South Florida Banana Republic take note: The Economics of Bananas

Hosting the Annual Meeting of The United States Conference of Mayors or not, you residents know who you are...
http://usmayors.org/usmayornewspaper/documents/06_16_08/pg1_Miami.asp

Visiting mayors, please ignore all the graffiti you see on U.S.-1 between downtown Miami and Coconut Grove, home of one of the most insightful and influential bloggers in the area, Coconut Grove Grapevine, http://coconutgrovegrapevine.blogspot.com/

(It was hard not to notice it all -on just about every third street sign for miles- last month on my drive down to Coral Gables, where I attended a U-M Ring Ceremony for my nephew at the Bank United Center.)

"That's just amateur local performance art."

As it happens, when South Beach Hoosier/Hallandale Beach Blog was growing-up in his house on NE 159th Street and NE 14th Avenue in North Miami Beach in the 1970's, just a few blocks south of the 163rd Street Shopping Center and Wolfie's -the latter being home of the definitive version of the Black & White cookie, which I bought 2-3 times a week on my morning walks to school to J.F.K. Jr. High and NMBHS- his family had a backyard with a number of orange and lime trees and one banana tree.
Which, naturally, younger kids tried to help themself to after school on their way home, until I pointed out the error of their ways and reminded them that I knew their older brothers and sisters by name.

New York Times
The Economics of Bananas
By Stephen J. Dubner
June 19, 2008

The papers yesterday were full of news about bananas.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Chiquita Brands International, “the Cincinnati-based banana distributor” (I love that phrase; it evokes Lardner, or at least Runyon), was expected to report a third-quarter loss due to higher fuel costs and bad weather in banana-growing countries. Chiquita stock fell sharply on the news.
The second article was far more interesting, and answered a question I’ve long wondered about: why are bananas so cheap relative to other fruit, especially since a lot of the fruit we consume in the U.S. is grown here while bananas are not?

Read the rest of the story at:
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/19/the-economics-of-bananas/

See the Chiquita official website: http://www.chiquita.com/ , the story of Miss Chiquita Banana at http://www.tvacres.com/admascots_misschiquita.htm , and the Wiki version of the company's history, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiquita_Brands_International , the WTO Chiquita Banana Case, http://www.speakeasy.org/~peterc/wtow/wto-case.htm along with this insightful article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/18/opinion/18koeppel.html?ref=opinion
New York Times
Yes, We Will Have No Bananas
By Dan Koppel
June 18, 2008