I know plenty of you wouldn't give them the steam off your latest brown trout.... but now they've been "outed" for tax avoidance (think we are talking £millions), will those who do like a fancy coffee be giving them a swerve?

 

As a UK business & tax payer it pisses me off that they've paid 0% in tax!! Fuckers!

 

If anything they should be the cheapest on the High St.

I think everyone realises that, if you go far enough up the food chain, nearly everything we buy/service we use is sourced from the Global Spazzacorps Lizard-Web. Two points about singling out Starbucks; Firstly, UK tax law shouldn't allow these swerves (they don't in Germany, for example) and secondly, we can vote with our wallet/purse when it's a frippery like coffee on the hoof. Boycotting Starbucks is easy to do for even the least politicised/not arsed among us and may act as a cautionary tale - they may pay a smoke and mirrors 'voluntary' contribution, like Costa do, in future, which is better than SFA. As for the franchisees...well, if you dance with a crocodile. Why didn't they sink their stake money into an independent coffee shop? Oh aye, let's have a guess, maybe because of the unfair competition they faced in the likes of Starbucks?

Edited December 3, 201213 yr by Youri McAnespie

aren't amazon.co.uk based in jersey?

 

thats play.com

Weren't Google fingereed as being economical with the tax as well ?

 

They were named on BBC news this morning too.

 

 

And I always giggle at the word fingered

and the Scum are based in the Caymen Islands but that hasn't been mentioned yet though

Can you still buy Mellow Birds?

Can you still buy Mellow Birds?

 

They used to give us that at Primary School on the odd occasion. Loads of six-year olds wired to fuck during afternoon 'playtime', because there'd only be two with 'mature' palettes on a table who actually drank the big f*ck-off jug they gave

 

As for 'instant' coffee, to wash down my 'Whoops!' feast last night I bought some 'coffee' from the corner shop. I normally drink ground coffee only, so I bought some sachets of Nescafe and a jar for 99p by a brand called 'Best-In'. The shitty 99p stuff tastes better than the Nescafe! The Nescafe was disgusting - tasted like Bisto...

a brand called 'Best-In'.

 

Is that like 'My Mum's' and 'Happy Shopper'?

Is that like 'My Mum's' and 'Happy Shopper'?

 

I presume so, the branding was 'minimal' to say the least...Like I said though, all instant tastes like sh*te to me, but in a taste test the 99p stuff faired better than the Nescafe...

 

Happy Shopper Bread, that brings back a memory, 39p a loaf, 49p for 'toastie' I'd have starved without that in the days of impoverished studentdom. That and 'Barnstormer' cider were cornerstones of my staple diet.

Edited December 3, 201213 yr by Youri McAnespie

Best-in is the own brand label from bestway / batleys cash and carry.

Apparently we should all read this and weep!

 

http://www.moneyweek.com/endofbritain

Apparently we should all read this and weep!

 

http://www.moneyweek.com/endofbritain

 

Reads like one of those conspiracy theory sites that link JFK to the Moon landings and Jimmy Savile.

 

I noticed this near the end of the waffle (and the payoff - subscribe to Moneyweek).

 

Registered office: 8th Floor, Friars Bridge Court, 41-45 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8NZ.

 

That's not far from Blackfriars Bridge is it? I'd like to think they might use it one day (and not as a route of transport).

Read that with interest and scepticism. That's what's happens when you don't want to believe something.

 

Fact remains, our welfare system will strangle us over the next generation or two.

 

You don't need to be dead clever to realise there are too many people taking out and not enough people putting in.

 

When that happens year after year after year, we're royally fucked.

They've been saying that since the inception of the welfare state. What do you suggest? Scrap the lot, introduce privatised healthcare and food stamps, fuck the elderly - stick 'em in the Workhouse.

 

I watched some documentary the other week on America, some Republican was on about food stamps, saying they provided a 'hammock' for the poor, not a safety net, they should be scrapped he said. The total cost of the federal food stamp programme is $3 per person, per day (for those receiving them). Three dollars a day, and some in the richest nation on Earth want to stop that pittance, they'd rather people starve. Economic Darwinism...

Edited December 3, 201213 yr by Youri McAnespie

Lets do nothing.

They've been saying that since the inception of the welfare state.

 

You make it sounds like there is a long history of success to form the counter-argument.

 

In less than 70 years we've achieved a state of permanent deficit despite some massive technological following winds.

You don't need to be dead clever to realise there are too many people taking out and not enough people putting in.

 

When that happens year after year after year, we're royally fucked

 

Let's assume that's true because even if you don't agree, it's clear the system's buggered in any case.

