I am a bachelor for a few weeks and as such had to go shopping for food and what an eye opener it was.. The prices border on ridiculous and God knows what a person on minimum wage eats . Added to that local merchants NEVER pass on any reductions in duty and have already boosted their profits by the rounding up of every 1/2 cent to he next cent. Price inspectors where are you. Examples: 3 pre-packaged ears of sweet corn already starting to dry up $4.25. Price USA 3 for a $1.00 or less. Lettuce passed sell by date-outer leaves removed $3.00. Everybody looses except the merchant. Local restaurant Expensive meal + VAT + 18% service charge. Half a glass of cheap wine ($5.00 in liquor store) $9.00 VAT + SERVICE. Politicians and merchants are killing this country with lack foresight

you have to get creative. i get free used hanging folders from my bank, so are slightly dmaged but i fix them.

now, ledger and receipt books are 45% duty, but school excercise books only 10%.

so, i buy the school exercise books for alittle more than a dollar, line up my own columns, and sir milo keeps staring at me from my desk.

Andros,

You are absolutely correct... the duty rates are disgusting. Look at how many buildings need maintenance, how many cars need replacing, how hard it can be to maintain anything with parts and supplies costing two or three times the US prices - and a fluctuating local economy.
The government needs to take a serious look at the duties and slash them ALL in half. Get a professional opinion - cutting rates would mean relief to the people and likely more revenue for the government . It makes no sense to add VAT and duty on ANY food items and certainly not health insurance products - NONE! How about you TAX hard liquor etc, - one of the main causes of foolishness on our streets.
Come on Government, please get it together and think please - make progressive changes to the system. The track record indicates that the Government is not great at running any business so why come up with a national health insurance scheme on the one hand while you can wait to privatize everything else. The UK and Canada have those systems and they don't work efficiently or effectively a lot of the time from what I hear - long waits for care - an over extended system that is continually hungry for funding. Think of another solution - perhaps encourage competition from around the world and charge on that competition for entering the market - you will likely still end up with a less costly product (such as health insurance, life insurance, food).

Lawyers are not usually logical people and our politicians are mostly lawyers. 90% of the politicians from ALL parties, past and present, are greedy, selfish, ignorant, egotistical, corrupt, thoughtless, useless, short sighted fools. We would be much better off having a ten man government who the people can choose (as opposed to the party choosing who will run). How about a new form of government whereby all of those interested persons put their names down. Each citizen gets ten votes. The 10 people with the most votes run the government for 5 years. No political parties; all independent people.

You get what ya "pay" for....aka those politicians! enjoy....i'm outta this clown country....

We need people who have been successful in business to run the country! What do lawyers do for a living, just spend time in a court room! They are paid big money to bend the truth, to find the loopholes, steal land and the list goes on and on. There should be a law passed IF YOU ARE A LAWYER YOU CANNOT BE IN POLITICS.