Tuesday, September 1, 2009

The free market in Singapore

I was given a cake on a low cost flight to Jakarta. The airline probably paid less than $0.50 for this cake. To get the business, the confectionery shop probably had to sell the cake based on the cost of ingredients, labour, rental and (hopefully) a small margin of profit. It must be a lot of effort to make a profit of $0.05 on a cake.

My bank wants to charge me $40 to remit some money to another country. Their real cost is probably $2. The rest is profit for the bank. This is why the bank is able to make a profit of $2 billion a year.

This is the "free market" as is operated in Singapore.