Monthly Archives: June 2019

The 23rd of June and the betrayal of the British people.

So here we are, the 23rd of June. Memorable for certain reasons, firstly for “hell I was basting in my own sweat this time last year, where’s the damn summer gone?” but most importantly for being the 3rd anniversary of Great Britain’s Referendum on EU membership in which it was announced (on the 24th naturally) that the people of Great Britain had voted “leave” by 52%.

Yet we have been betrayed by our political “elite” ever since that day. I’m used to people arguing about results of elections/referendums/votes, after all who can forget Charlotte Church screaming down the Tories after the 2015 General Election? Yet these sort of demonstrations usually fade away and life goes on and the vote is respected. Not so with the EU Referendum alas, it has been a 3 year onslaught of constant betrayals, remainer spin, media bias and a never-ending attempt to derail what was, a majority vote, eg the “vox populi”.

Academically my background is primarily psychology, in particular mental health and psychology of religion (a sort of unknown nobody version of Jordan Peterson, lol!) but it wasn’t always so. Before returning to university, despite having more than adequate qualifications to go straight into university, I did opt to go back to college for a year just to be sure I “was ready” for it and I’m glad I did, for I studied a range of disciplines including politics and economics. The history of politics is fascinating and in this particular scenario the history of democracy.

Basically we have the Greeks to thank for it and the word democracy itself comes from Greek and means “rule by people”. In modern democracy we elect people to represent us and they follow the will of the people (aka the “vox populi“, a Latin phrase meaning “voice of the people”). Now pragmatically our elected leaders (Parliament in the case of the United Kingdom) can’t keep going to the public and saying “do we do this or that or something else?” so we only give those “people” a voice for the really “big stuff”, be it via the opportunity to elect new leaders (a General Election) or on important issues via a referendum. “Do we stay in the EU yes/no?” certainly comes under “big stuff”, ergo a referendum was held and rightly so.

Some facts to consider:

Before the referendum we were constantly assured our vote “counts”.

June 2015 our MPs voted in support of the referendum by 544 to 43.
Every single eligible voter was sent a card (I believe the government called it a referendum leaflet or something like that).
In the 2017 General Election both Conservative and Labour stood on manifesto COMMITMENTS to implement the Brexit referendum result and leave the EU and all its associated “stuff” such as the Customs Union and the Single Market etc.
Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour promised “to respect the result of the referendum” and that “the freedom of movement would end once we leave the EU”.
Our Prime Minister (then, she is soon to be a mere blip in history) said she would negotiate hard with the EU, she would be “that difficult woman”, she also said “no deal is better than a bad deal”, she said “Brexit is Brexit” (whatever that’s supposed to impute).
Theresa May publicly declared we are leaving the EU no less than 108 times.
March 29th 2019, the “leave the EU” deadline came and went, still no Brexit ….
The “deal” Theresa May did bring forward was a disgrace, an embarassment, a surrender to the EU.

This has been betrayal after betrayal, a constant barrage of defeat snapped from the jaws of victory if you will. We now have a “deadline” of October the 31st (Halloween and the day after my birthday!).

I make no secret of the fact I voted to leave, for a number of reasons, some not the usual reasons of the MAJORITY, some in common with the majority. But EVEN if I had voted remain I would be pushing for us to leave. Why? Because this is not about “nobody voted to be poorer”, this is not about “but the economy”, this is not about “but British Aerospace jobs”. This is about everything our political system is built on, the very democratic foundation of the way the country is run. Let’s be honest, despite being a democracy, the people’s voices aren’t “heard”, the people are, for the most part, ignored by the “elites” in Parliament. To not enact the will of a majority vote of the people is just totally and utterly WRONG, on so many levels and one step towards a dictatorship. Think I’m exaggerating? Hardly, in a dictatorship the “leaders” get to do what they want and “sod everyone else”, are we not edging ever closer to that if we ignore the referendum result?

It’s time now to be “blunt”, the United Kingdom needs to “sh*t and get off the pot” and just leave the EU and be done with it.

Steve

Will Amazon last forever? Or will ‘dat river run dry ….

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** Previously published article, brought back for reasons I have no need nor desire to go into **

You’ve all heard of Amazon right? Oh, come on surely you all have. I myself started using Amazon.com back in the 1990s, when Amazon.co.uk was but a twinkle in its .com daddy’s eyes. I discovered it mainly because of university, more precisely university books and how much the damn things cost if you bought them from “bricks and mortar” bookshops and like most people I never gave much thought to how Amazon could sell them cheaper than Waterstones or whatever bookshop was around, I was an academic damn it! Not a damn entrepreneur and/or business man. I was just glad to save a few dollars (yeah I bought from the .com site then) on my books, especially as I could pay £24.99 here or $19.99 with delivery, it was a no brainer for me and probably every other student I told about it.

