The economics of buying online

We make more people employed if we shop on line. One to receive your order, one to process it, one to search for it, one to load the van & one to deliver it.

This comment was recently left on the website of a national newspaper.  It related to a news item about the impact of changes to business rates on some independent shops in the town of Hatfield in Hertfordshire.

A lot of the comments are along the lines that the government is not on the side of small independent shops, but rather on the side of big business.  The comment cited above suggests that buying online makes more sense, and appears to refer to buying online from a large retailer.

My first comment is that I read somewhere a few years back that a pound spent in an independent shop creates more jobs than a pound spent in a supermarket.  I have no idea what evidence if any supported this assertion, and I merely repeat it.

My second comment is that an online retailer is not necessarily a large company.  I often buy things on the internet, and so far as I can make out I am often buying from small traders.  In fact it appears that a lot of the things I buy are sold by people trading from their own homes.

As an aside, I can think of one large online retailer from which I have never bought anything, and never plan to buy anything.

If I buy something from a large company, whether or not that be an online purchase, then I may well be contributing to the salaries of a number of people.  I make the purchase, and an accounts clerk processes my payment.  My order is printed in a warehouse, and a picker collects the item I have bought.  This is then taken to a packer who begins the process of actually delivering the item to me.  The eventual delivery could be made via Royal Mail or a private courier firm.

By contrast, if I buy something from an independent trader, then I would be contributing to that trader’s revenues, but I might not be contributing to the salary of a single employee.  Quite simply the trader might not have any employees, although delivery would presumably still be via either Royal Mail or a private courier firm, and so I would in that sense be contributing to someone’s salary.

Nevertheless the salaries earned by the employees of the large companies would derive not merely from my purchase, but from the purchases of many customers.  Also, it is likely that the large company will employ many of its workers on a salary of the minimum wage or not much more.  It is also questionable to what extent the employees would benefit from the company having a higher turnover.  Higher turnover might well result in the company recruiting more staff, but that is not the same as improving the salaries.

By contrast, if I buy from an independent retailer, then I am tending to increase the income of that trader.  The trader might scrape by or might enjoy a substantial income.  If the trader employs any staff, then he or she has an obvious incentive to pay above the minimum wage.

A large company can more easily cope with a high staff turnover than a small business.  If you have a business and employ just one person, then you are likely to be seriously inconvenienced if that one employee leaves to get another job.  By contrast, a company with hundreds of employees will tend to find the loss of one employee to be less of an inconvenience.

This is of course a generalisation, and I accept that not all small businesses pay good wages – but that is in part because not all of them can afford to.

Vigilante crime is flourishing in the UK

More often than not, it seems, vigilantes are just thugs.  Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines a vigilante as a self-appointed doer of justice, but adds that the word sometimes carries the suggestion of the enforcement of laws without regard to due process or the general rule of law.

As I write, the abduction of Shannon Matthews has recently been dominating the news.  In 2008, 9yo Shannon was reported missing by her mother Karen Matthews in their home town of Dewsbury.  She was eventually found being held captive by the uncle of a man called Craig Meehan, who at the time was the boyfriend of Karen Matthews.  Matthews was sentenced to prison, as was Meehan's uncle.

Although not linked with the abduction, Meehan was jailed for possession of indecent images of children.  It has recently been reported that he has been viciously attacked by a gang of thugs, who presumably saw themselves as self-appointed punishers.

It is also reported that David Norris - one of the two men convicted of killing Stephen Lawrence in 1993 - has launched a lawsuit against the government because he was viciously attacked by three black men in prison.  It is worth noting that Norris had not been convicted of the murder at that point, and so was technically innocent.  However the attack on him would have been wrong even if it had taken place after his conviction.

As an aside, the murder of Stephen Lawrence is almost universally reported as having been racially motivated, which I won't argue with right now.  I do wonder though whether or not the attack on David Norris should be seen as racially motivated.  Would the inmates who attacked David Norris have attacked him if he - like them - had been black?  I would be surprised if HMP Belmarsh did not at that time contain at least one black inmate who had attacked and perhaps even murdered someone.

I hope that the men who attacked Craig Meehan will be prosecuted and imprisoned.  I await the outcome of David Norris's lawsuit.

