Costly Imports

You know how facinated we Americans get about imported foods. "Oooh Époisses de Bourgogne from France is to die for, cheddar from England is divine" we say. From beef from Japanese Wagyu cattle to Italian espresso, we are often ready to pay premium price for imported things. Go to Cost Plus and you will see that the most expensive items are some English biscuits that otherwise cost nothing when bought here in England.

Then again, I took a trip to Manila Philippines, and quickly realized that Starbucks had taken Manila by a storm. Sure it's an expensive cup of coffee by Philippine standards, but hundreds of locals flock to the State-side cafe. On the other hand, locally made rattan or bamboo furniture and baskets, the same exact ones you can find at the Pottery Barn in the U.S. selling for thousands of dollars, were being sold for mere cents at the market . What is it that drives us to LOVE imports?

How does one explain paying 5.25 British Pounds for pop tarts (mind you, to convert to USDollar is to multiply that amount by 1.56, making the pop tarts worth about 9 US Dollars) or 8.95 British Pounds (almost 15 bucks) for a dozen krispy kreme doughnuts. It was a funny site to behold while walking around a local towne center and a local grocery store here in the UK, so I just had to take a picture! I didn't even get to snap shots of the 12 dollar package of Oreo cookies or boxes of Lucky Charms cereal, but you get the idea. England has its own set of equally tasty local cereals, biscuits, and doughnuts so the cost has nothing to do with the absence of English equivalents. Maybe it just costs that much to bring Oreos across abroad? Maybe I'm just an ignorant fool when it comes to the business of import/export. One thing is for sure, whoever is in this business is doing well! But that's another blog.

The great Tesco rip-off

When coming to England, forget packing clothes, pack you pop tarts unless you want to pay!