No. Not talking about my weight this time.

I'm talking about prices. Prices of Everything!

GST is going from 5% to 7% in less than a month's time. Already our expenditure is going to go up. And then, out of the blue, NETS decided to raise their adminstrative fees imposed on retailers from the current 0.35~0.55% of purchases to 1.5~1.8%. NETS has become equivalent to cash in our society and everyone who has a bank account has a ATM card for that cashless NETS transaction. And now NETS is going to charge the retailers a higher admin fee for every transaction using the NETS card. Of course, NETS assured us that the merchants have been informed not to pass on any transaction fee to cosumers and that we could complain to NETS should we encounter any instance of merchant charging us a fee for the use of NETS.

Yeah. Right.

And pray tell, what's stopping merchants from increasing their prices now? (Which is what's happening already!) If I'm a retailer, I'll increase my prices now, citing higher operation costs etc and then claim that I'm not passing on any transaction fee to my customers!

Every evening when I turn on the news. It's always about someone raising their prices of this and that. Even the humble postage stamp is going to cost more now.

Profiteering is definitely in the air! The price of milk went up recently. Coffee shops started increasing their prices on coffee and tea. But I only take my coffee black. Yet kopi-O's price also increase. WTF! Looks like we all have to push back our retirement age!