Demand is meant to somehow influence suppliers desire to supply, but sometimes I just don’t think the market operates in the true free-market sense here. For instance, if I go to buy tomatoes at the local market, a pile will cost me $1. If I want 10 piles, $10 and someone told me once that if you go higher, the per-pile rate actually increases because in the words of the seller, “if you buy them all, then I have nothing more to sell”. Same with eggs – whether you buy 1 or 30, the per-egg price is the same. And if the goods are getting a bit shabby at the end of the day due to a long day in the heat, there is no change in price and no desire to “fire-sale” the lower quality goods.

According to the Timor Post, a Democratic Party MP (ie a member of the coalition government) is lamenting the lack of price-fixing (by the government) to stabilise fluctuating prices caused by sellers “setting prices as they desire”. Price fixing is only used by “non-free market” governments, or as a social stability measure in markets which are not truly free due to monopoly control of key supply sources. Maybe vendors are just not understanding supply and demand or see a hugely distorted view of the economy at work. Maybe I need to re-read a few textbooks.

Even the humble Mrs.Macs pies (an essential dietary requirement) are out of stock wherever I look. The supply chain is failing as it often appears to do when searching for yogurt. I may have to resort to trying the new burger joint across from the ANZ bank called “Eastern Burger Corner”. It sells burgers, chicken wings, spring rolls etc. in a burger jointish environment. Someone told me I must also try the beef rendang at Lili’s which is 30 metres east of there.

It’s amazing just how much the lack of a meat pie (with tomato sauce) at lunchtime steels the mind for the rest of the day.