Re: Zombie Sellers
Well I'm afraid protecting the environment and health and safety are often used as scapegoats for something we are not being told about. Any industry can be safe if it's done properly.
As for the imported goods these are the problem. I value quality over price and am always willing to pay a bit more something that I feel will last as long as it should because that is what protecting the environment is about not making silly rules which don't make any sense and upset people. The problem is our consumerism, people are stupid and ignorant and don't care about anyone or anything and everybody feels better when they have bought something new so the retailers make sure that those new things can be bought very cheaply no matter what the quality. I have long since stopped using any form of CD player, not because I don't have any CDs to play but I cannot find a CD player that will last more than three months so I won't buy one. Whilst at home we make legislation to protect the environment we completely ignore the much bigger problem which is that of the imported junk from China, made in a country that has no care for environmental issues made cheaply and often dangerously for its workers shipped over here at huge environmental expense brought to our shops and sold only to be binned days or weeks later. The big problem is the throwaway society and that is what fuels cheap goods that are pushing out the better quality more expensive stuff.
You know what the Chinese do about this problem? They have a 100% import duty. I was speaking to the technical director of a company I deal with at work, or rather I couldn't shut him up and get him back out of the door so that I could get on with my work. They make PCBs, they have facilities in the UK but they also deal with China. So fast turnaround or exotic products which you can't trust the Chinese with get made here in low volumes, but the big simple staff goes to China. He can't match the prices that China produce for even though they are using the same materials and he explained that even if he could get the materials cheaper and ship them over he will get hit with a 100% import duty effectively doubling the price of the materials. In China you can buy a copy of any high-end car you like, BMW's Ferraris they have them all they look virtually identical with perhaps a different name. Guess why everybody is buying these cars? Even though they are "fakes" well of course they are much cheaper and if you are middle class in China that as much as you can afford. But if you are rich you will import the genuine car from Europe, and it's not just about having a genuine car it's about the fact that you could afford to import it because whatever that car cost say it was £50,000 the import duty would also be £50,000 making the cost of the car £100,000 so you are doing really well for yourself if you can show off in China with an imported European high-end car. The same goes for any other European goods it a macho thing in China. But what do we do? We charge 20% import duty i.e. the VAT equivalent assuming the Chinese exporter puts the right value on the invoice and yes boys and girls it is common practice to sell goods worth hundreds of pounds and put in an invoice for a few tens of pounds. That is why we cannot compete with China. And that is why I am still trying to work out what David Cameron does every time he goes over there. What is he negotiating? We can't export anything to China because the price is double when it gets to China on top of shipping. But we import for less than we can manufacture, or rather we import junk for less than we could manufacture good quality products. This is bad import policy and a great deal down to the consumers. You can't always point the finger at the government a lot of things are our own fault.
I live local to the Weetabix factory and a great deal was made in the paper when it was announced that they were exporting to China. Knowing what I know I could only but laugh. It's not like we are feeling the breakfast tables of the people of China with Weetabix. What we are doing is producing a product which is fully packaged in Chinese labelled packaging and is probably destined for just the very rich so that they can feel good about themselves because they are eating European breakfast cereal, how pathetic. But the ego of a few rich Chinese people is all it takes for our government to jump up and down and try to tell us how much we are exporting forgetting to tell us that most people in China cannot afford to buy our goods if not because of the cost of the goods but because they will be paid for twice over on import.
Cheaper foreign labour is a problem, and indeed when I lived in Italy I worked with illegal immigrants they lived as cheaply as possible and sent a lot of the money home to their parents and children. I still haven't understood how immigrants boost our economy, this is what the government and certain groups keep claiming. I don't understand it, because a lot of the money is sent home so it is not spent in the UK and VAT is not collected and what they do spend here is as little as possible. Sure they work hard a pity the British don't but then why are they being paid less. Are yes of course the government is pretty lax on pay standards in this country. If it wasn't for the uproar that would interest you the Conservatives would get rid of the minimum wage while there are plenty of us arguing for the living wage. If people were paid what the job is actually worth then we wouldn't have this problem. But then of course it's convenient for the government to let people lay the blame on foreigners as they are the easiest and most expendable target. As I keep saying people very easily listen to the media listen to the politicians turned their heads the way they are told to look at what they are told to look at and ignore what is running behind them out of sight.
As I said earlier for the last 30 years the government and I mean successive governments of different parties have encouraged rich people to settle here the excuse being that these people's wealth will trickle down to the people. The reality is that they come here and settle with non-Dom status despite being millionaires or billionaires they pay a mere £30,000 in tax and how did they get rich? Oh yes of course the stock market, and what is traded in many stocks and shares these days? Answer: our debts, our mortgages and our personal loans they are bound together in lumps and sold off as investments because of the regular income they guarantee. That was until of course the bankers got a bit too greedy and started offering bad mortgages to people who were lying to the banks again people were partly to blame for the crash. And what happened when the greed of the banks got the better of them? The whole thing fell down, and who lost their money? We did the people bailed the banks out so that they could give their rich clients their money back. When you invest you take the risk if you lose your money that your problem you don't get it back that's the difference between investing on the stock market and putting your money into a savings account with far less interest. For example I invest in something called funding Circle my money is divvied up into small amounts and lent out to businesses who want a loan is called peer-to-peer lending and is an alternative to the banks, if a company defaults on their loan I lose my money end of story. My sister used to work with a chap who left his job because he decided he was going to make himself a millionaire with clean easy, but he also wanted to buy a house because he thought he was really clever. So what did he propose to do? Despite having no guaranteed income from his new clean easy business which he knew would not get him a mortgage he applied for the mortgage as he left his job so that he could show a regular income stream knowing full well that he would not be getting that money when he came to pay his mortgage and he would have to rely on the clean easy job which quite frankly is absolutely barmy but then people are stupid and ignorant and stupid enough to believe it when somebody tells them there was a shortcut to wealth. I don't know if the bank bought his story I sure hope they didn't and that somebody gave him a good slap in the face to bring him back to reality.
I'll say it again don't listen to the politicians don't listen to the mainstream media it's all been worked out I tell you a story that they want you to believe so that you don't go digging for the truth.
Login to Your Account
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by sidthelamp
