Word: tractor
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...tractor factory on the outskirts of Tirana, 4,200 workers toil on machines that have been in use since the 1940s, converting scrap metal into tractor parts. Now mass layoffs loom. Production and wages have been slashed for lack of raw materials. "We're terrified that we'll be left with no money," says Gezime Sula. Nevertheless, she supports the Democrats, even though an unbridled marketplace would almost certainly close the factory gates...
...paraphernalia, much of it hauled there from Seattle and Los Angeles. The stash was so vast -- 107 million vials, 1.9 million crack pipes, 178 million polyethylene bags for heroin -- that 25 Customs agents took three days just to count and load the items into eleven 50-ft.-long tractor trailers. "That was more paraphernalia than we'd ever even conceived of running into," says Richard Mercier, chief of the New York Customs office. "Previous seizures had been only 10 million to 15 million vials...
...hard currency to pay for them. Barter deals are unlikely since Lithuania does not produce much that the West would want. The republic's agricultural goods do not meet Western standards because of excessive use of pesticides. Most of its other potential exports, such as TV sets and tractor parts, are also of inferior quality...
...right, Mr. Potomac, Maryland Elite Dork, save your postage. The Pony Express is terribly slow this time of year. But if you do send me something, include my last name. If you just write "Steve," there's a good chance that the Massey Ferguson tractor dealer down the road--the other Steve--will get my mail. It happens all the time...
Economically speaking, money spent on arms is largely wasted, siphoned off from the precious pool of capital like a big leak. (In the old days, swords could at least be beaten into plowshares. Try beating a tank into a tractor.) And though the annual difference between what we and the Japanese have spent on defense -- a gap of 4 percentage points -- seems small, small numbers compound. An economy growing 3% a year for 45 years quadruples. Not bad. But an economy growing 4 points faster, at 7%, grows 21-fold! This is, very roughly, the difference...