Tuesday 25 October 2011

Euro, Schmuro, Tesco


It has been reported that the only way in which the Euro can be saved and get the Greeks, Italians, Portugese and Spanish baled out is for each and every family within Europe to sell their children into permanent slavery to the global banking system and put £2,000 each into a kitty for the Greeks to spend on shiny things.

Cameron yesterday said: "When your neighbour's house is on fire, you should help him put it out so your house doesn't go up in flames too." That may well be, but all analogies are bad, as pouring more money into Greece is akin to throwing your own house onto the fire and watching it burn - which is also a bad analogy.

Tesco has just opened a new temple to Mamon in Yate - one of the largest in the country at 150,000 square feet, or thereabouts. This will give the local youth the opportunity to shoplift on an industrial scale. It will also attract undesirables from a 15 mile radius. Yes - it may well have created 200 odd new jobs, but I would posit a greater number stand to be lost in the local retail economy as Tesco sucks up and consolidates all local shopping activity into its vast, bloated, gaping maw. Let's face it, supermarkets only exist through generating economies of scale - selling more with fewer people.

Talking of kitties to spend on shiny things; saw an advert on TV for a Christmas club called Park3 - you give them money and they save it for you for Christmas presents. Anyone remember Farepak? People just don't learn.

Human rights activists are calling for Libyan NTC troops in Sirte to be hauled before the courts for human rights violations against Gadaffi loyalists. This was a bloody and total civil war where no quarter was expected from Gadaffi or his henchmen, who had already proven themselves capable of atrocities. To expect NTC combatants, the vast majority of which are amateurs, to adhere to professional and gentlemanly rules of combat in such situations is a bit naiive to say the least - these people were fighting for their lives. The greater good has been served and least said soonest mended. Let the Libyans decide on the ethics of this case, not armchair human rights activists. The Libyans, after all, were at the blunt end of Gadaffi's regime.


8 comments:

Lee said...

How come the bad guys always have henchmen?

Chairman Bill said...

Come on Lee - that's a silly question. It's because bad guys are the only ones who use henches of course.

A Woman Of No Importance said...

I would love to hear your take on Sarkozy's rant at Cameron - Come to think of it, I'd have loved to have been a fly on the wall!

Alan Burnett said...

Ah the problem is that the UK is not a nice detached house in its own four acres despite what Davy C and the rest think : it is a terraced street. Fires do have a habit of spreading through the collective attic space.

Unknown said...

I am quite bemused by the quality of leadership that appears to have emerge everywhere. I has been known for years that paying tax has been, at best, hit and miss in Greece, Spain and Portugal, and not much better in Italy. Yet we are somewhat surprised that they have so much debt and that they have been living on borrowing for so long - ain't that just what we're doing?

For some unexplained, and unexplainable, reason we have been driven to more and more growth, and growth fuelled by borrowing. As we get more, the level of satisfaction goes shrinks, and we seek more.

Tesco is part of the cause. I believe that some alive to day will live to see the nation being born in the Tesco hatchery, schooled in the ways of Tesco, married as part of the Tesco breeding programme and, when finality comes, rendered to product to pay off our debt to Tesco.

It always seems to be those that have been brought up in the cosy politeness of Academia, the genteel gibbering classes in over-stuffed armchairs that spout of human rights - I wonder how they'd have felt if some bastard had made their lives misery for thirty years or more.

He's dead - it's over, but for the better or not we'll see.

It is little wonder that I prefer the Sepia World.

Chairman Bill said...

Mike - you should write a curmudgeonly blog!

Unknown said...

I would Bill, but I'm far too understanding, good natured, light-hearted and considered in my views.

Chairman Bill said...

Ah - glad to see you do irony too...