From a Bloomberg story about it yesterday
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-0...pply-side.html
The underlying presumption of this fishing expedition is that economic growth would be stronger if only other nations could be policed and forced to price fairly. The absurdity of this position is clear when you consider the Canadian point of view in a newer dispute over lobsters.
This year’s lobster crop has been enormous, probably because of warmer water temperatures this past winter and spring. For New England lobstermen, supply is now outstripping demand. As a result, lobster processors, most of which are in Canada, are paying very low prices to fishermen -- $2.50 or $3 a pound, compared with the $4 a pound the lobstermen want.
That’s hitting Canadian lobstermen hard. Because of regulations that aim to sustain lobster supply -- which seem pretty unnecessary now -- the Canadians are permitted to harvest lobsters for only part of the summer, unlike their U.S. counterparts. They thus need to earn more per pound.
Embarrassed American lobstermen keep reminding anyone and everyone that, heck, there are so few processing plants in Maine they had to come to Canada, and it’s not fair to punish them for trying to sell their catch.
Still, like the lumbermen of the Great Northwest, the Canadian lobstermen are furious. They’re picketing the processing plants that buy from the New England tricksters (or they were, until a court order stopped them). They tossed lobster traps into the office of the Canadian fisheries minister. Last month, they formed blockades to halt delivery of those heinous Maine lobsters.