@MOJO One will not really appreciate what it costs to land products until you work in the industry.

1--I order things online from a shipper who offers a pie chart breaking down what percentage of your bill goes directly to the GOVT. The GOVT gets the bigger portion between vat and duty.

2- the cost of shipping goes up to guarantee a hefty margin to the shippers, and no one is controlling their pricing, so another addition to the product cost.

3-- another addition to the prices of non price controlled items happen because price controlled ones are sold at a loss. So, if the flour is under priced by 20 cents, the pancake syrup will be overpriced by 50 cents, let's say, to make up for it. [why not the same 20 cents? Fewer units of pacanke syrup are sold] It is called cost shifting, that is why you pay 3 dollars for a box of bandaids at the drugstore, but the hospital charges you 7 dollars for ONE bandaid when you are hospitalized.

4- it is difficult to control the price of perishables because the want the markup based at the time of receipt, whereas the cost continues to increase because of refrigeration and spoilage.

The businessman will close down and fid other things to sell because he cannot sell at a loss, or tax anyone to make up the difference.

The united nations have advised against price controls, because they hurt the poor the most, leading to shortage of low cost products.

The grocers do their part through the existing list. It is not fair to them to add whole categories of food.

Narrow the list to an additional 10 items at the most.

The rich can move away and retire. Leaving no one to bring in food.

Yep. I will miss this place. Can't talk no more.

> the representations the Prime Minister is making to shippers to bring their costs down.

No representation was made to the grocers. The law was changed in 4 days notice.

Why not price control the shippers? Why not? Why not price control the brokers who rob people blind?

Folks, prepare for increased prices and shortages.

Hoard potato chips.🍟

I feel sorry for the grocers.

The difficulty is that there is no way this could be done in 4 days. Not for big or small businesses.

Also the categories are flawed. They should not control the prices of all "chicken", but rather one item like 'chicken legs" or "chicken wings".

Only specific cereals are mentioned, but turkey, chicken and pork are too general. I would have placed only one meat item on the list.

As it is , it looks that the composer of this list just wrote out his personal shopping list.

You control prices of what the poor eat, not all categories.

> by using a random telephone number selection.

Must be random. they select my number every time.

Furthermore, they did not add 38 products to the list. They added 38 categories, so it is many more products.

Only cheddar cheese is price controlled.

But "sandwich meat"? Pate fois gras will be price controlled. Lyford Cay is dancing in the streets.

When they reduced the duty on certain items last May, they said something about wanting to see the change reflected in the retail price. But should have started discussion of the price control then, allowign peope to make the decision of not stocking up and selling out what they had.

It is rather ignorant to think retailers could change their price in 4 days. When VAT was implemented, retailers had months to chage computer systems and prices.

So, yes, smaller retailers will drop what they can drop, as they cannot cost shift like the big guns.

Reducing duty does not accomplish much. These days, your VAT on customs import receipts is often much higher than duties.

I hope the retailers and wholesalers have the cojones to stand up for their rights.

Price controls were phased out decades ago. Except in Cuba and this country.

However, inflation was self inflicted after the pandemic and demagogues all over are bringing it back. So they decided to add more.

The grocers handle the existing list through loss leaders business methods, and cannot add these things in 4 days.

Folks who eat from breadbasket will not benefit from the new price control. They eat mackerel, not butterball sluiced turkey sandwich meat.

The public are the best price controllers. Have you noticed no one is buying 6 dollar eggs?

Even bakers can let go of eggs. There are things such as egg less bread and cakes.

People are not stupid.

The Price Control Commission will create more jobs for political operatives.

Some of the additional items do not need to ne price controlled. Take bananas, it is abundantly cheap and even rotten ones can be bought to make bread, if you control the price, merchants will stop buying.

Notice they increased the margins on eggs from 10% to 25%, just as the price of eggs are very high. I wish luck to merchants increasing egg prices as I have seen people grumbling in the stores over egg prices.

Some prices are there for optics, white potaros go for 4 dollars for a 5lb bag, why control the price? OTOH, the sweet potatoes are 3 dollars for 1 pound, and that is not controlled.

I could understand baloney being price cobtrolled, but not all "sandwich meat". Let the merchant make a killing on prosciutto , fresh market is selling at discount as even the rich ones cannot bear the price.