PHONY

New restrictions for expanding supermarkets in UK?

2008-04-30T17:05:00.004Z

The Competition Commission produced a report today proposing changes to the planning permission system for Supermarkets and the setting up of an Ombudsman to resolve disputes between retailers and suppliers. The Office of Fair Trading will have to be consulted for all planning applications to build larger supermarkets or extend existing ones. They state that this should make it harder for one chain to dominate an area.

However, there are no proposals to address the concerns of independent retailers that are being squeezed out by the larger chains. The report concluded that smaller shops are "not in terminal decline."

Friends of the Earth state that the regulator had missed the opportunity to support local shops. "The commission has done nothing to recreate vibrant shopping communities for local people", said Sandra Bell, supermarkets campaigner from Friends of the Earth.

The Major chains will undoubtedly claim that the costs of setting this up will fall on the consumer. They will always continue to make their profits though.

source: BBC News

Tesco sue Guardian

2008-04-20T11:15:00.003Z

Tesco are now suing the Guardian newspaper, for libel and malicious falsehood.
Tesco claims that the articles alleged it was using offshore banking to avoid paying £1bn in corporation tax, although it admits to using it to avoid paying £50m plus of stamp duty.
The Guardian has reacted by accusing the supermarket giant of using "bullying" tactics designed to stifle legitimate debate. Caroline McCall, chief executive of the Guardian Media Group, has resigned from her 3 year post as a non-executive director of Tesco.
Read Guardian article here , and Financial Times article here.

Tesco takes on Apple

2008-04-17T11:57:00.002Z

Not content with profits of more than £2.8 Billion in 2007, supermarket giant Tesco is taking on Apple with the launch of 'Tesco Digital' next month. Offering more than 3 million tracks, 1.6 million will be compatible with mp3 players immediately and all compatible with iPods by the end of the year.
Although starting out with music downloads, the site plans to offer tv, films and games soon. As well as food and clothes, the supermarket giant now sells furniture, mobile phones, credit cards, petrol, loans and mortgages.
Taking over the world?

Another one bites the dust...

2008-04-13T21:31:00.002Z

Steve Brewer, manager of Round Sounds in Sussex, left this message on his shop front last week. He claims that after 16 years in business, he can no longer compete with the supermarkets. "Supermarket pricing is so competitive it makes life very difficult for smaller traders." Tesco's David Nieberg denies this stating "the main competition for independent music shops is the internet."
Steve should be careful what he says about Tesco. They are currently suing 2 individuals in Thailand for speaking out against the negative effect the supermarket giant are having on the local economy. Read an article here. Email Tesco CEO Terry Leahy with your comments here.

Turkey...

2007-11-23T09:50:00.000Z

Which one's the turkey?

Tescohampton

2007-11-18T19:03:00.000Z

Image taken from Private Eye No. 1197

Blair Rich...

2007-10-28T10:29:00.000Z

It's hard work being the ex-prime minister of the U.K.
He's only getting £5 million for his autobiography. And, reportedly, £300,000 a week in the USA for making speeches.
Wonder if he'll be so popular in the US after his book comes out?

Mind the GAP

2007-10-28T10:24:00.000Z

Allegations abound that GAP have been using child labour to manufacture clothes.BBC News article here. They say they're shocked. Anything to do with a 19% rise in quarterly profits? You decide...

Micros**t Justice?

2007-09-17T15:12:00.000Z

Microsoft has lost its appeal against a record 497m euro (£343m; $690m) fine imposed by the European Commission in a long-running competition dispute.

The European Court of First Instance upheld the ruling that Microsoft had abused its dominant market position.A probe concluded in 2004 that Microsoft was guilty of freezing out rivals in server software and products such as media players. Microsoft has two months to appeal at the European Court of Justice.

Microsoft's top lawyer said it was important now for the company to comply with EU competition law, but that it had not yet decided on its next legal steps.

The 2004 ruling ordered Microsoft to ensure its products could operate with other computer systems by sharing information with rival software companies. It was also ordered to make a version of its Windows operating system available without Microsoft's Media Player software. Monday's ruling upheld that order, saying it was "beyond dispute" that Microsoft obliged customers to buy its Media Player software along with the operating system. Last year, Microsoft was told to pay daily fines adding up to 280.5 million euros over a six-month period, after it failed to adhere to the 2004 decision.

Back in action

2007-09-01T20:23:00.000Z

Sorry for the long silence.
Here's a quote I saw sprayed on a fence, a few doors down from a 'Tesco Express' in Cardiff last week:

"Like all addictions, consumerism involves the denial of it's consequences."

Say no more.

