Word: wool
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...gullible are you? Are you tired of people pulling the wool over your eyes...
...death sentence was decreed as an emergency measure to rescue a vital export industry by curtailing wool production. During the past 18 months, Australia's prime overseas customers have cut back on purchases, leaving a glut of fleeces. Moreover, wheat farmers expect to see their incomes halved this year, and home-grown citrus sales have also soured. At a time when much of Australia is taking to beaches and playgrounds, the dreaming high summer of the Lucky Country's interior has turned into a nightmare...
Australian salesmanship in Asia has brought in healthy profits, but commodity prices remain subject to mercurial swings. Two years ago, when wool was fetching a high world price of $4.81 per lb., sheep men delighted in their earnings bonanza and stepped up production. They could not have foreseen that China, a big customer, would drop out of the market in the wake of Beijing's Tiananmen Square upheaval, when Western credits were cut off. Nor could they have predicted that the financially strapped Soviets would cancel orders and stop paying bills...
...years the wool growers have been sheltered by a cartel-like mechanism that only helped skew the market. The Australian Wool Corporation, a quasi- official body, bought all unsold stocks at a guaranteed price. When natural fibers became the fashion rage of the late 1980s, the AWC lifted the price by 71%, to $3.35 per lb., which encouraged farmers to swell their flocks. So dominant was Australia in the fine-wool market that its minimum price kept the stuff expensive amid overproduction and shrinking demand. One result has been a turn by Japan to improved synthetic fibers, which are smoother...
...slaughter campaign aims to reduce flocks to a more commercially manageable 150 million, though for Australians it has the dimensions of tragedy. Historically, the country rode to prosperity on the back of this biblical creature that typically can produce enough wool for four men's suits in a year...