Word: pork
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...YOUR SACRED RIGHT TO CAST YOUR BALLOT! Loudspeakers blared circa-1970s revolutionary songs as people marked the ballots on their lap. Not all residents were enthused. "These officials are all the same," a wiry farmer sniffed. "I'm not even voting." He complained angrily about the depressed price of pork and lambasted the "Zhu Ba" (Pork Despot), a local entrepreneur who has monopolized the buying and selling of pigs...
...living standards improve, people will enjoy more democracy. But nurturing democracy is a process." Chinese peasants typically do not think about the glories of remaking society. They think about smaller, more parochial matters like building roads and bridges and picking up cash by selling more kiwi fruit and pork. In their eyes, getting the chance to cast a ballot does not yet ring grandly of revolution. They'd rather find a way to get rid of the Pork Despot...
...agriculture, is stuck in the mud. A glut of live pigs on the market, exacerbated by a sudden drop in slaughterhouse capacity, has pushed the price of pigs down to levels not seen since the Depression. "It's a lethal mixture," says Al Tank, CEO of the National Pork Producers Council. Across the South and Midwest, farmers are losing thousands of dollars a day, drifting deeper into debt and near bankruptcy; fully 20% could be belly-up by spring. A government forecast on the hog supply last week promised little relief. "It's the most serious agricultural crisis in this...
...Christmas Eve, Washington answered the call. Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman increased federal purchases of pork for humanitarian aid, established a moratorium on direct loans for new production plants and urged supermarkets to start passing on savings to consumers and meat packers to buy at voluntary minimum prices (two in the Midwest have already started doing...
...tougher import restrictions. Meanwhile, some critics believe that a few dominant corporate hog processors, like IBP or Smithfield, have unfairly profited from the farmers' misfortunes. "This isn't a matter of outmoded hog producers falling victim to the invisible hand of the market," says Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa. "Pork in the grocery store costs the same now as six months ago. An anticompetitive pork industry is victimizing farmers and consumers." Still, shoppers may begin to see savings at the butcher's counter in the next few months. Unfortunately, by then, hog farmers may not be able to bring home...