a case study from "The Airline Passenger's Guerilla Handbook", page287:

"Several years ago, before the free-trade agreement, Canada was suffering one of its periodic bouts of Anti-American xenophobia. Fearing that the US was taking over the economy.

A Wall Street banker flying into Canada to make a presentation to some potential clients, made the mistake of describing him as a "financier". He was immediately surrounded by several beefy immigration officers and taken into a side room. There, after some hostile questioning, he was forced to make his presentation to the assembled officers.

For over forty-five minutes he went on describing the intricate tax, accounting and mathematical aspects of a billion-dollar-cross-border financing of a power plant, to a group of guys who, altogehter, couldn't have had more than one forehead among them.

At the end of the presentation, one of the officers raised his hand and asked what was, in his protectionist's mind, the key question: "Why can't Canadians do this type of finance themselves?"

The banker couldn't think of an answer that wasn't impolite.

He packed up his briefcase and caught the next flight home.

The next week he reentered Canada giving "salesman" as his occupation. He got through without problems.

Apparently "salesman" was a job the Canadians recognized they clearly could not do themselves .....