Bread and Butter?
April 22, 2008
The decision of the Island’s largest baker, Carl and Son’s, to stop baking white and whole wheat bread due to the rising prices of flour in a cost cutting matter, follows suit to other countries’ complaints about the rising food prices.
Since white and whole wheat bread are government regulated “basic necessities” and the price for bread has not been adjusted for over 10 years on St. Maarten, the baker decided to only produce “non-regulated” and thus more expensive bread varieties.
In light of the rising food prices and thus ingredients, cost of shipping and other factors such as rise of labor cost over a ten year period, the decision is justifiable since government was forewarned but once again waited to re-adjust a reasonable increase until drastic measures are taken by the private sector.
It seems that the government apparatus is inadequate to be one step ahead of rising discontent and may face soon (once Carnival is over on May 3) public uproar about its “taking care of business and well being of its inhabitants”.
On top of that, the announcement of Curaçao that St. Maarten is holding up the process of “becoming a country within the Kingdom for Curaçao and St. Maarten” has threatened to seek its separate way and let St. Maarten fend for itself. See article “Sarah is playing with fire”
It is becoming clear that inadequacies within the government apparatus on St. Maarten show Swiss Cheese tendencies and the public will vent soon its frustration about the inadequate leadership demonstrated.
Strangely enough, the French side of the Island seems to be getting over its “hurdles” despite the “strong Euro”. Leadership on French Saint Martin is showing backbone despite roadblocks beyond its control (high Euro). It will be interesting to see how a dual Island Nation (part French part Dutch) will fare in the next 6 months. Unfortunately we don’t have any good research and public polling system in place but if Bush’s approval ratings from this morning are any indication we would not be surprised to see similar rating results on Dutch St. Maarten.
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[...] Bread and Butter?The decision of the Island’s largest baker, Carl and Son’s, to stop baking white and whole wheat bread due to the rising prices of flour in a cost cutting matter, follows suit to other countries’ complaints about the rising food prices. … [...]