Postby tony12tt » February 4th, 2015, 8:25 am
Where do I even begin attacking this attack? To begin with the wording of the letter has every indication of it being written by a capital dunce. These people call themselves a "professional" body or association? I maintain, when Trinidadians give this impression of ignorance it reflects poorly on the entire nation. The GORTT has allowed citizens the freedom to import a vehicle of their choice (certain restrictions apply) from a country of their choice. Now dealers are launching an attack on this freedom by issuing what is essentially a threat to their supplier. I imported a vehicle for personal use from Japan last April. Based on local market prices for the same model vehicle I estimate that my cash saving by choosing to import on my own was somewhere in the region of $30K (conservatively). The fact is that for years the dealers have been gouging because of an imbalance of knowledge/power in the market. A basic business lesson states that in such situations (asymmetric knowledge) will cause one party in the deal to profit more than the other. When the playing field is leveled and consumers are now able to make the links themselves or though friends (who share their knowledge, experience and networks) the party that once held all the power gets upset. They are essentially a CARTEL and NOT a dealer's association. Too many local businesses and their representative associations are quick to cry to the govt when the game changes. We saw the same thing happen over the Christmas period when retailers complained about a reduction of their sales due to the rise of online shopping. Essentially no business in this country wants YOU to save money. They want you to pay for their gouging and utter lack of service. I do believe that the Japanese embassy and the Min. of Trade and Industry should look into this. This signals arrogance and could be a severe disruption to trade relations between the two countries. Either way, I'm interested to know how this cartel plans to enforce and execute the threats they've issued. their "stipulations numbers "1" and "3" would require them to audit the accounts, telephone records, email records etc. of the Japanese suppliers. Number "5" is essentially trying to control the content that these suppliers can and cannot display on their websites. This is information that the cartel does not hold an intellectual property right/copyright to or can legally control in any way. Their illusion that they can control who, where or what is displayed is more twisted than a stick of red Twizzlers that fell out of a whirlpool spin-drying machine.... which itself fell out of a tornado... the same tornado that killed Clark Kent's dad in the movie. Furthermore, if the same minds which penned the letter are the ones responsible for enforcing it's threats, then it's an open field day for ALL individuals to work directly with Japanese suppliers.... nothing to worry about.