Vulture Culture

2007-03-13T17:58:00.000Z

Help stop the vulture funds!
Commercial companies called 'vulture funds' are making rich pickings from desperately poor countries by buying up bad debt. One of them, Donegal International, bought up $15 million of Zambia’s debt at a knock-down price of $3.3million (just one month before Zambia qualified for debt cancellation). In February 2007, they attempted to sue Zambia for the full cost of the original debt, plus penalty payments, plus interest - a staggering $55 million.
Take Oxfam's online action to stop vulture funds preying on poor countries.

Mailing Preference Service (UK)

2007-03-03T11:09:00.000Z

You can register with the MPS to reduce the amount of junk mail you receive through the post. Visit their site HERE, it only takes a few seconds.

Weight of junk mail

2007-03-03T10:00:00.000Z

Junk mail. Don't you hate it. Its an incredible waste of resources. Its usually vague broadcast marketing with only minimal targeting and therefore minimally successful. All of mine ends up in the recycle. What a total waste of time, effort and energy. So this week Phony11 has collected all their mail and separated it into two piles so that it could be weighed. Pile 1: unsolicited junk and advertising (consisting largely credit cards and loans) and mail that we actually wanted to receive (eg bank statements). Some junk actually came in the envelope with the non-junk mail; typically from banks.

The week of the test was quite low in overall mail, but here are the results:

Non-junk mail total weight (including envelopes): 19g

Junk mail total weight: 400g

Note that we had to use a special super-fine scales to weight the non-junk mail and heavy-duty kitchen scales for the junk!

We're going to start by ringing the bank and credit card companies to tell them to stop sending all this unwanted crap. We'll let you know how we get on.

Goodbye credit

2007-03-02T09:07:00.000Z

I lost my credit card about a month ago. It was picked up by staff in the shop I had been in and they returned it to the card company before I had a chance to pick it up. I never used the 'credit' as such because I always paid the card off every month, nevertheless I've not gotten round to ordering a replacement and have been using cash instead (though I did just use a debit card to order my TV B Gone online). I found I've been spending less as a result, so I still haven't ordered a new one. I don't think I'm going to either...

More corporate coffee bitterness

2007-02-28T12:00:00.000Z

Starbucks, the global coffee super-chain wants to expand from 3,600 outlets to over 20,000 wold-wide. What makes Starbucks Phony (have you ever been in one)? Some information from the site Ihatestarbucks.com offers some useful information from

http://www.ihatestarbucks.com/why.php

1. The vast majority of the coffee is grown using underpaid third world labor.
2. Starbucks is spreading across the world like a virus, infecting cultures with their formula of what a coffee shop should be.
3. They are everywhere.
4. They have predatory business practices. Common practices are things like paying landlords to not renew leases for coffee shops so that they can move in.
5. They sell fake corporate responsibility.
6. I think that their coffee sucks. It is always bitter.
7. The gross profit margin per store is, on average, 59.1%, therefore there is plenty of wiggle room for the company to pay more than a dollar a pound for coffee. (read: livable wage for their slave labor)
8. Faux ecologic responsibility.
9. False employee benefits. They give part time workers (20 hours per week) health insurance. However, I have received hundreds of emails from employees that consistently receive 19.75. 15 minutes shy of earning those costly benefits.
10. The crap they sell is incredibly unhealthy. Get the nutritional information, from their website it is appalling. The Caramel Pecan Sticky Roll (which has more fat than a Big Mac) or even better (worse), the Eggnog Latte are so bad for you it is astounding.

You can find some (big) figures in their financial report

Starbucks vs Ethiopia over coffee trademarks

2007-02-28T11:53:00.000Z

Coffee superchain Starbucks in an ongoing row with the government of Ethiopia which wants to trademark the names of three of its coffees. Starbucks is exerting its influence on the National Coffee Association in the US in attempts to squash Ethiopia's hopes of an industry-wide acceptance of its trademarks.

Starbucks' profits continue to escalate while the farmers growing their coffee in Africa live on or below the poverty line.

Read more here from BBC news and in more detail on the excellent poorfarmer blog.

In an attempt to ameliorate the bad PR resulting from this row Starbucks has promised to buy more coffee from Africa and support anti-poverty and education initiatives there. Isn't it interesting how billion dollar corporations only manage to find their morals when things don't go their way? Starbucks could have treated its coffee growers ethically and invested in the welfare of African coffee farmers right from the start, if it gave a shit about anything other than profit and PR.

Bottom line is that if corporations can get away with it, they will.

Mugged (poverty in your coffee cup)

2007-02-28T11:49:00.000Z

(Phony takes no credit for this great headline and strap which is taken wholesale from an article on the Make Trade Fair website).

