Staples Canada Quotes

I'm to have dinner with some people from the bookshop, which is as posh as the motel, at six, then read at seven-thirty. I will have to watch my mouth. Some sarcastic remark about gentrification is almost bound to slip out. Even though the topography is right, this doesn't even look like Vermont. Not a cow in sight, not a single shack held together with staples and Masonite. Where are my people? The ones who used to go to Canada automatically at age 18 and get all their teeth pulled out, a standard right of passage. The ones who believe you can't be an alcoholic if you drink nothing but beer. The ones who know how to roast a haunch of venison with onions and garlic and sage and mustard (and where to find the haunch in July). The ones who buy their clothes at rummage and their cars at the junkyard. The ones who used to be me. Here I am on my balcony with a finger or two of cognac, a cigar, and a laptop computer, wearing my black jeans and my Reeboks. God, it's awful.

Aditya told me that he produced staple fiber in Thailand from pulp that he bought in Canada. He sent the fiber to his factory in Indonesia for converting to yarn. He exported the yarn to Belgium, where it was made into carpets, and finally, the carpet was exported to Canada. “Here is Aditya Birla,” I thought, “an Indian, and yet India does not figure in this global value-added chain.” It did not because India had closed its economy. By closing it, it denied its citizens the chance to participate in the enormous expansion in global trade in the second half of the twentieth century. It denied its people jobs, technology, knowledge, and new ways of organizing. Thus, it deliberately suppressed economic growth.

The so-called “Goulash capitalism” episode in Hungary clearly illustrated the problem. In 1994, shortly after the privatization of agriculture and food production, the country was swept by an epidemic of lead poisoning. After searching far and wide for the cause, doctors and scientists finally tracked down the source of the problem. Manufacturers of paprika—a staple of Hungarian cuisine—had been grinding up old paint, much of it lead-based, and adding it to the spice in order to improve its colour. The practice was so widespread that Hungarian officials were forced to order all the paprika in the country removed from store shelves and destroyed. At the time, no laws were in place to prevent such a catastrophe, simply because it had not occurred to anyone that this kind of thing would happen. Under communism, in which firms had no competition, no one had any incentive to poison their customers, and so consumer protection laws were unnecessary. In making the transition to the market, policy-makers assumed that producers would compete with one another to produce the best-quality paprika. They didn’t realize that producers would compete only to produce the best-looking paprika.

For our second date, we go to Jack Astor’s—a chain restaurant in Canada; think TGI Fridays—and split some nachos and soup. I throw them both up in the bathroom, refresh with a Listerine strip, and head back into the dining area, with Steven waving me over. I can’t believe that just weeks ago I was ready to work on ridding myself of bulimia. It feels like such a part of me, such a staple habit. I’m relieved to still have it to lean on.