Uk society – The price of complacent consumerism

Having spent the last week purchasing a number of things, it has brought forward the issue of price discrepancy in the UK. Now classically the UK has always had the 'high street price' for everything, as opposed to internet / second hand / stolen car boot stereotype - thing is this stereotype is still there, but there are other even nastier price discrepancies. I guess the one I experienced last week (but fortunately didn’t pay) was the price for not doing ones research:

1.  Few tools at the LBS (local bike shop) - internet price £19 + 9 - upon rocking up at the till £23 + 11 - they claim that they have separate 'internet' and 'bricks and mortar' prices in order to pay overheads. Fair play, but they also offer a price-matching service - which essentially means the onus is on the customer to highlight this discrepancy to them.
2. 10 mins later, a few bits of camping gear at Decathlon - 3 items, all heavily discounted. The guy rings it up at retail - and was not too happy when i told him what it was all discounted, and about 40% cheaper. And its not the first time this has happened at Decathlon for me!
3. A few days later i was getting quotes for a car service - I was quoted £185 by the manufacturer, and found my local dealer wanted to charge £320, and was surprised when i told them they were dreaming

So the lesson from those 3 above -always check the market / listed value of items when doing anything involving spending your own cash in the UK. Those are a few personal examples, but how far does the price discrepancy thing go in the UK?

Cafe's seem to love charging separate prices for eat-in and take-away items – siilar to the bike shop example. This is only of the order of 10%, so their reasoning of paying for overheads is perhaps a little weak. The only other i can think of is perhaps limited space, and paying for the luxury - although places that are not limited by it still have the split pricing - perhaps this is where it originated, then it became culturally accepted and here we are. Cafe's also love to discriminate with pricing when it comes to location. The same chain cafe will charge nearly twice the price at a train station in the UK as it would elsewhere - but then again the UK does have a major obsession with convenience (and associated charges).

Purchasing a car of late, the classic eat-in / take out style discrepancy rasied it's head again - I visited several cars that were £500-1000 cheaper on the net as they were on the lot. These were not expensive cars either - at £3-5 k, that discrepancy makes up a fair saving. Thing was, since i had come in as an internet customer, most of them were happy to disclose the 'actual' selling prices of the other cars on the lot, as opposed to the listed price. It must be an idiot who pays list price at these places. Same thing happened when i was looking at cameras – a Mamiya 7 with lens was advertised at £600-800 depending on condition. I walked in and casually asked about one, and was told that i would be £1400 for any in stock. Needless to say nicholas camera is a massive rip-off.

Naturally with material goods showing such a massive financial disparity, the same could be assumed for financial products - and you would be right. I think this is perhaps one of the few facets of the market that consumers here have clued up to - and now big business is on the bandwagon with a mass influx of comparison websites - these things are absolutely insidious, and are closely related to rubish financial products / ad campaigns i have written about on here before. One of the greatest ironies here is that the general British population seems chuffed that they can save £10 on their car insurance through a comparison website – yet be bled dry by shifty retailers on material purchase - all because they have not done their research.

I have written in the past that the Australian economy has suffered from being closed to competition - but i now am convinced that the British market is suffering the opposite problem - the market is flooded, and it takes a lot of consumer awareness to pay the appropriate price here. Now i find myself yearning for a regulated market like France, Switzerland or Germany. It's a funny sensation in these countries, i've even bought vanilla slice for 7.50 CHF and not felt ripped off - i'd probably feel robbed if i paid that in the UK - but that’s the joys of a 'free' economy. 

As a postscript, I picked my car up from it's service yesterday, where i was told the clutch pedal needed replacing for  £150 (the source of the problem is actually a 50p bushing), and that the cambelt would need changing (£360), despite being only 95k miles into it's 144k mile service life. There were a few more sus charges i avoided, but hey I work in the Automotive design industry - what would the average punter do?

Uk Society - Scrap value

It would seem in the consumer world in the UK at present everything is gifted with an ultimate value - scrap value. In ordinary times perhaps this would not be significant, however at present it’s a fortune.  

One poignant example is that of cars – when a car reaches a certain age it would seem that the average English person would rather weigh up a vehicles value in pure scrap terms – if the scrap price is higher than the cost of repair or selling the car, you can bet that they will be weighing it in ASAP for scrap, and if not the value they are after? Simply an improvement on what the scrap man was offering. You could say i was somewhat snookered into this when my trusty 106 quit on me with a dropped rod (and a small fire) a few months back, but i digress. 

