How wonderful for Tescos as it gleefully announced it's £2.2 BILLION profits today. How utterly fucking obscene too. Their growth is at the expense of smaller grocery stores in every town and village in this country. More and more action groups are springing up to stop the spread of their Tesco Metro stores, popping up in places where there are already plenty of local businesses, and stomping them out with no conscience at all.
Now as if to try to curry our favour, they are announcing a £100m investment in "greener" stores that will use renewable energy to power them. How nice. But they will still be built the traditional way, using tons of enviro-friendly concrete and asbestos and corrugated iron and plastic. What about spending their filthy profits on proper green-designed and built supermarkets?
And do their green policies include BIODEGRADABLE CARRIER BAGS, or any scheme at all to encourage people to re-use carrier bags, use a "bag for life" or use bags made of fabric? I am still aghast that no Government policy or tax has been introduced to try and reduce the amount of carrier bags we use and waste every day. If supermarkets charged 10p per carrier bag (like LIDL and ALDIs do) then I'm betting stingy people would immediately start re-using bags.
Having recently dug my garden over and unearthed tons of plastic sweet wrappers and 6 carrier bags, I can only imagine the state of our landfills as they get more and more clogged with these cursed things.
I hope the Monopolies Commission or whoever is set to investigate Tescos, screw them good and proper and put some sort of a cap on their world domination.
However sadly, it seems that it is we the consumers that are solely responsible for their massive growth. We object to them springing up everywhere but we still shop at them. If we stayed away, then the profits would plummet and their stores would close. But in the absence of no locally-owned shops where on earth are we MEANT to buy our food from?? We all have to make an effort to travel to the local shops and the farmer's markets, and leave Tesco and their ilk to rot.
2 comments:
My friends who work at Tesco are some of the lowest paid people my age who have part time jobs.
Where does all the money go to?
I bought a necklace in Topshop the other day and the shop assistant put it in a little bag, then proceeded to put the little bag in a bigger bag. Why?! "One bag is enough, thanks!"
Fourth comment of the day? I think I'll leave it at that.
Alright, I have to step in at this point. I'm doing a piece on Multinational Corporations at the moment and this is currently right up my alley.
I am, I hate to say it, PRO-corporation. I know, I know, you don't have to say it but I've read like 20 books on the subject so I know my shit right now.
Tesco is big, but I'm not going to hold that against them. The reason that they are so big is because they are better at what they do than anyone else. You want to know why your greengrocer on the corner went out of business when Tesco opened up a few miles away? It's got nothing to do with the fact that Tesco is bigger. It's that Tesco is BETTER. It's true, the only reason that any company or corporation becomes big is because they do what they do better than anyone else can, and in a capitalist society that means pandering to the fickle whims of you, the consumer.
I would hesitate to call Tesco 'powerful'. Indeed within the market place they might be, but on the wider scale they are nothing. The government could introduce legislation and have them disbanded with in a few years if it chose to. It has to carry out practices in lines with laws and is subject to constant and strict regulation. Tesco is big, it is rich but it is not powerful. Wealth and power are not the same.
So Tesco might not build their future supermarkets out of recycled tyres and other environmentally friendly materials. The reason that they won't is because there are very stringent government regulations regarding the construction of public buildings (just think of the several accidents in Europe this year involving collapsed roofs) and as I said, the government is in charge. They won't start charging for bags, because if they do, most people will go elsewhere for their shopping,. You might not, but you are a minority here (and they already have bags for life. I bought two myself!) It will be the loss of a competitive edge and will result in damaged sales - a big No-no in capitalist societies.
But you're right, as with capitalism it is WE that hold that power to change things. Problem is Tesco is doing such a good bloody job of fulfilling OUR needs and keep US happy that we don't actually want to change anything.
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