I do not know if I’m “ratting someone out,” although I do not think that I am because the illegal hardware and housewares market that has flourished alongside the Carlos III mall could not be more evident. About a year ago they closed an old tenementand self-employed vendors set up shop across the street from the park entrance of this commercial hub. There on organized stands you can find everything from a lightbulb to a selection of faucets, from pipe fittings to waterproofing.
In any event, trying to place the blame here would have no effects on such a flourishing market, today comprising most of the housefronts of this area, which display an amalgam of the same products forbidden last year and more as well. Young people strive to be more solicitous than their peers and expound in detail about the virtues of this or that merchandise, or if they don’t have what you need they assure you they can get it in two hours, or it can be resolved by the following day at the latest, all this with a professionalism that is lacking in State-run establishments.
These kids have learned the laws of the market on the fly and without a single class in theory. The technocrats who “update the model” could learn a lot from a visit to Retiro Street.
December 6 2012
