The immortal marketing credo, “customer is king,” is utterly shattered at the doorstep of Country X. In fact, it is brought to the most humiliating of all ends; second to none but the fall of Lucifer (to add a pinch of satirical salt); where the customer is instantly reduced from royalty to filth. That’s right! I said it: filth! There’s no other way to put it; nor can it be sugarcoated.
For the truth of the matter is this:
Of products and services provided by both public and private sectors—from essentials to luxuries—the customer has but one option of a ‘thing’ at any given point of time in Country X. Market forces lost their grip over supply and demand, as the two have been blurred by an infernal ‘visible hand’. Conventional economic wisdom implies that the demand curve for essentials is inelastic. Not in Country X. The inhabitants of Country X had to redefine essentials to be limited to the very basics: air and water; those are divinely endowed rather than humanly supplied.
When the queues for bread last till nine at night (and sometimes past that time); while the minimum salary can hardly cover the cost of enough bread for a family throughout the month; which compels public employees to make ends meet by turning corrupt; bread, though an universal essential for the working class, is elevated to the status of luxury. For what rationale justifies working extra time or receiving bribes just so that one might afford bread (mind you that the quality of which has been substantially reduced; all the while being on a per capita ratio—eo ipso giving birth to a black market for bread [much emphasis added here!]) along the month—let alone other essentials in the consumer’s basket?
When domestic gas is subject to quota; and, even then one wastes half their day to collect a jar, after a forty-days-plus wait for their turn to come (and at times longer than that); homemade warm meals are fantasies of luxury. One would fancy that electricity is running 24/7, hence enabling households to accommodate shortages in domestic gas by making use of electric stoves; but, that is actually a farther-fetched fantasy. Electricity runs on cyclical basis (a ratio of 1:2—two hours of electricity for every four hours of outage, in the capital; and worse in other cities and rural areas)—in an abrupt manner, one may note. Notwithstanding, the bills for which are constantly soaring.
Some might think to themselves, why not install batteries or make use of generators? The truth is, these two alternatives for municipal electricity are already exhausted to the maximum. However, as aforementioned, there isn’t sufficient electricity running throughout the day for batteries to fully recharge; whilst fuel for power generators is an expensive, and all too often a rare commodity to acquire. In case one flirts with themself as an ‘out-of-the-box’ thinker, and exclaims: “Why not install solar panels?!” To that, I retire myself and leave the response to mother nature.
The woes of Country X don’t end there. Seeds of corruption found fertile ground in the hearts of health officials. To be administered the proper COVID-vaccine for one’s age, one might have to pay as much as $100 per dose in Country X; thereby, leaving many unvaccinated by choice: reasoning that dying of vaccination—given the foreknowledge that there is a high probability that a certain vaccine could cause a rare blood clot for their age—equates suicide.
In a nutshell, given all that which has been stated above, one seriously begins to ponder over the question: What is essential?
