Supermarket shelves empty in the UK (or is it media hype). In Athens no shortages.
It cannot be the weather, though in the long term climate will impact food security.
For far too long supermarkets have screwed growers, we are now paying the price.
Archive for the ‘economics’ Category
Fruit and Vegetable Market Athens Central Market
March 7, 2023Guildford High Street empty shops revisited
November 30, 2022A year ago I carried out a photo survey of the empty shops in Guildford High Street. I was shocked by what I found.
Today, one year on, I repeated the survey. It has got worse.
Retailers I spoke to confirmed what I was seeing, yes, it has got worse since last year.
This is not at the level of Aldershot, but no other town centre I have visited over the last year has this number of empty shops, with the exception of Retford and Market Rasen. It only serves to highlight the failure of Experience Guildford and why it must be wound up.
I only noted from just below Quarry Street to Jeffries Passage. Had I wandered further up the High Street where I rarely venture, I would have found many more empty shops.
Guildford has a local BID.
If this is what BID success looks like, I hate to think what failure looks like.
BIDs are destroying local businesses across the country, unaccountable Experience Guildford is no exception.
Thick Lizzie resigns
October 20, 2022To a collective sigh of relief from the country, Thick Lizzie has resigned.
The vile people she has appointed should be removed: business sec, foreign sec, NHS sec.
They have done appalling damage to the country.
The country cannot afford the Tories indulging in another leadership contest. Slick Rishi should be asked to form a government.
Pepsi Trump to stand? It is not even the First of April.
If there is to be a leadership election, no reason nominations cannot be in by midnight tonight. Election held over the weekend.
Tory membership should be excluded.
There is a high risk with short notice electronic voting no checks of foreign bad actors and Russian and Chinese hacks of the ballot
Any leadership contender:
-wealth tax
– windfall tax Banks
– cap bankers bonuses
– windfall tax Big Oil
– windfall tax Big Tech
– 5% revenue tax Big Tech
– carbon tax
– increase minimum wage
– triple lock pensions
– increase benefits
– safeguard on fuel costs
– scrap BID Levy
There has to be an Inquiry into the dark money that funded Thick Lizzie.
There has to be an Inquiry into IEA and other far right lobbyists and the source of their funding.
Terminating a BID mid-term
August 25, 2022Excellent guidance to winding up a BID mid-term.
If a BID Ballot coming up, that is best chance to terminate a BID, put as much effort in as possible to secure a No Vote.
Towns that have managed to kick out their BIDs early include Dartmouth, Hexham, Abingdon and Colwyn.
Yorkshire Coast BID may be on its way out, following a Vote of Confidence by Scarborough Borough Council, and calls for the directors to resign and the BID to be wound up.
Failing that, try to get the BID wound up mid-term.
I would disagree BID boards act in the interest of the locality or local businesses. From what I have seen they squander the money collected to justify their existence, act to feather their own nest, all hidden behind a veil of secrecy and lack of accountability.
The best option, do not let a BID be formed, do not fall for the bullshit, look at the experience of local businesses elsewhere that are being killed by the BID Levy. Once a BID is formed, it is an uphill struggle, though not impossible, to get rid of the BID.
Friday, we see the price cap for domestic fuel users rise to unaffordable levels. For local businesses there is no price cap. Unless action is taken, we are going to see small businesses wiped out of town centres. Already many are failing, unable to afford fuel bills.
The very least that can be done is to wind up BIDs, kill the BID Levy.
Lincoln Central RMT train strike
July 27, 2022I thought I would join the RMT picket line outside Lincoln Central train station.
There was no RMT picket line. Lincoln Central was closed, no trains.
I guess if station closed, no trains, no need for a picket line, if can deploy resources elsewhere.
But I would argue there is a need to have a presence, to explain their case and counter government propaganda.
Experience Guildford exposes its own failings
June 8, 2022If the measure of success of a BID is a thriving town centre, then the number of empty retail shops in the centre of Guildford is a measure of the failure of Experience Guildford.
Posting on Instagram, Experience Guildford graphically illustrated its own failings. Note the empty shops in one short street. From my own survey end of last year, there are many more empty shops in this one short street. And it is not atypical. Every street I surveyed, including the High Street, row after row of empty shops.
