Word: graining
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Soviet agriculture is a continuing saga of failure. Last year's grain harvest was an estimated 170 million tons, down from 195 million in 1983 and well below the 1978 peak of 237 million. To offset agricultural shortages, the Soviet Union depends on imports. Moscow is expected to buy up to 52 million tons of grain, including at least 20 million from the U.S., in the period from July 1984 through June 1985, an increase of 52% over the previous year. Says Olin Robison, president of Middlebury College in Vermont and a Soviet expert: "A very sad fact about Soviet...
Residents of Yuba City quickly did so. Apples and oranges, they said. "I don't see how they can compare cities like Pittsburgh and Yuba City," commented Fireman Ron Ruzich. "It's just a way for someone to sell books somewhere." Part-time Mayor Chuck Pappageorge, a grain merchant, looked for a way to capitalize on the city's bottom-rung prominence. Said he: "If we'd been second to last, no one would have noticed. This is a great opportunity. We'll get some yardage out of this." Better hold that line, Pittsburgh...
...farm lobbyists who besieged Capitol Hill offices and the grain-belt Senators who staged a protest near the White House won their battle last week. The Republican-controlled Senate buckled under the pressure and joined the Democrat-controlled House in passing expensive credit-relief packages for farmers. Reagan aides, calling the fight a "sign of things to come," predicted a presidential veto. Said White House Spokesman Larry Speakes: "The President is going to have his pencil sharp as far as any budget-busting bill is concerned...
...family business, everything started to go wrong. In 1975, at age 33, Jacobs was depressed and ready to quit. "I said to myself, 'What do I need any more money for? I've had enough of Big Business.' " At the root of his malaise was the failure of Grain Belt Breweries, which he had bought with a $4 million loan. In his attempts to make it more profitable, he filmed a TV commercial with the line: "It may be my brewery, but it's your beer." Nothing worked. Says he: "I got murdered. I never worked so hard...
...turned out, failing at brewing was one of the best things that ever happened to him. He sold his beer brands (Grain Belt, Hauenstein and Storz) to G. Heileman Brewing and auctioned off machinery, thus making a $5 million profit. He used that money in a joint venture with the Pohlad family of Minneapolis to buy nearly $300 million worth of property and uncollected bills from bankrupt retailer W.T. Grant for the fire-sale price of $44 million. Says he: "That was the mother lode that got it all going." It earned him the nickname Irv the Liquidator...