Food Shortages

[ViolentPanda]

A hilarious jape for anyone who’s never had to clean anything himself…

Wrong. He had to clean his own cock after buggering matelots in the RN.

 

[ViolentPanda]

What I mean is that we have far far far too much in the way of choice, ten of this, twenty of that. It isn't necessary.

However, as I regard food as fuel, rather than a gourmet dining experience, I appreciate that others may disagree.

I'm telling your missus that you've dissed her cooking!

 

[ViolentPanda]

There have been big supply chain problems in the bike industry for months. It's not just HGV drivers or Brexit causing it but they're certainly adding to it. For example, I saw one of our supplier reps last week and he said that the line of budget saddles that we get from them was about to run out for the foreseeable future because the factory in Vietnam that makes them has had to shut down operations because of local Covid restrictions. When I go to order stuff it's a constant game of finding something in stock. Lots of things that we rely on as a repair business (the metalwork mostly - chains, cassettes, derailleurs, brakes etc) are showing as out of stock for months. Some things have an ETA date on supplier websites of mid to late 2022.

A friend has been waiting to take delivery of a cargo bike from a German "boutique" manufacturer for about 5 months now. They claim it's because their usual carrier has raised prices, meaning they're reliant on the Hermes-types. If they're that worried, they should fed-ex the fucking thing. They're charging her £4,000 for the damn thing, as it is!!!

 

[ViolentPanda]

The old cabotage system meant that there were non specific rigs and drivers pootling about the place covering the ebbs and flows of demand . Now meh


Squaddies driving ambulances, empty shelves, fuel rationing and looming energy crises. It’s like Bucharest in 1989

It's like the early to mid 1970s in Britain, mate.

 

[Humberto]

.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I don't see how they can. Increased wage bill means companies have to put up their prices so inflation goes up.

Most large companies could afford to take a hit in their profits, but they're all so used to high executive pay, & 2-figure dividends for shareholders, that it doesn't even occur to them to suck it up themselves.

 

[The39thStep]

Tesco’s £1.4 Billion profit in 6 months. According to one source a few years ago they had 209,000 low paid staff claiming Income Support and Housing Benefit.It was estimated that each store’s wage bill is subsided by the tax payer to the tune of £139k a year.

 

[bluescreen]

Tesco’s £1.4 Billion profit in 6 months. According to one source a few years ago they had 209,000 low paid staff claiming Income Support and Housing Benefit.It was estimated that each store’s wage bill is subsided by the tax payer to the tune of £139k a year.

Why is that even allowed? Why isn't there even a decent minimum pay before anyone gets anything more, let alone a dividend? It should be unthinkable for Income Support to make up for crap wages. In effect, income support is putting money into the bosses' pockets.

Eh, you lot know all this already, obvs, I just wanted to rant.

 

[WouldBe]

Most large companies could afford to take a hit in their profits, but they're all so used to high executive pay, & 2-figure dividends for shareholders, that it doesn't even occur to them to suck it up themselves.

Large companies could if the could be arsed but I don't see how small companies, the self-employed with a few workers or the public sector can.

 

[dessiato]

Large companies could if the could be arsed but I don't see how small companies, the self-employed with a few workers or the public sector can.

We should start by making sure the big companies stop fucking us over and start paying all their taxes. As well as paying proper wages.

Of course neither of these things will happen, especially not with fucking Johnson and the Tories

 

[pinkmonkey]

Got a Tesco delivery today am in a Leicestershire marina and the car is now in Yorkshire - that’s where we are headed. I went into the nearest town yesterday but didn’t want to haul tons of groceries home by bus. The Sainsbury’s there seemed fully stocked. So the delivery came and I got no soya milk or bog roll so I guess I’m back on the bus tomorrow then

 

[TopCat]

A bit of realism in the Guardian. The article is thoughtful, the comments less so but also enlightening. Johnson will survive these crises because he can turn them into a story about Britain | John Harris

 

[brogdale]

A bit of realism in the Guardian. The article is thoughtful, the comments less so but also enlightening. Johnson will survive these crises because he can turn them into a story about Britain | John Harris

The age-old far right playbook of harnessing and exploiting the affective domain of resentment and alienation to trump any objective evidence.

Was reading David Edgar's LRB review of Mike Maikin-Waite's "On Burnley road" the other day; on the initial rise and success of the BNP Maikin-Waite wrote:

They were told that the party founded in their name, and which had run the town as long as anyone could remember, was favouring ‘certain others’ over and above them. A new political identity was constructed, processing people’s sullen sense of being badly done by, but also enabling them to feel assertive and proud. Long-established social bonds had been dissolved, threatening people’s sense of identity and purpose. In such circumstances, the idea that there is a national collective to which you belong helps to meet strong emotional and affective needs.

