MORE BUCKS FOR PROFIT-RICH STARBUCKS

THE local franchise holder for Starbucks made a stunning 75 per cent increased profit in its most recent fiscal year.

Seventy five per cent!

But Prestige Holdings jacked up its retail prices effective the same day the common man and woman got a minor raise in the minimum wage.

The profit-rich company clearly decided not to absorb the cost of paying its workers decent wages.

The company “continues to perform well,” its chairman said in his annual review.

Things are going so well for Starbucks’ bosses that there are now 16 local outlets, the latest at St. Augustine, in a congested space with Superpharm.

Talking about Superpharm, its owner Agostini has a virtual monopoly on the importation of pharmaceuticals,

Agostini’s profits rose by 64.2 per cent in its latest financial year.

In 2022 – the first full year of the monopoly – the company’s profits climbed by 40.1 per cent.

The Fair Trading Commission said it saw nothing wrong with the acquisitions that led to the monopoly.

The sick, elderly and jobless are now subject to higher prices for medicine – take it or leave it.

In the United States this week, a judge blocked a merger between JetBlue Airways and Spirit Airlines because “it would harm cost-conscious travellers.”

The Joe Biden Administration, through the Department of Justice, sued to prevent the merger.

Note that the JetBlue-Spirit alliance would only have made the new carrier the fifth largest in the United States.

US Attorney General Merrick Garland hailed the court ruling as “a victory for tens of millions of travellers who would have faced higher fares and fewer choices…”

In Trinidad and Tobago, there is no consumer protection, the Monopolies Commission is a political plaything, and the Government shows little interest in the plight of purchasers.

The rich is getting richer under the nose of the authorities and amid the silence of the masses.

The obscenity of a Starbucks outlet in the atrium of our national airport is a symbol of the company’s manipulation of the establishment.

But who really cares, especially in this season of soca and chutney, mas and madness?

Let’s all drink our coffee – never mind the price!