We have a domino effect. Every shop that closes its doors, less reason to visit Guildford, fewer people will visit, fewer people shopping, eating out, drinking coffee. There are always 10% of businesses that are marginal. Lower footfall, they go under, even less reason to visit Guildford, further pressure on those that remain.
Remember the good old days of the Soviet Union when a leader would be elected with 98% of the vote?
Experience Guildford carried out a survey of local business.
Over 95% find stated that they find our marketing, promotion and events programme (such as Street Festivals, Markets, Seasonal Events and Trails, Healthy Guildford Day) are important to their business.
Really, over 95% happy with the performance of Experience Guildford?
It was not an independent survey, it was carried out by Experience Guildford, thus worthless. The respondents were self-selecting, which again renders the survey worthless.
We do not know what the questions were. It is all too easy to get the result you wish for with carefully crafted questions.
What then is the truth on the ground? From my own random sample, wandering around talking to a range of different local businesses, 100% opposition to Experience Guildford. Not a single business wishes to see them continue.
Of the businesses I have spoken to, I have yet to find any who support Experience Guildford, and there is now talk of refusal to pay the BID Levy. Businesses object to an enforced levy, little more than an extortion racket, for which they see no benefit.
Across the country, and it is growing, a refusal to pay the BID Levy. Enough is enough.
Carmarthen 57 refuseniks refused to pay the BID Levy. Summons issued. Case successfully defended in Court. They won. The Court ruled they do not have to pay. The local council has indicated it will not try to recover the monies not paid. The lawyer who took the case will now on their behalf, file in the High Court for the BID to be wound up.
Markets?
In Guildford there are two regular markets. North Street market, a very popular weekly market every Friday and Saturday, cheese, fruit and vegetables, fish, cakes. A monthly farmers market in the High Street, the first Tuesday of the month, with occasional extra markets, seafood, paella, cheese, coffee, meat, fruit and vegetables, cakes, bread, wine, gin, chutney, jam. An occasional craft market. These markets are run by the local council.
A well run market is an asset to any town , it brings folk into town, everyone benefits. In London successful markets have been established by individuals and volunteers, not bloated parasitical entities. These new markets have revitalised dying town centres.
Experience Guildford are even claiming credit for the Guildford Book Festival. A book festival long before Experience Guildford existed and I am sure will be there long after Experience Guildford has gone.
If local businesses wish to sponsor events in the town, either individual or collectively, that is for them to decide. It does not require an enforced levy.
Unlicenced unregulated private security roam the streets, no consultation, rarely seen. Very camera shy.
One of their roles is to deliver an Experience Guildford propaganda sheet to local businesses. On receipt it goes straight into the bin. An obscene waste of trees. How much to print, publish and distribute? What is its carbon footprint?
At the weekend I learnt a local business had been blocked from accessing the Experience Guildford Instagram page.
I checked, to find I too was blocked.
Accountability, transparency?
The level of corruption within these organisations needs to be investigated.
One BID held their AGM on-line. Only the board were present and re-elected themselves. This may not be an isolated example.
Struggling local businesses in todays harsh economic reality, cannot afford the luxury of a BID Levy, especially when they see no tangible benefit. The BID Levy can mean the difference between employing a staff member or not, between remaining in businesses or not.
Guildford has a ballot in October.
Experience Guildford this month are holding a series of workshops to obtain a YES vote to remain in business. That is they are using money extorted from local businesses to secure a YES vote to continue extorting money from local businesses.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CeOZnwsotNI/
#BID#ExperienceGuildford#fail#AgainstBID#Guildford
Energy from waste incineration is not green energy
March 13, 2021An excellent Channel 4 Dispatches programme The Dirty Truth About Your Rubbish only touched the tip of the iceberg.
Gordon Brown had a wheeze of off balance sheet accounting, the PFI scam. It made public spending look low, a prudent Chancellor. Infrastructure, hospitals, schools, incinerators, built by the private sector, leased by the public sector, for which the tax payer is paying ten times the original cost.
Incinerators have to be fed. Local authorities sign contract for minimum waste. If fall below, they pay penalties. There is thus a disincentive to reduce waste.
Government needs to step in and annul these contracts.
Incinerators emit CO2. They should be forced to buy carbon credits for their emissions, and be hit with a carbon tax.
Incinerators emit carcinogens and other toxins.
Mass is not created or destroyed by incinerators. What is left residual waste, plus what goes up the chimney.