The politics of denial

Followers of this blog may be aware that I have for some time now planned to write in detail about the supposed holocaust perpetrated by the German National Socialist regime in the 1940s.  Some may also be wondering why it matters.

In the past week my blog has enjoyed its highest readership in France, the USA, and Greece.  Two of those are countries where free speech is denied to those who seek the truth.  A simple search on the internet reveals that in September 2014 the Greek parliament voted to outlaw any denial of the supposed holocaust, whereas a similar law has existed in France since 1990.

It is never made entirely clear why such laws exist, but links are often made with the inevitably vague concepts of racism and anti-semitism.  I have some questions.

Have the lives of Jewish people in France improved since 1990?  Have the lives of Jewish people in Greece improved since 2014?  Are Jewish people in those countries better off than Jewish people in Britain and the USA where holocaust denial remains legal?

I repeat what I wrote in an earlier post: 

According to a recent press report Britain is currently experiencing a sharp increase in incidents of anti-semitic hate crimes.  [If I remember correctly, the press report did not link these hate crimes with holocaust denial.]  In France the situation is far worse, with many Jews emigrating to either Britain or Israel.

In other words, many Jews feel safer in Britain where it is legal to deny the holocaust than they do in France where it has been illegal for more than a generation.  If anyone still thinks that holocaust denial laws exist for a good reason, then maybe they could leave a comment.  

I remember watching The Cook Report on ITV in 1997 when Roger Cook confronted Nick Griffin about his views, and in particular asked him about the holocaust.  (This programme can normally be found on Youtube by searching for Cook Report BNP.)  It is worth noting that Roger Cook raised the matter, and not Griffin.

About ten years later, a programme was broadcast called BNP Wives (which can also be normally found on Youtube), in which a member of the British National Party called Marlene Guest was shown distributing leaflets during a by-election campaign which refuted allegations that she was a holocaust denier.  I couldn't help but wonder if this were the best possible use of her time.  Surely people tend to vote in elections on the basis of what is happening in their lives today, and not on the basis of what may or may not have happened many decades ago.

The best advice I can give to anyone who is active in a political party is to stay away from this topic as much as possible.  If anyone asks you your view on the supposed holocaust, then reply that you are campaigning on the lack of affordable housing locally - or whatever issues matter to the local electorate at that time.

I am glad that I live in a country where the denial of free speech has not yet extended to twentieth century history, and I cannot help but feel sorry for people who live in countries such as Greece and France.

It seems to me at times that the whole concept of the supposed holocaust of Jews in the 1940s derives from a belief that the life of a Jew is of greater value than the life of a gentile, but then maybe I am wrong about that.  Another simple search on the internet reveals that abortion is permitted in Israel, and that the overwhelming majority of Jews in the USA are tolerant of abortion.

If a Jewish woman has an abortion, then a person of Jewish parentage dies.  Does anyone care to deny that?

Related previous posts include:
The Jews are afraid, but what about the rest of us?
Another very British holocaust

A tale of two immigrants

I had planned today to write about Donald Trump, but that can wait.  Two news items have caught my eye, both concerning immigrant women.  Sanaa Shahid is a lawyer who has lived in Scotland all of her life.  Irene Clennel is currently being held in a detention centre in Scotland awaiting removal back to her native Singapore.

Mrs Shahid has made the news because she filmed a man called Alexander MacKinnon – also a lawyer – abusing her on a train, and telling her in particular that she should not be in the country.  He subsequently admitted a racially aggravated public order offence, and was made to pay a fine and other costs totalling just over £1400.  The comments on the website of The Daily Mail display little sympathy for him.

Mrs Clennel came to Britain in 1988, and a couple of years later married a British man.  They are still married, and have a home in County Durham.  Together they have two children and a granddaughter.  So far as I am aware she has never committed any crime.  The Daily Mail report does not explain on what basis she has been denied any further stay in this country, but quotes a government official as saying that all applications to remain are considered on their individual merits.  The comments are overwhelmingly supportive of her.

The deal is this.  If you are an ordinary person then it appears that you cannot legally tell an immigrant that they should not be in the country.  However if you are the evil government then you are allowed to tell an immigrant that they should not be in the country, and you can also enforce their removal.