 

How to change it then? One, identify those who don't wish to take part in a progressive society and cut them loose. Two, an end to universal benefits. If you have retired and living off your zillions of savings then you do not get winter fuel allowance. Likewise if you are pulling in good money you do not need child benefit. Three, child benefit for first child only. Can't afford kids? Keep your cock in your keks. Four, state child care allowing wimmin to go back to work. Five, tax relief for those who need it. Two thirds of tax relief goes to high earners and that is nuts. Six, work comes first. No-one gets anything, except in special circumstances, unless they've put in. Seven, people unequipped for work are given help. If they refuse it, refer to point one. Eight, private companies receiving public money will be made to pay the living wage, recruit locally, take apprentices on and cap senior manager pay. Nine, if you have a big fuck off council house and your kids grow up and move out, guess what, pack your bags and head for the two bedroom place round the corner - there's a young (one child) family needs your spot. Ten, govt to subsidise those who are skint but willing to move to other parts of the country for work.

 

Lastly and most importantly, welfare is only a symptom of other things being tits up. Improve them and the point becomes moot.

 

That will do as a throat clearing.

Edited December 3, 201213 yr by Maggie Tate

Remove the word 'entitled' from the English dictionary.

Remove the word 'entitled' from the English dictionary.

Indeed. And I'd hazard a guess there were less people taking the piss when the welfare state first opened its doors.

Say we scrapped all benefits for the feckless tomorrow, what would they do? Lie down and die in the gutter? They'd turn to crime like heroin/crack addicts currently do...

 

The workshy unemployed, the terrible standard of person we're collectively churning are a problem, all the economics in the World can't solve that one. Fact is it's all very well saying they should go and get a job, have those saying that dealt with any of this underclass recently? They're unemployable.

 

Make our people an exportable commodity - whatever that takes, specialization/apprenticeships from 13-14, re-introduction of Grammar schools, scrapping school level exams, scrap tuition fees for in-demand subjects.

 

For the aged, well that's easily solved, their descendents should be responsible for them. Get your plans for the spare bedrooms scrapped, because when your children leave home yer Mam and/or Dad are moving in...

Say we scrapped all benefits for the feckless tomorrow, what would they do? Lie down and die in the gutter? They'd turn to crime like heroin/crack addicts currently do...

 

The workshy unemployed, the terrible standard of person we're collectively churning are a problem, all the economics in the World can't solve that one. Fact is it's all very well saying they should go and get a job, have those saying that dealt with any of this underclass recently? They're unemployable.

 

So we should keep paying them then?

 

 

The workshy unemployed, the terrible standard of person we're collectively churning are a problem, all the economics in the World can't solve that one. Fact is it's all very well saying they should go and get a job, have those saying that dealt with any of this underclass recently? They're unemployable.

 

 

You don't seem to have taken the final leap of reason and noticed that this decline in moral fibre has happened right at the moment we created the welfare state.

 

Shock horror, if you create a system where people no longer have to rely on themselves or their family, they cease to have strong incentives to work, and lose a very big incentive to behave properly with other people.

 

All the economics in the world might not fix it, but it's certainly caused it.

I disagree on the root cause, yes, butI think we all agree on the problem in hand though - some of these around now, all hope is lost...They need to stop cutting back where it matters, education. That said, massive reforms are needed.

 

There's got to be a way to arrest living off the social as the 'family business'. But how? That's the holy grail of benefit reform...The answer can only be where 'we' have control - schools.

 

There's got to be a way to arrest living off the social as the 'family business'. But how?

 

Social cleansing anyone?

You don't seem to have taken the final leap of reason and noticed that this decline in moral fibre has happened right at the moment we created the welfare state.

 

Shock horror, if you create a system where people no longer have to rely on themselves or their family, they cease to have strong incentives to work, and lose a very big incentive to behave properly with other people.

 

All the economics in the world might not fix it, but it's certainly caused it.

 

You clearly did not tune in to the two and a half hour special last week on Radio 4 about the welfare state, but to claim its very existence is responsible for the creation of the dependent underclass is like blaming the existence of the penis for rape. The welfare state at its inception was based on the premise that the first priority should be the eradication of unemployment amongst those able to work. Willaim Beveridge identifed five evils which had to be combatted - want, disease, ignorance, squlaor and idleness. Nowhere was the original welfare state designed to give a meal ticket to the bone idol. It was meant to be exactly what it should be - insurance against unemployment; you paid in and in return you got a safety net for times of crisis. It was not until short-termist politicians on both sides offered benefits without any attached conditions or consideration of the effects that the dependency developed.

 

 

There's got to be a way to arrest living off the social as the 'family business'. But how? That's the holy grail of benefit reform...

Stop paying them?

You really do have to be cruel to be kind sometimes.