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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RealMuLan who wrote (36626)	7/27/2003 7:08:03 PM
From: RealMuLan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74559

LARGEST PRODUCER CHANGES COURSE RANCH WILL BEGIN BUYING IMPORTS FROM CHINA RATHER THAN CONTINUE BATTLE By Ken McLaughlin and Frank Sweeney Mercury News Christopher Ranch of Gilroy, the country's largest garlic producer, has hoisted a white flag. Rather than succumb to the weight of Chinese imports, the firm will begin buying garlic from China after fiercely battling its imports for a decade. The result: Even less garlic will be grown in the self-proclaimed Garlic Capital of the World. Like a pungent odor, word of the company's decision wafted through the town of 40,000 on Thursday, a day before the Gilroy Garlic Festival began its internationally celebrated three-day run. It's clearly another bit of bad news for wistful, longtime residents who have seen their town more than double in size in the last quarter-century. ``I think this little bedroom community is going to become part of San Jose,'' said Iris Lund, a Gilroy resident for two decades. ``I sometimes fear for our agricultural areas.'' Garlic growers and producers across California say they're being squeezed by Chinese competition, illegal imports, flaky California weather and the skyrocketing cost of land. Christopher Ranch spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in attorney and lobbyist fees fighting the U.S. Commerce Department over trade issues. ``We've lost all our battles,'' said Don Christopher, a third-generation garlic grower who founded Christopher Ranch in 1956. ``Now we're giving up. bayarea.com "We've held off the Chinese for 12 years, but now it's time to give up," Christopher said last week as he surveyed a dusty garlic plot in nearly 100-degree heat. "We know there's a market for California-grown garlic. But if you look at history, people always go for the least expensive price. There are no secrets to the garlic business — it's all about price." seattletimes.nwsource.com

To: RealMuLan who wrote (36626)	7/27/2003 7:33:52 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

Yiwu, re < the head of the United Nations’s environment programme has warned that China’s growth — and ambitious plans for the future — are unsustainable. Klaus Toepfer warned that so-called developed countries will be forced to tighten their belts under China’s plan to expand its economy fourfold within the next 20 years.> Klaus is klueless. China's growth is sustainable. He's just another in the long list of doomsters who think that the poor need to stay poor, that there are too many of them and there's not enough room for all to have excellent lives. Of course there won't be a billion Chinese driving around in individual American-style SUVs. But with smart vehicle technology, they can have even better transport and cheaper and cleaner and safer and more convenient and comfortable. Every Chinese can have swishy mobile cyberspace wherever they are. There's no need for millions of tons of copper to be festooned across the country. Every Chinese can enjoy delicious fish. With aquaculture, there's no limit to how much fish can be produced. Environmentalists usually take the Luddite, doomster point of view. Which isn't to say there's no need to prevent pollution and destruction of commons. Klueless Klaus should get a real job and stop depleting the world's resources to fund his hot air pollution. Roll on China! More and faster! Coal, bauxite, iron ore, silicon, limestone, oceans and a lot more are essentially unlimited. Mqurice