I remember these private finance initiatives being launched in the 90s and thinking that someone will be making a lot of money from the tax payers.

PFI’s are sanctioned scams.

This has been happening for years, decades even. Building on land that regularly floods and stays flooded for months every year.

If companies paid decent wages there wouldn’t need to be a reliance on state welfare and charities. Companies paying low wages benefit indirectly from the benefits paid.

They’ve got shareholders to feed. Somebody has to pay their inflated dividends.

Actual teaching is not the main part of the job anymore. Teachers are being used as social workers, child minders, parents, filling in the gaps where others are not doing those roles. All of that is wrapped up in red tape.

I’m not a teacher but I looked into it a few years ago. After having our own kids late in life I got to see the hell that teachers go through and many leave for new careers.

All of this on top of the debt that people take on to pay for the training, on top of the debt taken on for a degree.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that this is happening.

Until Christmas the last time I went to a WH Smith’s was when they had a record section.

Called in this Christmas for a last minute board game and ended up buying on Amazon. The stores are tired and don’t seem to have a purpose.

I’m surprised the High Street stores have remained opened for this long. They were past their usefulness well over a decade ago and have been supported by their airport and hospital shops by ripping customers off.

Outdated. Expensive.

“planning, deregulation, energy and trade.” It’s the combination of deregulation and energy that troubles me. Didn’t the financial crisis of 2008 to now start with deregulation of the banks?

On the whole the pub chains, or breweries as they were once known, have themselves to blame. The pursuit of bigger profits through increased rents & leases and drinks prices have led to them being a luxury item. This started back in the mid nineties at the latest.

I remember small pubs being bought out, closed for a million pound refurbishment, reopened with a fanfare and new prices to match putting off customers. The supermarkets saw this and took advantage.

Designed by a seven year old with a broken crayon.

It would seem that Fujitsu doesn’t need to bid as it’s being handed the contract on a plate.

Car parking companies in the UK are close to being sanctioned theft.

I looked into a static caravan to rent out about ten years ago. Very quickly established, from one of the better operators, that when you add up their fees for this and that there are significant costs. The fine print usually states caravans must be no more than 10 years old and site has first option on buying back. The latter is where you lose a lot of money. As said that was one of the better sites.

There was a time, not long ago, that this type of sensitive contract would have been awarded to China. To top it off they’d buy them out when they realised China doesn’t make a good supplier to the UK government.

There seems to be a race to the bottom when it comes to pay across all industries. These are wages from almost 30 years ago for a middle level IT person. In 1994 a typical high end IT manager for a national corporation was around £70k+.

Edit: I just remembered that in 1996 the company I worked for paid £1k per day for an external contractor to provide Unix and IP networking consultancy services to one staff member. That went on for five days per week for about a month at least. That staff member was on about £40k.

Here’s a reminder of what the water companies have been doing to get into this mess.

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

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.

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

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.