I work in an area where we develop and sell a product. I most certainly do know profit to cost ratios. Unless you're a supermarket working off of very large volume levels with fast product turnover you are turning a heck of a lot more than 10 or 20% if you are remaining in business and performing any kind of expansion or growth. Most of you don't have a clue what what profit levels actually consist of. Only the uneducated think profit margins are small in consumer sales. Only the very small companies have to rely on small profits because they can't compete against volume pricing to offset a lower profit per sale.

Again, look at those imprt cost declarations to see what things really costs. those are relatively factual documents. How to fix it? I don't know but I know driving your small loca lhobby businesses into bankruptcy isn't the way to do it.