Friday, September 02, 2005

Un - freakin - believable.


(Originally appended to earlier post, now moved up.)

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!!! I don't believe this (courtesy of Cerberus -- good doggy):

Steep U.S. tariffs on Canadian lumber will only make a bad situation worse as impoverished Americans attempt to rebuild in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, a U.S. housing advocate said Wednesday.

"This tragedy, coupled with ongoing lumber tariffs, will only further harm lumber consumers - especially those needing affordable housing in the U.S.," Susan Petniunas of American Consumers for Affordable Homes told The Canadian Press.

OK. And how exactly would this work?

A spokesman for the U.S. lumber lobby, meanwhile, said Canadian producers should be exempted from those punitive softwood duties - but only on free lumber donated to the rebuilding effort in Louisiana and Mississippi.

"If Canada wants to do the humanitarian aid and donate their lumber, there would be no duty on free lumber," Scott Shotwell, a spokesman for the protectionist Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports, said in an interview from Washington.

As for suspending the legally-dubious tariffs to give American consumers a temporary price break of more than 20 per cent, Shotwell said only donated lumber should be exempted.

"It would have to be humanitarian. It would have to be free."

Fuck you, you greedy pricks. Even I don't have a sufficient grasp of unspeakable obscenities to adequately convey what I'm thinking at the moment.

1 comment:

Scotian said...

I just linked to this post of yours, and I offered a response at my blog. I wonder what you think of this idea as a way to respond to this incredibly arrogant and self serving idea of the American lumber lobby in their ongoing abuse of us nice Canadians.

It is the top post at the site, and likely will be for a while. Thanks for the information about this insulting suggestion by the American lumber lobby.