All bananas are equal

The tendency of the Australian agricultural sector to favour a socialist command economy continues apace, with banana growers repudiating the choices consumers have been making.

A Mareeba banana grower Dennis Rigato says ideal weather conditions and bumper crops after Cyclone Larry have boosted supplies.

But apparently many consumers this year are “rejecting” larger bananas in favour of smaller ones, “forcing” growers to dump as much as half their crop.

Yes, once again the folk from the ‘smoke’ are oppressing those salt-of-the-earth farming folk — this time by force of their aggregate preference for smaller bananas.

At the very least, this will require a (taxpayer-funded) media blitz to influence consumers to be less discerning in their tastes. If they’re happy with another year of stale reality TV fare, then how’s a bigger banana going to hurt them?

As a matter of fact, it may have begun already, with the above ABC news item headlined:

‘Fussy customers’ force farmers to throw away fruit

Nowhere in the text is any farmer quoted as saying consumers are being too fussy, but the government-funded ABC would seem only too willing to oblige with agitprop.

Mareeba, by the way, is in the federal seat of Kennedy, which was retained at the recent election by ‘independent’ agrarian socialist Bob Katter.

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Banana-led recovery for Australia

Australia has recorded its lowest annual inflation rate for two years, with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rising by only 0.1 per cent in the March quarter, leaving the annual increase in the cost of living at 2.4 per cent.

Falling most in the latest three months has been the cost of food, led by a 73 per cent plunge in banana prices.

Who’d have thought that the recovery of the banana industry should help save Australia from an inexorable slide into Banana Republicdom??

Viewer’s of last night’s Lateline program on ABC-TV will have witnessed presenter Tony Jones badgering Labor’s shadow treasurer Wayne Swan to admit that this result is due to the sound economic management of the Howard Government (in vain, as it turns out).

This blog notes, however, that all the commentary so far has failed to acknowledge the role of the Reserve Bank of Australia, whose tweaking of interest rates at several crucial stages in the current cycle may well have contributed significantly to this splendid result.

Oh, that together with the hard work and fiscal discipline of the Australian people generally.

Good work, Australia!!!

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