!)
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To: Marianne
If the citrus groves go that will be OK. We will have lots of diversity. All know that Our Diversity is our Strength. Diversity will cloth you,shelter you, feed you, medicine you and finally bury you.
5 posted on 02/09/2003 5:21:06 PM PST by AEMILIUS PAULUS (Further, the statement assumed)
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To: Marianne
Finally, some areas, such as South Florida's wetlands, are too environmentally sensitive to withstand a massive influx of condominium communities.

Yeah sure. #1, you don't grow oranges on wetlands. #2, when wetlands are developed, it's NEVER for agricultural use.

#3, Wetland development is a simple give-and-take. To use a wetland, you donate non-wetland to take it's place and BAM! you can build your mall!

Disney has been trading off wetlands for dry to expand it's park for 25 years now.

The only loser here is Florida residents and alligators. Brazil is just jumpin' on the band wagon. And for 20 cents a gallon, to lose an entire industry is insane.

6 posted on 02/09/2003 5:41:05 PM PST by JoeSixPack1
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To: JoeSixPack1
I live in Florida, and have a lemon tree in my yard. :)

No state income tax, speed limits 70+, pro-gun, "Shall issue" CCW, Republican Governor, Republican Senate, Republican house, right -to-work state (anti-union--buchannonites please stay away), warm sandy beaches.

We welcome worldwide competition in every industry, and don't want protectionists. Stay in Ohio, thanks. The strongest shall survive.
7 posted on 02/09/2003 5:56:23 PM PST by MonroeDNA (dware ROCKS!!!! 101 mussels in one sitting, rasied over $2000 to keep the lights on at FR!)
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To: MonroeDNA
You mean consumers will get to pay less for oranges?

Grocers will, but consumers won't.

8 posted on 02/09/2003 6:01:14 PM PST by HiTech RedNeck (more dangerous than an OrangeNeck)
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To: MonroeDNA
"The strongest shall survive."

I would agree, if the playing field were level. If the US doesn't support our domestic industries, we will soon be at the mercy of the third world countries. The other choice is to try to compete with virtual slave wages, and the only way to do that is to dramatically lower our standard of living.

I don't know about you, but I like indoor plumbing.

9 posted on 02/09/2003 6:06:47 PM PST by wcbtinman
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To: MonroeDNA
I'm with you. I'd like it if we got rid of all corporate welfare, which includes farm subsidies and tariffs. Free trade works.
10 posted on 02/09/2003 6:11:20 PM PST by CobaltBlue
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To: wcbtinman
What is the connection between free trade and indoor plumbing? All subsidies do is take the money out of my pocket and put it into yours. No new wealth is created.
11 posted on 02/09/2003 6:12:41 PM PST by CobaltBlue
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To: CobaltBlue
Tarrifs are not subsidies. Tarriffs generate money for the US treasury. That is how the Federal govt is supposed to be funded, as intended by the Founders, without income taxes, estate taxes, gross reciepts taxes, and user fees.

The only way to compete with a lower standard of living is to lower ours. Then you can sell apples as apples, and oranges as oranges. If we are to maintain our standard, tarriffs have to be applied to imports in order to maintain economic/dollar value parity with the importing country. The funds paid by the importers go into the Federal coffers to pay for essential items of govt, and US businesses continue to sell domestically at a dollar value that reflects OUR cost of production plus a profit margin.

If the US controlled the economies of all of the other countries of the world, then we could have true free trade. When us labor costs are many times higher than those of backward countries, and those countries can sell with a much lower cost to produce, the jobs and the facilities go overseas, US workers lose their jobs, and in this case their pensions and health care that can no longer be funded, and the US loses it's strategic industries to overseas firms who may or may not be friendly to us.

Many people try to make the free trade issue complicated, and complain that US companies should have to compete on a global basis, but it really is as simple as using tarriffs to level the field.

You might pay a little more for steel or Orange juice, but you'll pay less in terms of taxes and other fees to the govt that are made up by the tarriffs.

