To be honest, I did not prepare much for this post. I've got exams in a month, and far too much to study for. It has led me to possibly doing shorter posts over this period of time. Perhaps when my brain has become saturated with Mathematics and would yearn for another topic.

There has been a recent wave of politicians getting hawkers to pledge to not raise prices for their food for the next few months. Even recently, there was an article from MrBrown with a more satirical take on the subject.

Then again, back to the point. I find this really interesting. Of all the methods to combat inflation, perhaps it just seems a bit weird that they would be targeting the small business owners compared to larger corporations out there. Granted, it does allow for the building of a kampong spirit around the community, with more gratefulness all around. But say persuade supermarkets like Fairprice or Sheng Xiong to keep their prices stable, would that not be much more effective towards the low income Singaporeans?

There is a case for the fact that it would be much harder to convince corporation and larger businesses, but I don't see how that cannot be overcome with a bit of branding and marketing of the idea.

In the end, we are trying to make life better for the people. We should not be hurting small businesses like Hawkers and Mamak shops. Make it cool to keep prices stable in the face of a sharpening inflation. Move some money from the profits of these companies to the people, and give them advertisements and branding in return.