Fast forward a couple of years and I started selling things on eBay and on Amazon BIG TIME. My business was the highest rated eBay UK seller account for a number of years and the Amazon feedback and rating wasn’t too shabby either but it was always tough, no matter what you sold some ba*&^rd (usually Amazon) was selling what we sold but cheaper and like every eBay seller I could never quite get my head round “how” exactly. As I understand it (I’m not sure there’s a class about this specifically if you’re an MBA student but maybe) there’s a sort of “unwritten rule” that 40% of a retail price has to be profit to the retailer, anything less is basically considered “not worth getting out of bed for.” So let’s have a look at some mathematics here:

1 x Marley & Me DVD – Wholesale price £13.61 plus VAT (this is just an example, it was that price when it was released, it isn’t worth squat now) = £16.33 just to get it from a DVD wholesaler (a rare beast these days, they’ve virtually all gone under.) Amazon probably got a “discount” on that £13.61 of up to 40% (I never heard of anybody getting more than that, even the “mighty” Amazon) = £13.61 -40% plus VAT = £9.80 and Amazon probably flogged it for £10.99 maybe? That’s not a lot of profit % there. So looking at Amazon’s business model back in my eBay/Amazon (I no longer sell on either) era I tended to scratch my head and go “eh? You what? Run that by me again.”

It turns out Amazon doesn’t make any money. Worse still, for Amazon (but not for CEO Jeff Bezos but we’ll come back to that) the shareholders are starting to get a bit pi**ed about this little fact. Since Amazon’s launch (.com was the first in the USA) in 1994 Amazon has struggled to actually break even, let alone make a profit. Rejecting standards of success such as “loads of dollars in the bank and happy shareholders kerching” Amazon measures its success with stuff like “profitless prosperity.”

You’ll just have to “imagine” the concubines I guess ….

So we come to: profitless prosperity. This is basically a way of saying that the company is growing and growing until it reaches a critical point when it becomes all powerful and makes so much money the directors and shareholders will be diving into swimming pools of Dollars, Pounds and Euros whilst surrounded by hordes of gorgeous concubines and admirers (but presumably no ducks) and being finally able to buy a gold plated Rolls Royce or something equally pointless. Despite having had an extensive university education none of it was in business or finance but I have learnt a handful of “rules” over the years:

There’s ALWAYS competition (unless you’re the first, in which case there soon will be competition.)
Some ba*&^rd will always but always come along thinking “I can sell that as well but cheaper, we’ll be rich mwuahahaha.”
Nothing lasts forever.
Don’t buy shares in Amazon (something else we’ll come back to later.)

Amazon also have something called “free cash flow” which at $2 billion a year sounds mighty impressive don’t it? Heck, what I could do with $2 billion a year, I’d be up to my eyeballs in concubines and gold plated Aston Martins. Trouble is free cash flow in pragmatic terms basically means “the money we pay suppliers with on time.” Well, errr, paying suppliers is kind of important you know? Amazon wouldn’t have a business at all if they didn’t do that and that money comes under “expense” on your Excel spreadsheet (although I’m guessing Amazon’s finance department has gone beyond Excel?) and not under “net profit.”

Yeah, I actually Googled for gold plated Aston Martins and found one …

For some reason I can’t quite get, these are seen as indicators of a good, solid and successful business model. I can see why Amazon is so big, a lot of people are “vultures” (I mean this in a kind way, I do understand you want to save money) and if widget A is cheaper at Amazon than at Target/Gamestop/Virgin Records/HMV/whatever then people will buy widget A at Amazon. The harsh truth here is the average “man in the street” doesn’t care if Amazon goes under tomorrow as long as he only paid $10 delivered for Taylor Swift’s latest CD as oppose to $15 from the shop up the road. It’s not the man in the street’s problem after all.

So how did Amazon get so big? It’s a PLC, a public limited company. Some basic explanation here as I realise not everybody will understand how this works (feel free to skip down a few sentences if you want.) In the United Kingdom where I reside there are essentially three main types of business:

A sole trader. This is someone who starts a business for themselves and they are essentially “the business”, if it goes under money wise they go under as well. This tends to be your basic stuff like taxi drivers, couriers, small shop owners and the like. Don’t be fooled by “sole”, a sole trader can still have employees, the “sole” part just means one person is the business from a legal perspective.

A limited company. This is where a company is registered with a government organisation (in the case of the United Kingdom Companies House) and the “one person” who registers the company owns one “share” of the company for which they pay £1.00 (sterling, about US $1.60) and the company becomes a “legal entity” in its own right, if it goes under it goes under but the shareholder doesn’t go under because he/she isn’t legally responsible for the company although they have an obligation to keep the company in good standing and accountable to scrutiny etc.