 

While the automotive sector is the main focus of scrapping, it is not just limited to that though. Gold is also high on the scrap list – with gold shops aplenty offering to buy items on weight. I suspect this however is a sign of the times along with pay-day loans more than anything though!

Not only is scrap limited to high value or high volume metals. The other day i had the cassette changed on my road bike at a shop – the guy was most excited that he would not only receive proceeds for fixing my bike, but also the proceeds for cashing the cassette in for it’s scrap value.

It would then seem that the scrap man can be seen as ridding the world of all its nasty leftover evils. Not so it would seem when you consider what else seems to get thrown through the UK’s scrap recycling system. All manner of public amenities seem to be stolen and put through it, including manhole covers and railway cables. The latter first came to my attention with a poster while on the train one morning. 

So the scrap man is the omnipresent remover of all evil, and the great market yardstick in the UK, but how would this place survive without him? The outer Hebridies in Northern Scotland provide a clue to this – there all manner of things are left to rot in fields after they have outlived their economic lives. I suspect though in such a cut throat economy that the cost of collection has traditionaly outweighed  the value of these items. Yes, sadly the mass obsession with scrap is an economic one, and a reflection on the countries deep-rooted capitalism and class structure, rather than one on environmentalism, with the current interest due to high scrap value and a dead economy. If I was a budding scrap  enthusiast,  I’d be setting up business in the outer Hebs.

 

Part 2 - why nuclear power is not the silver built

With a move to an energy economy with less dependance on carbon, many tote nuclear power as the solution due to the lack of carbon emissions. But what about the rest of it (Plant failure issues completely aside)?

The waste is problematic to say the least. One source I read a while ago suggested that in the US there was an area set aside for the centralized storage of spent fuel rods in  sealed drums – however there was a few problems with this – first the heat form the sheer mass of fuel, and secondly the longevity of the storage containers.  Presently fuel is stored at the plant as an alternative. Some suggest jettisoning fuel into space, while other suggest dropping it into an oceanic trench – the first would require prohibitive amounts of energy (probably from carbon sources too), and the second would no doubt have an impact on oceanic ecosystems.

Next when considering nuclear power is the useful life and commissioning phases of a plant. Useful life is of the order of 40 years with commissioning and decommissioning phases each of the order of 5-20 years. That’s a bloody long time to muck about for the amount of useful life a plant gives! Not to mention extending plant life can be risky when it comes to issues such as metal fatigue (on internal pipework), and concrete cancer. Never the less, this has been done on a lot of nuclear plants in The States.

When looking at alternatives,  it must be said that as a member of the imeche, I found it interesting to read the amount of members willing to condemn wind power in the UK on the basis of the elctrical gride nearing capacity in early December 2010 due to low wind conditions and high demand due to the extreme cold. I must pose this question – did the lights go out? Nope. Not a failure in my mind. This does not suggest a failure of wind power and the immediate need for nuclear, what this does demonstrate however is the need for a robust grid. I dare remind those engineers that ‘robust’ when referring to a power grid means the ability to deliver energy under all manner of operating conditions.  Clearly a wind power grid is not robust then, but neither is a uniquely nuclear grid. No single power source on its own can be a silver built or the basis of a robust grid. What does build a robust system though is diversity.

How best to build a robust grid? Firstly there is a need for a variety of input sources – namely solar, tidal, hydroelectric, and wind power are all sensible options. None of these come anywhere near being robust on there own when compared with nuclear or coal/gas, individually but in combination it is hardly likely that a region is going to be dry, cloudy, and still at the same time. How best to manage these as a national grid? I personally believe that the majority of energy sources could be managed by the individual in a de-centralized grid of solar and wind power. This has several advantages, albeit not so obvious. When people are charged with managing their own resources they exhibit individual agency, and actively involve themselves in the situation – the individual can witness the direct cause and effect of their actions – i.e. leaving too many lights on will run the house out of stored power and the lights will stay out, or they will have to start paying for grid power. Essentially a de-centralized grid would make people more aware of how much energy they are using and graphically illustrate to them how to better manage their consumption. The second advantage is that the need for a heavy duty supply grid is secondary. Interestingly, prior to the wind power saga  brought forward by the imeche they claimed that Britain is in need of a more robust power distribution grid. If it is to survive a warmer future. I do not believe that global warming will significantly change weather in Britain – it has a cool, unstable maritime climate to begin with. More importantly, a robust distribution grid would not rely on stronger lines between user and power generation, but multiples of these – the very kind that would come from a de-centralized grid.

