Bless unfair and parasitical competition

(A) group of French cleaning ladies who organised a car-sharing scheme to get to work are being taken to court by a coach company which accuses them of "an act of unfair and parasitical competition".

The women, who live in Moselle and work five days a week at EU offices in Luxembourg, are being taken to court by Transports Schiocchet Excursions, which runs a service along the route. It wants the women to be fined and their cars confiscated.

Do the French wonder why they are among the Has Beens of the World?

Of course, the Hawaii milk producers had a very similar attitude toward "foreign" ie California milk when I lived out there in the early '80s. I believe Hawaii state law prohibited foreign milk unless the importers could prove that they wouldn't cause "destructive" competition.

UPDATE: Thanks to a correspondent in Paradise, I have discovered that even with unfair and parasitical competition, "milk...prices...are as high (as) $8 a gallon in some parts of Hawai'i, according to state price surveys." Sean Hao had the story in the Honolulu Advertiser. Ouch.

There was no foreign milk in Hawaii when I first got there in 1980, so I guess competition has been pretty destructive for the hi cost local guys. I hate to think of what they would be charging without competition. Nine bucks? Twelve?