Re: New Melbourne trams have fewer seats than the old ones but they're longer!

[smiths@pobox.upenn.edu (Exile on Market Street)]

In article <39A386E9.18FC@iprolink.co.nz>, David McLoughlin
<davemclNOSPAM@iprolink.co.nz> wrote:

> The US Government right now has sanctions, quotas and tarrifs against
> the import of unsubsidised NZ lamb following protests from the heavily
> subsidised US lamb farmers whose products are fatty and tasteless while
> NZ lamb is lean and yummy.

Well, I guess that explains why I don't hear radio ads promoting New
Zealand spring lamb any more.

I wonder also how much of this can be explained by relative size and
geography?  After all, there are lots of people in the US who felt -- and
still feel -- that they would be (are being) hurt by NAFTA, yet that went
through and those trucks and trains are rolling freely across the US-Mexico
border now.

Perhaps if NZ had a population closer to that of Mexico City alone or
weren't an ocean and a hemisphere away, the calculus would be different in
Washington, sad to say.

> There is now a kiwifruit industry in California (which got vines from
> NZ) and Californian kiwifruit comes to NZ now in our off-season
> (remember the seasons are reversed between our countries) and it is only
> a matter of time before the Californian kiwifruit growers get the US
> government to ban the import of NZ kiwifruit.

Given that climactic fact, I think it would be stupid for the Californians
to do that.  But as we see all the time, stupidity hasn't been outlawed.

-- 
Sandy Smith, University Relations / 215.898.1423 / smiths@pobox.upenn.edu
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