It is sad when business is always only about making maximum profits.
I still find time to visit a bar or two, seeking entertainment or some pleasure, leisure, or just somewhere to chill out. But what is noticeable, is the skyrocketing cost of drinking and eating products.
In the heart of the city or county side bar, one can purchase a drink or meal next to supermarket prices, but for some unknown reason, purchasing these same items in our Northern bars costs an arm-and-a-leg.
Without mentioning the specific bars, I find it outrageous to buy a bottle of water that costs about one dollar in a supermarket, for five dollars in Gros Islet.
A shot of Black & White scotch whisky is also sold for $12 – double the cost at a city or other regular bars. A Guinness costs $10 – and the least you can get a meal for is $25.
I know that the North represents a tourist hub, but it is the locals that patronize most of the time, especially during the off season.
I know that rental and, in some cases, overheads could be high, especially since the state is soon to introduce a minimum wage. But, it is greed and a capitalist mentality that have business persons milking the nation to gain profits.
Day to day most people and patrons have to strive to make ends meet with food, transport, rental, mortgages, school feeding children, taxes, VAT, insurance, licensing etc, and at the end of the day, one tries to wind-down, only to find out that social living is a nightmare when it comes to cost.
Locals are not tourists, not everyone gets a hefty salary, some people can barely make ends meet and to find out the cost to relax and have some fun or entertainment in the North is cruel and becoming prohibitive.
Now we have another problem on the horizon: Will employers get value for money when it comes to fair days’ work, for the new dictated minimal wage.
We as a people always have an excuse for not showing up to work on time (the ‘rain’ or ‘transport’ is still an excuse), or if we should spend more time on our personal gadgets like cell phones, or have to be told what to do over and over again, because nobody uses their initiative.
Everybody is right nobody takes advice or cares about the bottom line, as it’s always about them and not us.
In life we need a balance, it cannot always be about getting and not also giving, in our local parlance we call that getting a ‘bwa’. Everybody is trying to rip off someone else, in every way possible.
Lawyers, doctors, banks and other financial institutions, tradesmen, government institutions, food markets and supermarkets, everywhere you purchase items, it’s the same khaki pants. I have even been made to understand that most killings are about bad deals and rips-off, one of another, that forces a kind of revenge or ‘justice’.
The country folks also deal in bribes, scams, deceiving, conning, rip-offs and selfishness.
The road ahead is going to worsen if we don’t deal with the present. The government, in many ways, is trying to give more to the needy, or the underprivileged, but the culture of the day needs to be investigated because prices have gone out of hand.