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Lost, 54 Miles of Candy a Day
The LA Times ^ | January 27, 2002 | Editorial

Posted on 01/27/2002 9:02:46 AM PST by Willie Green

Edited on 09/03/2002 4:49:55 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]

First off, Canadians are swell neighbors. They keep to their own yard and don't blare the radio. Canadians make good wood, beer and glaciers....

But they've gone a bit too far now: Canada is kidnapping the manufacture of LifeSavers, that hallowed hard-candy American institution that's fueled family outings for generations....

Please Click here to read the entire editorial at The LA Times.


(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Editorial
KEYWORDS:
The loss of "LifeSavers" is only the latest instance of
global business efforts to circumvent U.S. trade policy:

The recent efforts to liberalize trade with Cuba (Illinois Gov. Seeks Cuba Sales) are more motivated by potential cheap imports (propping up Castro's Marxist Paradise) than they are by the ballyhooed potential for "humanitarian" exports.

1 posted on 01/27/2002 9:02:47 AM PST by Willie Green (Go Pat Go!!!)
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To: sarcasm
bttt FYI
2 posted on 01/27/2002 9:04:10 AM PST by Willie Green
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To: Willie Green
Selling satellite technology to China is one thing; entrusting LifeSavers' secret Wild Cherry formula to Canadians is another. Next thing you know, Canadians will be luring producers to make Hollywood movies up north because it's cheaper.

Last Paragraph from the L.*. Times, before this paragraph gets rewritten. I have no idea how this slipped thru the commissars.

Say what you want, even the L.*. Times understands what x42 did with China.

Forgive missile technology sales! Just save our candy.

Somewhere along the way I lost my sense of humor. Fools like the L.*. Times remind why I did lose it.

3 posted on 01/27/2002 9:22:56 AM PST by texas booster
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To: Willie Green
Not to worry! They'll be back! Canadian suger may be cheaper, but there are major costs associated with being in Canada. The major negative is, of course, the Canadians. The plant will be unionized and the union WILL strike. Canada has the highest lost time due to strike in the world. Then there will be the enternal whinging; Canadians are always overworked and underpaid. Then there will be the silly federal and provinicial tinkering with their business. Certain colors may have to go because some First Nations bunch of drunken savages claims them. The name "Life Savers" will have to go because it offends the dead whose lives weren't saved and especially their survivors. Many Canadian bureaucrats may not even demand bribes, they just like messing with your business because they know better how to run it than you do. No, they will be back.
4 posted on 01/27/2002 9:31:16 AM PST by Tacis
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To: Willie Green
Take a look at this. The sellout of American workers continues.
5 posted on 01/27/2002 9:36:38 AM PST by UnBlinkingEye
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To: Tacis
Canadian suger may be cheaper...

Cuban sugar.

Transnational corporations circumvent our restrictions on imported sugar by importing the finished product instead.

6 posted on 01/27/2002 9:39:13 AM PST by Willie Green
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To: Willie Green
Remember when LifeSavers used to be on the Boston Post Road in Port Chester, New York? I understand that when they closed that plant they devastated the local blue collar community.
7 posted on 01/27/2002 9:49:33 AM PST by sarcasm
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To: Willie Green
First Keanu Reeves and now this? This means war!
8 posted on 01/27/2002 10:15:16 AM PST by John Jorsett
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To: sarcasm
I understand that when they closed that plant they devastated the local blue collar community.

This is true for any plant closing. The economic impact ripples throughout the local community, negatively affecting suppliers, small businesses, property values, and the local tax base.

9 posted on 01/27/2002 10:19:22 AM PST by Willie Green
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To: Tacis
The major negative is, of course, the Canadians.

Thanks.

10 posted on 01/27/2002 10:22:51 AM PST by Rightwing Canuck
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To: sarcasm
Most American companies have no allegiance to America and the American worker anymore. They'd lay off the American work force and go overseas in a minute if it would increase their profits. It would also get them out from under all the thousands of stupid regulations the government has imposed on them. I wonder who's going to pay all the taxes to keep this big ship afloat when all the blue collar workers are on welfare?
11 posted on 01/27/2002 10:23:34 AM PST by holyscroller
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To: Willie Green
This is an unintended -- but unsurprising -- consequence of the stupid policy of sugar price supports. It's not just a Cuba issue. Sugar from anywhere outside the U.S. is cheaper than sugar inside. Sugar price supports are there because of the sugar lobby, not because of the anti-Castro lobby.

Free trade would prevent the needless export of jobs and would make almost everything cheaper for both Americans and others.

12 posted on 01/27/2002 10:27:14 AM PST by AZLiberty
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To: Willie Green
All your base belong to us. (Okinawa protester, 1992)

All your candy belong to us. (Canada, 2002)

All your sugar belong to us. (Castro, 2001)

All your candy belong on my butt. (H. Clinton, 2003)

13 posted on 01/27/2002 10:28:29 AM PST by Robert A Cook PE
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To: Willie Green
This is about UNIONS not sugar. Read the article.
14 posted on 01/27/2002 10:39:32 AM PST by Born to Conserve
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To: Born to Conserve
This is about UNIONS not sugar. Read the article.

Do you mean the part where it says: "saving 10 cents a pound adds up when you're using 113 tons a day...."???

Let's see: 113tons/day X 2000lbs/ton X $0.10/lb = $22,600 per day.

With the highly automated equipment used to produce a high volume product such as LifeSavers, the cost differential between union and non-union labor is negligible compared to the cost of raw materials.

Just the same, considering that a typical 50¢ roll of LifeSavers weighs about 1.1 oz, the 10¢ per pound differential cost of sugar is only about 0.7¢ per roll. The savings is NOT passed along to the consumer as many "free trade" fanatics would have us believe.

15 posted on 01/27/2002 11:25:58 AM PST by Willie Green
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To: AZLiberty
Free trade would prevent the needless export of jobs and would make almost everything cheaper for both Americans and others.

American agriculture and sugar production is actually extremely efficient. It's just that foreign production is so much more inexpensive, not only due to cheap labor, but primarily to lack of environmental regulation. This includes wholesale destruction of the tropical rain forests for conversion to canefields.

"Free Traders" are not only irresponsibly neglectful of these considerations, they willfully ignore that sugar is a basic food staple. It is absolutely ghastly that they would subject our nation to dependence on foreign supplies of food.

16 posted on 01/27/2002 11:44:27 AM PST by Willie Green
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To: Willie Green
Actually it is sort of appropriate to have Life Savers made in Canada, if the shape was inspired by the life preservers on the Titanic. Wasn't the Titanic sunk by a Canadian iceberg?
17 posted on 01/27/2002 11:57:42 AM PST by Verginius Rufus
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