Changing… times

Seems there’s a new challenge that comes with being a citizen of the fastest-growing economy in the world – having moved from the days when some tried to live a Cadillac lifestyle in a donkey-cart economy!! President Ali just identified one of the less glamorous consequences of our economic transformation – more folks are eating out and shopping at malls and supermarkets -where mark-ups and prices are waaay higher than at the old village salt-goods shop or market stalls!! In other words, prosperity itself may be helping to push up the cost of living!!
That’s the sort of problem economists rarely put in the textbooks. Ever since slavery and indentureship we aspired to better lives by imitating the lifestyle of Massa – but now some of us have actually gotten there, we’re being reminded that it comes with a surcharge!! The corner shop – with its dusty shelves and “trust” cause the owner knew your Nani – still remains the economical option!! But in the meantime, the (mostly Chinese!) supermarkets offers air-conditioning, infinite imported brands – and the dangerous psychological illusion that because something’s on a shelf under fluorescent lighting, you probably need it!!
And then there’s the eating out!! Why cook dhal, rice and bhagee at home when – albeit by paying considerably more but which you can now afford! – you can have someone ELSE cook rice pilaf for you and have them even do the washing up!!!! That’s the price of moving from a donkey cart to a Cadillac baby – the feed for the larger horsepower has become more expensive!!
But while we’re complaining because it’s all new to us, we’re undergoing precisely the kinda consumption transition that accompanies rapid economic growth everywhere!! Folks got more money, more choices and more willingness to spend on convenience – whether its restaurants, supermarkets, air-conditioning, imported foods, SUVs and all the other accessories of modern prosperity!!
Sadly, however, inflation remains rather less impressed by GDP growth since it just looks at the increased demand and asks how much more it can charge!! While Pressie said he’s unfolding a national economic strategy – we also have a role under the motto “Prosperity with Restraint”!! While enjoying our new wealth, let’s occasionally remember that the Aunty at Lusignan market still sells Black Pudding cheaper!!
Now your Eyewitness ain’t saying we gotta return to the donkey cart economy!! But we can’t simultaneously demand first-world consumption patterns and expect third-world prices!! We gotta learn how to live with the consequences of our new economy – including higher demand, changing consumption habits and the compulsion to mistake every increase in income for an invitation to upgrade everything from the refrigerator to the restaurant!!
We now got the Cadillac – let’s make sure we can afford the gas!!

…(hotter) weather
On the same theme, your Eyewitness couldn’t miss the irony that the government had to issue a bulletin asking not only the folks in Government offices – but we the people – that even the temperature’s rising alarmingly, we gotta turn off our air conditioners!! From one angle we oughta pat ourselves of the back – the irony being that that’s the identical bulletin the rich folks over in Europe and the States have received!!
Don’t you, Dear Reader, now have a warm glow suffusing your body as you bask in the knowledge that we and our former masters are now equal?? Wasn’t this what we fought for?? Well to be fair, not exactly – since we never quite adopted one of the major ways in which Massa kept cool – quaffing gallons of Rum Swizzles all day long!!
In addition to oodles of crushed ice just add rum, one or more fruit juices and a sweetener like grenadine.
The secret’s the swizzle stick – broken off from a black-sage bush!!

…dust up
Rather than the “rumble in the jungle” your Eyewitness expected between LOO Sanction Man and PNC’s Bruiser Norton, they’ve announced a “meeting at a neutral venue”.
Crumpets and tea at the Georgetown Club?? Oh tempora, oh mores!!