Arbitrage and the consumer

Delightful staple: Just one tosai (above) costs the equivalent of RM12.50 in London.

My editor has politely reminded me that this column appears in MetroBiz, a section dedicated to trade in the city. Since business means money and money comes in numbers, there should be more numbers appearing in these articles to make them seem more business-like.

So, not only are there prices a-plenty this time round, I’ll even go the extra mile and introduce the concept of arbitrage, which is fancy investment-banker talk for making a profit from differences in prices between two markets.