"Hey white man, you want to get by?"

“Hey white man, you want to get by?”
I don’t know how to respond for a few seconds. This is the first time in my life I have been called ‘white man’. Apparently my patient waiting has been misunderstood.
“NO. No, I want to buy some bread.”
“What kind of bread?” I can see now that his wheelbarrow of bread holds two varieties of bread.
“How much do they cost?”
“This one is 25 dollars. This one is 35 dollars.”
“35 Liberty?”
“Yeah, 35 Liberty.”
The 35 Liberty bread has the look of being fresh baked with a nice crust. In comparison the 25 Liberty bread looks like an over-sized hot dog bun.
“I’ll take one of those.”
He wraps the 35 Liberty bread in a piece of newspaper. Then places that into a thin plastic bag.

I take the bread home and it is delicious. Not much compares to warm fresh baked bread purchased from a wheelbarrow.

-

I have tried several times since that day to find that man again and purchase more of his bread. No luck.

When I visited the Chamber of Commerce in Monrovia to talk to someone about the current climate for business I learned that one reason so many vendors choose to be transient and sell their goods out of wheelbarrows is that they can avoid having to pay taxes and registration fees.

The cost to register as a business in Monrovia is $400 USD, just to be a petty trader.[1] Unless you know your business will make at least a $400 USD profit this year it really is the logical move to become a wheelbarrow business. The system creates incentives for businesses to remain informal, un-taxed, and uncountable for GDP.

Also, I want more of that bread.

-

[1] http://www.mof.gov.lr/doc/QBI-1%20FORM%20%20(QUARTERLY%20GROSS%20INCOME%20DECLARATION%20).pdf, accessed on July 8, 2010.