The residual waste is heavily contaminated with heavy metals.
A scandal several years ago, residual waste spread on an allotment in the North East, the Byker ash scandal in Newcastle – in which the city council was prosecuted after 2,000 tonnes of ash from the old Byker incinerator was found to contain potentially cancer-causing dioxins.
Incineration is not green energy, it is dirty energy. It is also destroying valuable resources which should be recycled, or placed in an industrial biodegrader.
All these measures in place, many incinerators would no longer be viable, and those in the planning stage shelved.
The figures published by local councils for recycling, are for that collected, it does not mean that collected is recycled. it is going to incineration.
Local councils need to do more to encourage recycling, some do, most do not.
We all should do our part, reduce, recycle, reuse.
We should also tackle the worst offenders, Waitrose and M&S obscene levels of plastic packaging. Is it really necessary bananas in a plastic bag, a coconut shell hacked off, then wrapped in plastic shrink wrap?
Mindful Chef, owned by Nestle, deliver recipe boxes, overpackaging, obscene use of plastic. Their frozen food boxes, a card sleeve, plastic film over what appears to be a paper tray, a plastic-lined paper tray.
Waste does not exist in the natural world either in time or space, the output of one process is the input to another, a closed loop system. We should emulate the natural world.
In Lincolnshire, the official green agenda carbon neutral by 2050, two decades too late, opposition to on-shore wind turbines, support for oil and gas exploration.
If coffee commercials were honest
August 21, 2020Brilliant spoof of promotion of crap undrinkable commodity coffee.
I like coffee, I enjoy coffee, but I am not addicted.
Coffee contains a psychoactive substance, caffeine.
The coffee plant is closely related to qat (there are many variations of spelling for example khat) often referred to as coffee’s evil sister. Qat is highly addictive and as a more profitable crop has replaced coffee in Yemen where for generations coffee grew on terraces and the port of Mokka grew rich on the export of coffee beans. WHO has a separate category for qat, US classifies as dangerous as heroin. Qat contains the alkaloid cathinone. The leaves are chewed or used as an infusion to produce qat tea.
Unlike it’s evil sister qat, coffee is a legal psychoactive drug.
I am bombarded every day with offers of coffee and coffee equipment I do not want.
No, I do not want Nespresso. Coffee from a Nespresso machines is vile undrinkable coffee. That is not to say the machine cannot make decent coffee, it can, just do not use Nespresso pods. A €60 Nespresso machine will make excellent espresso, but only if use third party pods.
I used to be bombarded daily by CoffeeJack, but since highlighting the many flaws, gone very quiet. They blocked me and deleted my critical questions. Er, blocked me, it was they trolling me with their promotions.
Nor do I wish to buy coffee from roasteries I have never heard of, that not once have I ever encountered in a coffee shop as guest coffee.
For me coffee is a drink to be enjoyed as would a good wine. To be enjoyed at leisure served in glass or ceramic.
Good coffee does not need sugar or syrups or to be carpet bombed with chocolate. The over-roasted cheap commodity coffee served up by corporate chains does require to mask the vile taste of what would otherwise be undrinkable.
Fair Trade is a marketing scam to make middle class feel good and to never delve deeper into the exploitation surrounding coffee.
Fair Trade pays a tiny premium above the commodity price. There is no incentive for farmers to improve as they will not get a higher price for quality.
Talk to your barista, buy coffee that is Direct Trade, where farmers get a higher price for quality, where there is traceability back to origin.
And of course we never mention tax dodging that we structure our company across borders to avoid paying tax where we make money.
Imagine honest advertising for what masquerades as a bar of ‘chocolate’.
‘Chocolate’, a bar of fat and sugar, it would not be every palatable, nor sound too good in our marketing, so we add a little cocoa powder, though if we wish to be real cheapskates it will be flavouring, then we add palm oil or soy but keep quiet about the environmental damage, may be listed as emulsifiers, added to improve the texture, we could use coca butter but the alternatives are far cheaper and we have to have margins to pay for the advertising for you suckers, then additives as it kinda does not taste too good a bar of fat and sugar.
Next time you buy what you think is a bar of ‘chocolate’ please check the list of ingredients. If it ain’t cocoa solids, sugar, cocoa butter, maybe vanilla, but nothing else, then it ain’t chocolate.
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