A PLC, a public limited company. Most limited companies start as 1 person 1 share 1 pound although if two people start it 1 person may have 1 share the other 4 shares so the owner of 4 shares gets 80% of the profit (4+1=5 and 4 = 80% of 5 etc) or it may be a 1 share each 50/50 arrangement, whatever. Later on a limited company (I presume a company has to be limited as a prerequisite to becoming a PLC) can “float” their company on the stock market and make available more “shares” of the company to all and sundry, this is a “public” (hence the all and sundry) limited company. The shares are then bought and sold on the stock market, you can buy some shares at say £2.50 each today and maybe next week they’ll be worth £5.00 at which point you can sell them, kerching 100% profit minus a bit of commission and money in the bank.)

Amazon is a public limited company. I myself owned several thousand pounds worth of shares in Amazon until I sold them last year, spring 2014 to be precise. In October 2014 Amazon’s shares took a hit and lost 20% of their value (I was a bit early in selling them but spring was better than October obviously!) and Amazon made a loss of US $437,000,000 for the YEAR, a tenfold increase on the previous year’s loss. January 2015 and the next “loss” is US $241,000,000, damn that’s a lot of money. Naturally Amazon’s directors are keen to reassure the shareholders (not me I’m out) but it doesn’t look good does it?

Remember that £1.00 a share to start the business? When a £1.00 a share limited company becomes a public limited company and grows and the value of shares goes up the directors (themselves being members of the public as well as directors) can buy more shares in the company, and that’s how the CEO of Amazon Jeff Bezos got to be worth US $3800,000,000 so he’s alright (as long as he sells them quickly) even if Amazon went bankrupt tomorrow …. It comes across to me as a sort of “retail charity”, all it achieves is giving consumers cheaper products giving nothing back to the shareholders, the people who basically invested in Amazon (granted some were just hoping to buy them and flog them later for a profit like myself), but if it went under think how many people would lose their jobs and businesses that would go under because they supply Amazon and so on.

It’s all a bit grim if you ask me.

Steve

Utility Warehouse is a big fat scam – More like Utility Scamhouse

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Well it’s time to bring this back to your attention as someone I know has been “suckered” by them. There’s a company going around that basically promises to give you cheaper gas, electricity, internet and telephone, they are called Utility Whorehouse Shithouse Warehouse. It all sounds good but it’s a lie, a big fat lie at that.

First of all this is how it works: They give you a quote for what your bills will be and it’s always better than what you’re paying currently paying so off you go and sign up and the bills come in and they are cheaper BUT later on you suddenly find these bills are basically all “estimated” and you owe them a load of money and then when you sit down and work it all out it’s actually more expensive. Don’t be suckered by this, they are just a reseller of another company’s services, so how can they be cheaper? It’s not possible, they don’t buy gas and electricity “wholesale” like British Gas, Scottish Power and all the others who are REAL energy companies, this company is just a reseller so they can NEVER be cheaper.

Then there’s the pyramid scheme …. You can be more than just a customer, you can sign up and get a commission on all the suckers who become customers that you sign up, worse still (for them, maybe not for you) you can sign up other people to be sellers as well and you get a commission of their commission, bla la bla and so on. They call it “network marketing” but essentially it’s a pyramid scheme or multi level marketing and that means 99.9% of the people who sign up will fail to make any money and get ripped off. Because that’s what the BUSINESS MODEL is: you pay the £200 (or whatever it is now, it was £200) and 99.9% of those £200 pound “joining fees” will end up lining the pockets of Utility Warehouse and you’ll make squat. Fortunately most people have common sense if someone knocks on their door and says you can get the cheapest gas or electricity etc and tells (as I would) them to go “boil your head” (or in my case something a lot less polite.)

When I signed up I should have known better, I’d been burned before (Herbalife), you had to get a minimum of 6 customers and then you started earning your monthly commissions. Trouble is it’s hard just to get that. People don’t believe you and rightly so. They say it’s easy but in reality if, like me, you’re the sort of person who can’t even sell £10 notes for £5 and not a natural sales-person you’re buggered. If you are a natural sales-person then yes you can make it work BUT if you were that person there’s far better ways to make far better money selling something more ethical.

The bastards never paid me my commission, despite getting the arbitrary “6 customers” and frankly the people who signed me up were no help at all and couldn’t give a shit about me. I was in desperate straits at the time, I had been suicidal and lost my home and business due to the recession and nobody gave a flying sh*t. Do you really want to deal with such a business?

MLM companies, bastards the lot of them, I hope you all burn in hell and I wouldn’t urinate on Utility Warehouse if they were on fire, I’d chuck some petrol on instead.

