Posted on 12/20/2002 5:03:58 AM PST by SJackson
Edited on 04/22/2004 11:47:46 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
In her testimony to the grand jury Monica Lewinsky offered an interesting aside: In the middle of a "meeting" with her, Bill Clinton took a phone call from Florida sugar baron Alfonso Fanjul.
That little detail didn't make the tabloids but it raised eyebrows among free trade advocates. The easy access to an otherwise engaged president reaffirmed the suspicion that sugar growers -- who keep Washington sweetened with their political giving -- had disproportionate influence in the Oval Office. In 1999 Mr. Fanjul raked up a million dollars for Mr. Clinton's party at a fund-raiser on his estate.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
"that they are"
which inspires a short spontanious poem...
"They fat cat
that they are
tip caddies big
to make par."
On a positive note, it appears that U.S. lumber producers are getting screwed by the very softwood lumber tariff that was supposed to protect them. Canadian lumber mills that are forced to pay a 19.3% tariff on lumber exported to the U.S. have decided that the only way to overcome that higher cost is to increase their production substantially and reduce their unit costs through economies of scale.
When the 19.3% tariff is eventually eliminated (and it will be -- Canada has won this dispute every time it came up before an international trade board), there won't be too many lumber mills left in the U.S. because the Canadian mills, which are now selling cheaper lumber WITH the tariff in place, will have the advantage of the improved efficiency as well.
Oh, and all the revenue the U.S. collected on that tariff over the last two years will have to be paid back to Canadian producers. So the U.S. won't have the lumber industry jobs, and they won't have the tariff revenue either.
F#cking morons.
But the spotted owl will have a home. /sarcasm
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