Perestroika has yet to pay off for long-suffering Soviet consumers.

In spite of all the talk in recent years of giving the long-suffering consumer more attention, the Japanese still pay among the highest prices in the world when they go shopping.

It is then sold to long-suffering consumers at upward of four or five times the world market price.

Their company had cash to invest and an ideal product for the long-suffering consumers: laundry detergent.

That would allow the Kremlin to import billions more in consumer goods, easing the pain for long-suffering Soviet consumers.

It would delay price reforms and other painful market innovations in an effort to increase supplies in the shops for long-suffering Soviet consumers.

Prices here have been sky-high for a decades, but no long-suffering consumers have taken to the streets.

In the weeks since the coup, long-suffering Soviet consumers, their patience worn thin by shortages, long lines and poor quality goods, are confronted by a new surge in inflation.

Whatever happens Eastern Europe's long-suffering consumers, numbed by a lifetime of busy signals, can only benefit.

This had galvanized the normally long-suffering Soviet consumers as no other previous shortage (out of the total population of 285,700,000 there were an estimated 106,500,000 cigarette smokers).