"HeyBub" wrote in message
m...
DGDevin wrote:

Pay people a wage, automate, import, go without.

Good luck convincing most Americans of that, they're happy to shop at
Wal-Mart even if that means the jobs of other Americans end up in
China--they want it cheap, end of story. And try telling America's
farmers and/or agribusiness that we should import food rather than
grow it here, you'll be lucky not to be run out of town on a rail.

Several years ago I ran into an old high-school sweetheart. We had coffee
to get caught up.

After college, she became an airline stewardess and for twenty years plied
the US - Australia/New Zealand routes.

After retiring, she happened to be in the grocery store, one February,
looking for strawberries.

"No strawberries in February, ma'am. No siree, not any. Nope." said the
produce manager.

Now she learned two things flying to Australia: Passengers fly on top,
freight underneath and the seasons are reversed in the southern
hemisphere.

She called one of her old frequent-flyer passengers in New Zealand. "Sure,
I can ship you as many strawberries as you want, ten cents a pint, FOB."
She ordered a small container full.

It arrived at the USDA station in Dallas where it was cleared for entry.
The container, containing about 5,000 pints of stawberries in
shrink-wrapped little baskets, was loaded on a trailer and she hauled it
to Houston.

The buyer at the local wholesale produce company looked at her stuff and
her USDA documentation and offered her $0.85 a pint (her total cost was
twenty-two cents) and told her he would take as much as she could deliver.

After the coffee, we went to her (palatial) town house and spent several
hours eating strawberries and kiwi fruit while she told me about her next
venture (100% wool carpet from Australian sheep).

Then we had sex.

Point is, because of imports, we can enjoy virtually all food year 'round.
And sometimes sex.


I know a guy who imports camel meat from the middle east
He already has everything sold when he puts in the order. And he can't keep
up with the demand.