Wednesday, September 02, 2009

Shortages

Financial Times:

Venezuela was one of the world’s top coffee exporters in the early 20th century. But for the first time last month the country was forced by looming shortages to import coffee from Brazil, even though locals say it is no match for the local quality Arabica beans.

Guatemala is one of the world's top coffee exporters in the early 21st century. But the country will soon be forced by looming shortages to import children from American malls, adapted to life on Starbucks; though locals say they are no match for the local quality of malnutrition, as featured by the Economist.

1 comment:

someofparts said...

A friend of mine adopted a daughter from South America and was told the mother had gone hungry when pregnant with her daughter. They assured her that the damage to the child would only take a year or so to correct itself once the girl had good nutrition. Wrong. It took eight years of intensive extra measures for this child to finally pull even, biologically, with her American peers. It just stuns me to think of all the children this happens to who never get the complicated, long-term help my friend was able to provide for her daughter.