Coffee prices drop by almost 50% in the last three years - has your Starbucks Grande Mocha Latte got any cheaper? Read all about the terrible grip corporate coffee has on some of the worlds poorest farmers in its excellent article:

http://www.maketradefair.com/en/index.php?file=16092002164814.htm

It's YOU

2007-02-28T11:34:00.000Z

Yes you. And me. We're the reason corporations exist, the reason TV content is mere fluff between the adverts, the reason the world is Phony.

Four corporations (Tesco, Asda, Sainsburys and Morrisons) control 74% of food purchasing in the UK through aggressive pricing and aggressive business practices. Why? Because we let them. Because we want to eat junk, and pay peanuts for it. Do something about it. Shop less in Superstores. Buy more from local shops and independent stores. Eat seasonal fruit and veg.

We're Phony, but we're trying not to be.

2% of the adult population owns half of the world's wealth....

2007-02-28T11:19:00.000Z

...while a mere 1% of total wealth is shared by the bottom 50% of the world's population (or in other words the poorest half of the world have to share 1% of the worlds wealth between them).

The World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations University (UNU-WIDER) report on the distribution of world wealth is startling:

The most comprehensive study of personal wealth ever undertaken also reports that the richest 1% of adults alone owned 40% of global assets in the year 2000, and that the richest 10% of adults accounted for 85% of the world total. In contrast, the bottom half of the world adult population owned barely 1% of global wealth.

Inequality anyone?

Download the full report HERE

Source

Turn Off your TV

2007-02-28T11:12:00.000Z

Some interesting facts about TV habits in the US:

Number of 30-second commercials seen in a year by an average child: 20,000
Number of minutes per week that parents spend in meaningful conversation with their children: 38.5
Number of minutes per week that the average child watches television: 1,680
Percentage of children ages 6-17 who have TV's in their bedrooms: 50
Percentage of day care centers that use TV during a typical day: 70
Hours per year the average American youth spends in school: 900 hours
Hours per year the average American youth watches television: 1500
Percentage of Americans that regularly watch television while eating dinner: 66

Source: turnoffyourtv.com

The Universal Off

2007-02-28T11:07:00.000Z

We love this, I want one... I'm going to get one. Buy yours here

Its a universal TV remote with only one button, the off switch. Available in US and European versions.
www.turnoffyourtv.com/reviews/tvbgone/tvbgonereview.html

Site with anti-advertising/anti-corporate images...

2007-02-28T10:51:00.000Z

You can view and download full PDF versions of more of these at:www.boakart.com/merzcult.html

The Great Milk Robbery

2007-02-27T15:49:00.000Z

Corporations are putting UK dairy farms out of business. This situation is not new, it's been getting worse for the last decade.
You see, the 4 major supermarkets pay dairy farmers 18p per litre and then sell it at 49p per litre. Nice profit, eh? And what of the dairy farmers? Well, 1000 went out of business in 2006. Over the last decade farmer's margins have fallen so low they are losing, on average, 4p per litre on their milk. In a nutshell, they are being paid less than the cost of production. While the farmers income has fallen 8%, the retailer's income has risen to over 4000%.
So what can we do?
Take action. Boycott the supermarkets. Write to them and tell them so. Ask the government why it's letting British Industry get driven into the ground by corporations.
Go to www.thegreatmilkrobbery.co.uk for more info, to sign their petition and to take action.

Update on the Road Tax Petition

2007-02-24T12:39:00.000Z

The Road Tax petition is now closed. As a result of approx 1.7 Million people signing the petition, Tony Blair had to come back with some answers...

"Before we take any decisions about a national pricing scheme, we know that we have to have a system that works. A system that respects our privacy as individuals. A system that is fair. I fully accept that we don't have all the answers yet. That is why we are not rushing headlong into a national road pricing scheme. Before we take any decisions there would be further consultations. The public will, of course, have their say, as will Parliament."

Interesting that the government were planning on putting this scheme (for which they don't have all the answers to) forward with out consulting the public.

Read various independent views on the proposed road tax

Visit 10 Downing Street website for more info and discussion.

High Street Robbery?

2007-02-23T13:02:00.000Z

The consumer backlash against Bank charges has begun in the UK.

According to the Independent newspaper, the UK's banks collectively charge £4.75 billion for overdrafts and bounced cheques. The BBC programme Watchdog investigated and discovered that Terms in the Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999, discern that banks can't make a profit from such charges, they can only cover their costs (which experts reckon should be a maximum of £4.50).
So why do some banks claim up to £35 for a single charge? If they can't explain it, those charges could be unlawful - which is why thousands of people have claimed back their money. Maybe you should do the same.
More info, sample letters and forms to download at moneysavingexpert.com, Consumeractiongroup.co.uk, or the links highlighted above.

Join the 10,000 people a day writing to their banks demanding an explanation and refund. It worked with the proposed road tax petition on 10 Downing Street.