Thursday, January 30, 2014

A "Brazen Act of Plunder"


"Every few years, the Congress of the United States of America voted generous price supports for a handful of millionaires in the great state of Florida.  The crop that made them millionaires was sugar, the price of which was grossly inflated and guaranteed by the US government.  This brazen act of plunder accomplished two things:  it kept American growers very wealthy, and it undercut the struggling economies of poor Caribbean nations, which could't sell their own bounties of cane to the United States at even half the bogus rate."

from Strip Tease by Carl Hiaasen

I love Carl Hiaasen; his books are wacky, risqué, and are a call to protect the environment .

more on sugar subsidies here
http://www.coha.org/u-s-sugar-subsidies-and-the-caribbeans-sugar-economies/

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.