Jorge Del Castillo and Peru's Agro Minister Ismael Benavidez caught on camera wearing their masonic aprons.
All great fashions start out by being ridiculed (e.g. flared jeans, Tamagochis, the hula-hoop, sitting on the roof of a train in the Indian sub-continent...you name your own fave). This year's crazy craze goes by the name of "Nationalization", and was kicked off last year by a little known local politico named Hugo Chávez, who nationalized CANTV, the Venezuelan phone company. Since then this nationalization fad has turned into flavour of the month and talk of the town, with Bolivia snapping up its gas prodcution, Argentina taking over (better said 'back') its national airline, the UK feasting on a couple of savings&loans thingies and the USA nationalizing everything to do with money (though it has to be said, circumstances up North are somewhat different....I mean, the nationalizations down this way have actually added value to the states in question).
So not to be outdone, Peru has joined in on the act. In a big hoopla presentation today, Prime Minister Jorge "mini me" Del Castillo along with a bunch of his ministers launched its latest attempt at Communism called "Take Advantage, Eat That Which Peru Produces" (Aprovecha: consume lo que el Perú produce).
Mini-Me said "We have to Nationalize our food, and because of this army barracks, hospitals and prisons will use local produce of the finest quality to bring down costs." He then went on to moan about the fact that Peruvians eat more imported goods than locally grown potatoes (for example), and then immediately contradicted himself by saying that Peruvians had changed habits and were eating more fish than chicken nowadays, which brought the price of a kilo of chicken down from S/7.40 to S/5.50. This is of course total bollocks, because chicken prices came down once the imported chicken feed came down after the much headlined surge in food prices was over (funny...you don't hear people talking about that much nowadays but inflation is still on the up'n'up...I wonder why...not) and had nothing to do with any sudden fervour Peruvians developed for horse-mackerel.
So I's got me an idea; why not stop planting all that asparagus for export to the USA (cos by the sounds of things, WalMart shoppers just won't be able to stretch to it soon), and use the same areas to plant something radical...like wheat, or soya or more rice? Then Mini-Me can stop imposing his ridiculous logic on his fellow citizens and let them bake a cake or two, just like they could when they were poor.
So not to be outdone, Peru has joined in on the act. In a big hoopla presentation today, Prime Minister Jorge "mini me" Del Castillo along with a bunch of his ministers launched its latest attempt at Communism called "Take Advantage, Eat That Which Peru Produces" (Aprovecha: consume lo que el Perú produce).
Mini-Me said "We have to Nationalize our food, and because of this army barracks, hospitals and prisons will use local produce of the finest quality to bring down costs." He then went on to moan about the fact that Peruvians eat more imported goods than locally grown potatoes (for example), and then immediately contradicted himself by saying that Peruvians had changed habits and were eating more fish than chicken nowadays, which brought the price of a kilo of chicken down from S/7.40 to S/5.50. This is of course total bollocks, because chicken prices came down once the imported chicken feed came down after the much headlined surge in food prices was over (funny...you don't hear people talking about that much nowadays but inflation is still on the up'n'up...I wonder why...not) and had nothing to do with any sudden fervour Peruvians developed for horse-mackerel.
So I's got me an idea; why not stop planting all that asparagus for export to the USA (cos by the sounds of things, WalMart shoppers just won't be able to stretch to it soon), and use the same areas to plant something radical...like wheat, or soya or more rice? Then Mini-Me can stop imposing his ridiculous logic on his fellow citizens and let them bake a cake or two, just like they could when they were poor.