The age of pettiness, mismanagement and bullying

GOVERNMENT bungling on rice, sugar, fish, and now onions, is bad enough. But the pettiness and insensitivity, if not outright bullying, that comes when authorities decide to act under these circumstances is disgraceful. There is the letter of the law and the spirit of the law, neither of which seems to be understood by these enforcers of laws and regulations.

Let's take onions, which, for the first time in memory, have become scarce here for whatever reasons of mismanagement. It had been known months ago, and perhaps importation then was required to keep prices down. That did not happen, so onion prices soared, the public started having anxiety attacks about the scarcity of onions. And naturally, the law of supply and demand came into play. Smugglers brought them in surreptitiously (not to some Customs agents who are apparently very much in the game) and traders went to town manipulating prices. So travelers who knew and saw onions available where they were came back carrying them as homecoming gifts. I remind you there is a law of supply and demand in economics and this is how it worked out. There is a demand, there will be some entity that will supply.