In addition, America will be considerably stronger in terms of defense/offensive capabilities. Don't let your greed towards what are really imaginary savings blind you to your responsibilities as a citizen, and a patriot.

Freedom isn't free, and so called "free trade" is an attempt at a free lunch for traitors of the worst kind.

I don't want to lower my standard to that of the third world where indoor plumbing doesn't exist in many places, just to save an imaginary few cents on a glass of OJ. In addition, history has shown that without tarriffs, the cost savings in third world labor are never passed to US consumers, they just fatten the profit margin of the corporation.

12 posted on 02/09/2003 6:43:53 PM PST by wcbtinman
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To: MonroeDNA
Is my state flag not flying?

I'll see your lemon tree and raise you an orange tree, two grapefruit trees and an avacado tree in my backyard. With an evil weed known as banana trees in my neighbor's yard that grows like it's on radiation! :-)

I have my CCW, my JEB stickers, and my distaste for anything snowbird or disney related, your Ohio reference is insulting and ignorant.

But I'm still not much of a gator fan! :-)
13 posted on 02/09/2003 6:52:25 PM PST by JoeSixPack1 (If you own more than 1 jacket, you live too far north!)
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To: wcbtinman
>>You might pay a little more for steel or Orange juice, but you'll pay less in terms of taxes and other fees<<

It doesn't matter to the consumer, or to the economy as a whole. We're out of pocket either way.

>>a free lunch for traitors of the worst kind<<

The people getting the free lunch are the recipients of corporate welfare.
14 posted on 02/09/2003 7:04:27 PM PST by CobaltBlue
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To: HiTech RedNeck
>>Grocers will, but consumers won't.<<

That's silly. If one grocer won't lower his prices, his competitor will. If not, go to Wal-Mart, Sam's or Costco, they will.
15 posted on 02/09/2003 7:07:41 PM PST by CobaltBlue
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To: HiTech RedNeck
I just noticed your alias, "RedNeck." Maybe they don't have discount stores in your neck of the woods.

Also, if you like fresh fruits and vegetables, Korean grocers tend to have very good quality at very good prices. But again, this may not be possible where you are.

Piggly-Wigglys just don't compare.
16 posted on 02/09/2003 7:13:02 PM PST by CobaltBlue
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To: CobaltBlue
"Anyone expecting much cheaper orange juice if Brazil becomes nearly the sole supplier has only to look at the experience of the Florida tomato industry, which withered under stiff competition from Mexican winter tomatoes without any noticeable relief in tomato prices for consumers."
17 posted on 02/09/2003 7:17:21 PM PST by HiTech RedNeck (more dangerous than an OrangeNeck)
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To: Willie Green
This story is right up your alley even though it doesn't specifically involve a factory. It appears that we'll have one more item that will be subject to blockade and shortages if there is ever a major war. I have an orange tree in my backyard, but my lemon didn't handle the cold snap too well. I guess I'll be replacing it. Maybe I'll get a grapefruit as well.

WFTR
Bill

18 posted on 02/09/2003 8:11:14 PM PST by WFTR
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To: wcbtinman
Well responded.There are those who are blinded by unbridled capitalism and dismiss anyone questioning them as lefties. The businesses who import do not really reduce their prices. Tariffs do protect the country and its industries most of the time. To reduce the cost of goods, reduce taxes, big government, out of control unions, trial lawyers, environmental and medical quackery, and other politically correct nonsenses which add to the costs of living. By eliminating tariffs and flooding with cheap imports, the problems are swept under the rug and so are incentives to solve the problems. Right now all the corporations like to maintain trade with Red China despite its flagrant abuses because it guarantees them cheap slave labour and high profit margins.
19 posted on 02/09/2003 8:24:29 PM PST by TransOxus
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To: HiTech RedNeck
The US still regulates the price of Mexican tomatoes.
http://www.ers.usda.gov/briefing/tomatoes/trade.htm
20 posted on 02/09/2003 8:26:33 PM PST by CobaltBlue
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