We need to have a serious discussion nationally on the purchasing power of our money. The more I research the less the prices we pay for goods and services make sense, and the more confused I am as to how we arrived at our labour costs, especially our minimum wage.
It is my view that the consumer is being ripped off mercilessly at every level, and arbitrary statements about the impact of raising the minimum wage on prices do not cut it. The only thing that may suffer is the obscene profits many business consortiums extract from the people. The underhanded efforts made to artificially manage and keep prices high should be broken up under fair trade practices.
We need a prices council that can monitor and advise the consumer as to fair trade vs gouging, but more importantly, we need one that has the ability to publish the names of offenders engaged in monopolistic behaviour and profiteering.You cannot fix this country until you level the playing field, and the place to start is the disconnect between value for labour and what those proceeds can buy.
We need to begin this conversation in ernest, and we need to do this now. The government has the power to step in and set prices on basics and staples and they must be mandated to do it.The ministries of agriculture and the food production need to explain why we have such low production of local fruits and vegetables and why are even those prices kept so high.Something is not adding up and much of our social ills are born in a bed of preventable, persistent poverty.
Phillip Edward
Alexander,
via e-mail