Steve

Who you calling a c*nt?

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Was perusing an old hard drive last night when I came across some MP3s I didn’t recognise. They turned out to be a selection of comedy sketches, some Ben Elton for example, Eddie Izzard and Derek and Clive …. I’d forgotten about Derek and Clive, although of course it’s all a “bit before my time” whereas Ben Elton was at his height when I was in my late teens.

If you’ve not heard Derek and Clive (Peter Cook & Dudley Moore) you might on first hearing consider this to be simply puerile and offensive drivel but I don’t know I find something humorous about it, but I’m a bloke so puerile and lavatory humour, well you get the idea. So anyway, Derek and Clive (according to my wife, she being significanlty older than me and remembering it so much better from the time) caused merry hell at the time and the complaints came streaming in, although I guess it wouldn’t cause so much outrage now as it did then. However, one sketch might, due to the fact that many people object to word “cunt.” This of course is called the “cunt Sketch” (how appropriate I guess.) Puerile? Offensive? Sure, but still funny and superb in its austere minimalism and at least they were funny unlike that total cunt Frankie Boyle ??

Here it is, in all it’s glory:

Dud: I tell you, the other day, some bloke came up to me, I dunno who it was, an’ he said, “You cunt.”

Pete: Yeah.

Dud: I said, “Wot?” ‘E said: “You cunt.”

Pete: Yeah, and you replied, “You fuckin’ cunt.”

Dud: I said … well, no, not straight away … I said: “You cunt,” I said …

Pete: Yeah, yeah …

Dud: … An’ then ‘e said …

Pete: … What’d he come back with?

Dud: ‘E come back, ‘e says, ‘e said “You fuckin’ cunt.”

Pete: You’re jokin’!

Dud: ‘E said, “You call me a …”

Pete: ‘E said “You fuckin’ cunt”?

Dud: ‘E said, “You call me a cunt? You fuckin’ cunt! …” I said, “You f—,” I said, “You fuckin’ cunt.”

Pete: I should ‘ope so. “You fuckin’ cunt …”

Dud: I said, “You fuckin’ cunt.” I said, “You fuckin’ come ‘ere an’ call me a fuckin’ cunt …”

Pete: I should say so.

Dud: I said, “You f—,” I said, “You cunt.” I said, “You fuckin’ cunt.” I said, “‘Oo are you fuckin’ callin’ cunt, cunt?”

Pete: Yeah, what’d ‘e say, cunt?

Dud: ‘E said, “You fuckin’ cunt!”

Pete: Well, you fuckin’ cunt! ‘Oo are you to say to ‘im that ‘e was a fuckin’ cunt?

Dud: Well, what d’you f—, what d’you fuckin’ think, mate? I’m fuckin’ defendin’ my fuckin’ self, aren’t I?

Pete: Well no. ‘E come up to you, call you “cunt,” that’s fair enough, or ‘e said, “You fuckin’ cunt,” an’ you said back to ‘im, “You fuckin’ fuckin’ cunt,” …

Dud: I said, well …

Pete: … well, what d’you expect ‘im to say back, apart from, “You fuckin’ stupid fuckin’ cunt”?

Dud: Well, I don’t … I don’t expect nothin’, do I?

Pete: No …

Dud: But the cunt come back with, “You fuckin’ cunt, cunt.”

Pete: Oh Christ.

Dud: I said, “You cunt?” I said, “You callin’ me a fuckin’ cunt? You fuckin’ …” I said, “You fuckin’ cunt.”

Pete: Jesus Christ, yeah.

Dud: I said, “You …,” I said, “You … you fuckin’ cunt!” …

Pete: Yeah …

Dud: … I said, like that.

Pete: Yeah. You said it, like that, did you? To ‘im.

Dud: Yeah.

Pete: Or was ‘e gone by then?

Dud: No, ‘e fuckin’ ‘it me. F— …

Pete: ‘It you, did ‘e?

Dud: Yeah, fuckin’ cunt.

Pete: Killed you dead, did ‘e?

Dud: No, ‘e … ‘e fuckin’ ‘it me.

Pete: Yeah, …

Dud: I said …

Pete: … well …

Dud: I said …

Pete: … you can’t blame ‘im, can you?

Dud: I said, “You … you rotter.”

Pete: Yeah.

Dud: An’ ‘e … ‘e went off.

Pete: Did ‘e?

Dud: An’ ‘e said, “You cunt,” again.

Pete: Well, that’s the only way to deal with ‘im, isn’t it?

Dud: Yeah, well, I showed ‘im, didn’t I?

Pete: Yeah, well, you ‘ad to, didn’t you? You ‘ad to stand up for what you stood for, didn’t you?