Wages have been driven down to such low levels. Pay more then they'll have a better chance of filling those vacancies. There was a time that one parent could support a household, now it requires two and then it barely covers the bills.

The very companies that do not want to pay a fair and decent wage yet happily throw money at the directors will wonder why they've gone bust when their customers no longer have surplus income to buy their goods. Pubs are a good example.

It'll be interesting to know the level of impact of turning arable land over to solar farms.

I got the name wrong instead of The New York Bagel Co.

Whether they are any good by comparison to a top end Bagel product I don't honestly know. But out of those available generally at UK supermarkets they are the nicest.

Here in the UK the perception of the value of own-label products is mixed where some are cheap but rubbish quality (Waitrose Essential Bagels) and others that are as good quality as the big brands (Tesco Bagel v American Bagel Co.. The New York Bakery Co.) but way cheaper.

However, there does seem to be something happening where good value own-label products are disappearing through more shelf space being given to big brands and displacing own-label equivalents.

I use sensitive toothpaste and I usually buy the stuff several tubes at once. The big brand is Sensodyne which is good but at £5.75/75ml (Tesco) is expensive. The Tesco brand which was as good was way cheaper at around £1 making it far better value for money.

But here's the issue, the big brands can't compete with the quality and value of own-label products on pricing. Across three of the largest supermarkets (Aldi, Lidl, Tesco) the own-label sensitive toothpaste has disappeared with more shelf space being allocated to Sensodyne. All recently at the same time.

The clue might be France.

Closing corporate tax loop holes will help a fair bit. I doubt much has changed since this article in 2012.

Agreed.

Expensive products are far from any guarantee of good quality. Cookers are a good example. The expensive ones invariably have identical components to the cheaper models such as the energy regulators or thermocouples.

It's a shame wages weren't keeping pace.

That's one lucky alignment shot indeed.

Six months!

Yes

It's very rare that we watch broadcast TV or record anything to a PVR. It's all streaming on Netflix/Amazon to TV or on my phone. Haven't watched TV in the conventional sense for some years now.

It's been happening before Brexit. The Tories hate the NHS and want to replace it, as you say, with a private healthcare system. However, saying so publicly would be political suicide so the NHS has been gradually privatised within by outsourcing backroom services to the private sector. Having said that Brexit has not helped the NHS.

Such privatisation has failed in a lot of cases.

Here's a list of such services privatised.

The common phrase "The NHS will remain free at point of use" is used to side step accusations of privatising the NHS.

Privatisation through defunding

So that Zombie apocalypse could still happen.

Chip shops will go the same way as pubs.

I think this story will be around for a while.

If this is true then it's only a matter of time for the collapse in Tesla sales and any commercial venture linked to Musk.

Liz Truss makes for a better parody version of herself than the best comedian. She's is so inept in public.

Pretty much sums up the UK since 2010.

Extract from Basic Principles of the Russian Federation’s State Policy in the Domain of Nuclear Deterrence

“The Russian Federation retains the right to use nuclear weapons in response to the use of nuclear weapons and other types of weapons of mass destruction against it and/or its allies…” But that sentence ends with an unusual statement: “… and also in the case of aggression against the Russian Federation with the use of conventional weapons, when the very existence of the state is put under threat”

"In a local war with a non-nuclear adversary, however, the small-scale tactical use of nuclear weapons might be a serious temptation, especially if the war were not going according to plan. In short, the impulse to escalate in a tight corner could be strong."

Source

Could this be a precursor to Putin using tactical nuclear weapons against the Ukraine military on Russian soil?