So why are we not seeing de-centralized grids at present? Well that is sadly because it is not yet financially viable for the masses. The thing that drives the nuclear and coal  power industries is capital investment, and good financial terms from governments. Home power rebates come and go, but the loans offered to build coal and nuclear power plants are still being paid off.  It is a pity to note that the same financial terms are cringed at when it comes to large scale wind farms!

I clearly believe that an individually managed de-centralized grid made up of renewables poses our best solution to the un popularity of carbon based fuels, and the hassles associated with nuclear power, but there is one major thing not typically considered – overall demand. With the rise and rise of computing, smart phones, and plasma tellies, not to mention population rise there is an ever increasing demand for power. So in the mean time, don’t bother with the GPS – use a map or your memory, read a book – the information will probably be more accurate anyhow, and don’t bloody breed too much!

Nuclear power – an alternative view

 Fukishima seems to have brought out both polarities in the nuclear power camp. One clearly for it – with the view that the situation is quite minor given the massive damage ithe plant sustained; the other seems to immediately condemn nuclear power as having the potential to reign absolute chaos in the event of plant failure.

So whats my take on all this? I’m no nuclear physicist, so speculating on a safe amount of radiation for humans to tolerate is not my forte. I do however think there are some critical  things all those bipolar parties are missing in the nuclear debate.

Those who are for nuclear power will probably cite the official toll from Chernobyl, and the fact that people continued working there for years in other reactors on the same site – but what about the conditions they were working in? They clearly would not have been eating food farmed in the exclusion zone, and would most probably have been sheltered to a massive degree within the concrete reactor buildings – as opposed to being in the vicinity of the fallout from the failed reactor. They were not living in the exclusion zone either.

On the other hand, those against nuclear energy seemingly impose a zero tolerance on any un-natural radiation. Arguably this tolerance is not really a cause for concern in most cases, owing to natural radiation from solar events, x-rays and medical imaging, and limited time of exposure. It would seem that both polarities here missing a critical parameter in their arguments - time of exposure. What this boils down to is this – it is possible to briefly experience high doses of radiation (as in an X-ray, or tourism to Chenobyl ), but you sure as hell would not want to live for a significant amount of time in the presence of it.

So total exposure is the main concern when it comes to radiation, but what about the impact on society? What about management efforts and finance as well? Some say that an incident at a chemical plant may be more problematic than a nuclear plant failure, but herein lies the difference. While a chemical plant may have a large scale immediate impact (in terms of fatalities and short term disaster management), the disaster will usually be under control  relatively quickly in comparison with a nuclear disaster - at Chernobyl the construction of a second sarcophagus is presently under construction (25 years later no less) to prevent further leaks. No doubt the monitoring of such a situation will continue a long way into the foreseeable future.

Even in terms of shorter term response, the sheer volume of those involved in the cleanup of Chernobyl cannot possibly be matched by any other disaster caused by man – there were an estimated 800,000 ‘liquidators’ involved in the Chernobyl cleanup. But it does not end with the sheer numbers. An individuals cumulative exposure must also be measured, and equipment handled and stored appropriately in order to prevent further contamination.  Sure the japanese disaster is no Chernoby - the containment is much more rigorous, however the crisis has now continued for some weeks and is still not fully under control. In essence the management of such a disaster is on-going and arduous.

Finally when It comes to a disaster such as this, the fear of radiation contamination plays on one of our most baser instincts of ‘fear of the unknown’ – whether or not this is perceived or a real threat is irrelevant to the anxiety it may cause an individual.

Perhaps humans can tolerate higher levels of radiation – what we cannot push for in the future however is over-dependance on one source of energy – let alone one that demands so many resources should something go wrong.

UK society – concerns over net immigration

News item of the week in the UK is that net immigration is up – That is essentially that fewer British are migrating and more international students are coming here. Funny really, how the conservative government is paranoid about figures like these and is focused on getting this down in order to ‘improve’ the economy. But first, lets dig a little deeper and see what the root causes are. British love to live abroad. Unfortunately this requires significant savings on the individuals behalf to buy up large tracts of rural ‘sunshine’ destinations as in France and Spain.  So Bung economy = less Brits that can afford to jump ship.