 

[TopCat]

The age-old far right playbook of harnessing and exploiting the affective domain of resentment and alienation to trump any objective evidence.

Well it’s objective evidence that post 2003 immigration to the UK has limited wage inflation and limited investment. But hey profits are maintained.

 

[Badgers]

Well it’s objective evidence that post 2003 immigration to the UK has limited wage inflation and limited investment. But hey profits are maintained.

Brexit will 100% permanently fix this across all sectors thankfully

 

[TopCat]

Brexit will 100% permanently fix this across all sectors thankfully

I don’t think anyone thinks that mate. But wage inflation for some is going up. Me, the govt has decreed no pay rise at all this year.

 

[brogdale]

Well it’s objective evidence that post 2003 immigration to the UK has limited wage inflation and limited investment. But hey profits are maintained.

Can't say that there's convincing objective evidence that immigration from the accession states had any discernible impact on investment. The long-term, secular logic of financialised capital to pursue a low wages/lower UK capital investment strategy has been evident as far back as the 'Oil Crisis'. Obviously the 'credit crunch' dented capital investment markedly, but the low investment regime has persisted quite consistently since late Thatcher:

 

[brogdale]

Similarly, although there is ab 'economic logic' that immigration will keep the costs of labour low, the objective evidence of UK real wage doesn't really support the idea that the accession immigration limited wage growth as much as all the other neoliberal, supply-side 'flexibility' introduced by all of the tory governments since 1976:

 

[Supine]

 

[brogdale]

So where is your "objective evidence" TopCat ?

 

[The39thStep]

The age-old far right playbook of harnessing and exploiting the affective domain of resentment and alienation to trump any objective evidence.

Was reading David Edgar's LRB review of Mike Maikin-Waite's "On Burnley road" the other day; on the initial rise and success of the BNP Maikin-Waite wrote:

I went to a talk by Mike when he’d just completed his initial research about the BNP victory and decline in Burnley . Then ; one of his main points was the successful ( and very selective) marketing by the BNP of the economic decline of Burnley especially traditional jobs , the impact of that and migration on community etc . This was coupled with some community activism , an economic programme which in some aspects was to the left of the Blairite Labour Party and a scathing anti Tory critique. His conclusion was that it was successful precisely because there was more than a grain of truth in it , that none of the local parties had a post industrial critique or plan ie business ( what was left of it ) as usual . An area , of which large parts of it might have been the assumed terrain of the left , succumbed to a poisonous far right ( not Conservative ) agenda with left having no answer, unable to promote any other agenda except to call the BNP racist. The BNP followed that up with a campaign called People Like Us.

 

[Artaxerxes]

So where is your "objective evidence" TopCat ?

Can’t argue with gut logic

 

[brogdale]

I went to a talk by Mike when he’d just completed his initial research about the BNP victory and decline in Burnley . Then ; one of his main points was the successful ( and very selective) marketing by the BNP of the economic decline of Burnley especially traditional jobs , the impact of that and migration on community etc . This was coupled with some community activism , an economic programme which in some aspects was to the left of the Blairite Labour Party and a scathing anti Tory critique. His conclusion was that it was successful precisely because there was more than a grain of truth in it , that none of the local parties had a post industrial critique or plan ie business ( what was left of it ) as usual . An area , of which large parts of it might have been the assumed terrain of the left , succumbed to a poisonous far right ( not Conservative ) agenda with left having no answer, unable to promote any other agenda except to call the BNP racist. The BNP followed that up with a campaign called People Like Us.

Some elements of which did not go un-noticed by Vote Leave or it's subsequent government.

 

[brogdale]

Can’t argue with gut logic

That's true, but tbf to TopCat he was positing objective evidence. My issue with that is simply that I can't see it.

 

[brogdale]

Perhaps, in a small way, this little discussion about wages and investment represents a microcosm of what Westen was quoted as writing in the John Harris, Guardian piece up thread:



It doesn't really matter what the stats show, it's the affective resonance of the belief that it was immigration that pegged wage rates and disincentivised investment that matters and, in part, drove the Leave vote.

 

[Badgers]

Very good thread this...

 

[Artaxerxes]

Very good thread this...

It’s quite astonishing how harmful the British government has been to the British people and landscape for the last several hundred years.

 

[brogdale]

Shit just got very real...

 

[pesh]

maybe they're just having a lie in this morning

 

[The39thStep]

Shit just got very real...

View attachment 292417

Bit early in the morning pal.