The coffee-croissant issue!

Last week, at the terminal junction in Edremit, a newly opened, modern-looking coffee shop caught my attention.

It had "Croissant and Coffee" written on it in flashy letters.

Out of curiosity, I went inside and asked for the price.

I wish I hadn't; I was horrified by the answer I received.

I came face to face with clear evidence of the economic insanity in the country.

Now hold on tight, the price of a plain croissant is a staggering 170 TL!

If you crave something a bit more luxurious and want two teaspoons of jam or a pinch of chocolate inside, the price starts from 350 TL.

It is unbelievable.

Let's underline this: we are not talking about coffee shops in tourist towns like Bodrum or Marmaris, which are famous for ripping off vacationers on the fly.

Let's assume this is the Edremit-scale representative of a system that defies the limits of reason, transcends economic theories, and is clearly built on fleecing the citizens!

During my years as a reporter, my news editor used to say that a journalist is not someone who knows everything, but someone who knows who knows what well!

So, I stopped by the bakery on my way and asked.

The total production cost of a croissant for the shop owner, even when including rent, electricity, labor, and all operating expenses, is at most around 50-55 TL.

This figure is, of course, for Edremit...

You can now guess the scale of the profiteering in between.

Now, let's put this tragicomic calculation on the table on a global scale by activating our international observation memory.

The homeland of this pastry, the croissant, is France.

Today in France, if you go to an ordinary neighborhood bakery in Paris, you can buy a delicious buttery croissant for at most 0.90 – 2.00 Euros.

Let's say it's not an ordinary place; you sat down at one of the most luxurious, most touristy boulevards in Paris, one of those places with a view of the Eiffel Tower that is the subject of movies. Even there, the most exorbitant croissant price you would encounter would not exceed 5-6 Euros.

Even if you multiply it by today's high Euro exchange rate, that world-famous luxury of Paris remains cheaper than our shop in Edremit!

This overpriced coffee shop I mentioned is not on a chic Parisian boulevard or the Bosphorus line in Istanbul. It is just 200 meters away from the marketplace where villagers sell their produce on Wednesdays, right next to the Edremit Industrial Site!

Amidst the sounds of hammers, welding smoke, and the smell of exhaust, pastries are sold for more than they are in elite Parisian cafes.

This is exactly the grassroots reality of that "new Turkey" illusion that the government defends with arrogance.

Price perception, location logic, and production costs have been completely abolished; what remains is an unchecked, reckless, and uncontrolled greed for profit...

Let's not just look at Europe. I was in the Far East last spring. I traveled step by step through Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Japan, which are the global centers of finance, money, and high technology.

All of these countries have a per capita national income that far exceeds ours, and they are among the most developed countries in the world with the highest levels of prosperity.

I say it clearly and plainly: none of these countries are more expensive than Turkey!

The price of a dinner you eat among the skyscrapers of Singapore or in the heart of Tokyo remains at more reasonable levels than the ruthless bill put in front of you today in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, or Bursa.

For example, the price of a hamburger set menu sold with its cola and fries at Haneda International Airport in Tokyo is 1,140 Yen, which is 330.06 TL at today's exchange rate.

Come on, let's see how many TL you can eat this hamburger for at Istanbul Airport?

Let me tell you: McDonald's Big Mac Menü is 890 TL, Burger King Whopper Menü is 946 TL, Double Quarter Pounder Menü is 900 TL, and Nusr-Et Saltbae Burger Menü is 2,000 TL.

I mean, have some mercy...

Well, shouldn't one ask: while global giants can offer these humane living standards to their own people, why are we playing for the top spot on the path to becoming the most expensive country in the world?

Why are we forced to pay a fortune for a coffee and a croissant in a newly emerged shop on the edge of our own industrial site?

Let's zoom out on the picture.

The global inflation wave that took the whole world hostage after the pandemic, the breaking of supply chains, uncontrollably printed money, and logistics crises entered our lives as a global threat.

Developed economies managed to curb this damage caused by the abundance of liquidity by increasing production and through tight monetary policies.

However, the situation in Turkey has completely spiraled out of control.

We are no longer experiencing a global economic fluctuation or incompetence. We are facing an organized robbery scheme where every step is calculated in detail and carried out by hiding behind global crises.

This exorbitant cost of living we are experiencing is a conscious and systematic transfer of capital made using the whip of inflation.

The last penny in the public's pocket is being transferred to the coffers of a handful of minorities.

This mechanism, which completely eliminates social justice, creates a planned society of charity by leaving large masses in need of help. As the sense of morality and justice in society disappears, this system of exploitation becomes more entrenched and permanent.

Turkey, in stark contrast to its impoverished national income, is recklessly moving toward becoming the most expensive and ruthless country in the world.

Instead of implementing structural reforms, supporting production, and punishing the black-market mentality, the government prefers to manage social perception with millimeter-precise lies and fake figures.

They are making the rich richer through inflation and turning the poor into slaves forced to obey.

In this climate where oversight and law are consciously destroyed, opportunism is presented as a survival strategy, and moral decay is engulfing the entire society from the bottom up.

The result is clear; inflation in Turkey is no longer just a technical failure consisting of numbers. This is a deep robbery scheme that deliberately destroys the social fabric and makes people feel like refugees in their own homeland.

This rotten system, which has created a system more expensive than both Paris and the Far East, is not sustainable.

We are at the point where words fail and the truth can no longer be hidden.

This picture before us is neither an "economic model" error nor a wind that the market has caught on its own; this is a premeditated dispossession operation where the bill is footed by the public and the pleasure is enjoyed by a handful of minorities.

This reckless plunder, which has spread from the industrial corners of Anatolia to the streets of mega-cities, from the airports that are the country's showcase to the doorstep of the village market, is the greatest existential crisis threatening our social peace and our future.

Let us conclude our article by remembering that no order where justice is abolished, immorality becomes the rule, and the masses are condemned to charity has ever been eternal.