On the immigration side of things, Universities are pitching to international students on an unprecedented scale, much the same as in Australia. Why? Well there is a lot more money to be made by churning out degrees to foreign students who pay more than 3x that of the local students, and generally take less rigorous and less difficult to teach topics.

So is this net immigration a bad thing for the economy? Doesn’t appear so from here – the Brits who would have left the country are still spending their hard earned here, and international students are literally pouring cash into the universities. It surely has something to do with Public sentiment then – given the massive general resentment about foreigners taking British jobs – apparently 75 % of then population would like to see a decrease in net migration as published on the  bbc. This in itself presents an interesting topic - the majority of jobs critical to the British yobs existence are usually taken by Asians. Yep there are not too many white people manning the Taxis at 3 in the morning, or the Kebab shops, or even the local off-licence.

The really interesting bit about the issue of net migration in Britain is that of imposing a cap on numbers does not impose a limit on the number of European migrants. Funny thing is that typically European immigrants far outnumber the others So apparently 57% of the British population is for a restriction on immigration – yep that includes Aussies. But I’m pretty sure if you asked the same people if Britain should limit immigration from Australia they would first question whether or not we needed visas – since we are part of the commonwealth and all. Another debate unto itself….

At he end of the day it would be interesting to see how the average British person who opposes immigration would progress without it – none of their favourite conveniences would be so cheaply and readily available, and perhaps the economy would be in even deeper shit.  Oh and they might turn around to find that a cap is placed on the number of working holiday visas granted to Australia for the - since limtis on these are reciporical. 

English society – understatement

We all know the English like to understate their humour, but how about the rest of it? Well there is certainly a minefield to negotiate when it comes to the daily grind! One must be very careful when expressing their opinion, for not only must one interpret the coments of others with the possibility of understatement, but if comments are made without out it  - all maner of things may be blown out of proportion by the poor Englishman on the receiving end. Fortunately there are several tell tale signs that you may be offending your fellow Englishman – listen for frequent smatterings of “to be honest”, and “to be fair” – the frequency of these – particularly “to be honest” is crucial. When these have reached fever pitch, there is only one option for the Englishman “to be frank…”. When you hear this, run for the hills, the shit has hit the fan! 

So after dealing with this kind of situation – how does one progress to avoiding it? Negation! Not only negation, but double negatives! Yep turn a positive sentence the other way round with a negation at the end. The first time I heard this I was convinced that the English were just trying to knock off European ‘class’ by saving the crux of the sentence to the end. Nothing so flash here, they are just being polite. I find this most amusing given the love English profess for their own language and using correct grammar! They even take this to the point of contracting the wrong part of the sentence, but that’s a long way off course for what I’m getting at here. 

One final word, remember understatement is a two way street – so next time if there is even the remotest possibility of something slightly negative being said about you – it probably is! Hit em back with a few lines of “to be honest’” and you should be on a level pegging.

Recession?

For those not familiar – Europe is in a bit of trouble at the moment. Some may remember a little over a year ago Mr Cameron proclaimed that Britain was out of the woods. I beg to differ somewhat - a few little reminders have recently caught my eye in the local media:

·      In Rotherham, South Yorkshire 100 drain covers have been nicked in the last 2 weeks – to be sold for scrap metal!

·      Youth unemployment in Barnsley, South Yorkshire is at 35%

·      Manchester Police are facing cuts of 3000 jobs over 3 years

·      Doncaster council is cutting 800 Jobs

·      The Ministry of Defense cannot afford to commission it’s fleet of new spy planes – so they are being scrapped before they are even commissioned!

·      In a similar vein the government  decided that it could not afford to commission an aircraft carrier – so it decided that it was ‘strategic’ to share it with the French

Then again there are plenty of other bizarre things going on in Britain with regard to finance and jobs:

·      A litre of petrol costs £1.30 and a haircut can be had for £3

·      A sound 10 year old car can be had for £500-600 – yet the insurance will more than likely be more

·      For many unskilled jobs it is possible to earn more money by claiming government benefits than to work!

·      Fixed speed cameras are thought to be more effective than police – yet it is thought that only 10% are actually operational. Interestingly after 8,000 miles driven since moving I have only seen my first traffic police car yesterday