If You Can't Make a Profit Out of a Free Resource.....

No, I'm not banging on about the wind and solar farms (yet) but instead I'm talking about the charity shops that are now leaving the high street.

The Charities (of which the most Recent is Cancer Research) cite increased costs like wages (thanks to teh increase in minimum wage), increased staffing costs (thanks to the increase in Employer's N.I.), increased rents (thanks to greedy corporate landlords), and just harder trading circumstances overall.

But hang on, charity shops are given the items they sell in the shops for free, so how hard is it to make money out of a free resource.

Well, it's not about making money, but making enough money. Charities do get free stuff from donations, but a lot of charities also plug other stuff they buy, like charity cards, trinkets and accessories. So straight away they have stock costs. And like every retailer in the world, if your stock costs money, then it has to earn it's keep. If it's sat on a shelf for months, then it's not earning profit. The ideal scenario is a product arrives on a shelf or display and is instantly bought, making instant profit. 

Sitting on a shelf isn't earning. And Charity "tat" is more likely to stay on the shelf when times are hard. In times like these, you are scouring charity shops for cheap clothing. Not looking for tat gifts. 

With free stuff like donated clothes, there is a bit of leeway, because the item hasn't cost anything. But it still needs to sell and make money to keep the charity working.

Anyone who visits charity shops will have noticed the inexorable creep upwards in prices. Time was, a charity shop provided a cheap way to get reasonable clothes. But these days, the prices are close to (say) offer prices at Peacocks, or prices from the Chinese discount websites.

When charity shops sell used stuff at the same price as new stock on a sale rack, then the charity shop model starts to fall apart. People will just go buy new stuff. Unless you're in one of the affluent areas where the charity shop stocks high end designer items. The charity shop shopper's holy grail. 

So with retail rents increasing despite the reduction in businesses able to pay them, the charity shops are getting squeezed. Higher costs to run the retail side reduce revenue. 

At the other end, the administrative side hasn't reduced costs either. Staffing costs have increased thanks to Labour's policies and I don't see charity executives taking pay reductions to help out. We're still seeing charity bigwigs earning six figure salaries. Nice work if you can get it.

Sadly, even selling stuff they get for free can't keep up with increased operating costs and greedy board members. So sadly charity shops will be the next tranche of shops to leave the high street. 

I mean, if you can't make a profit selling free stuff, what does that say about the costs of doing business imposed upon them by government policy?

Which takes me on to the renewable energy sector... 

15 years of subsidies. You'd think that by now, using an energy source that costs nothing, they would now be making a profit. The technology would be mature enough and scaling would reduce costs, so renewable energy companies would be making a profit and delivering cheap energy.

Except no. The greedy companies got it written into their contracts that they would be paid just the same for their energy as fossil fuel produced energy. Thus maximising profits for shareholders.

Not only that, for every watt of renewable energy there is, we also have to have a fossil-fueled backup, in case the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine. So we have to pay someone else to provide equipment to produce the same energy just in case, and pay them to sit idle, waiting for the moment to be called on to fill the gap.

So every watt of renewable energy generation equipment is paid for at least twice, with twice the installation costs: one for the renewable energy conversion and another for the fossil fueled energy conversion as back up. 

For every huge wind turbine spoiling the view off the coast, there is a gas turbine generator sat idle, waiting to be called upon if that wind turbine can't deliver.

Government policy makes it impossible to source cheap energy. The original idea of free energy being provided cheaply to the consumer has been bastardised buy government policy. 

That's why government should get involved in as little as possible. It always fucks it up.

The Vindictive State.

If you really want to know if the state cares about you, then here's some pointers.

Tommy Robinson, AKA Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, has spent most of his adult life warning of the evils of Islamic ideology. From the mass rape of thousands of young working class girls, to the incompatibility between Islam and the enlightened Western World. Tommy has warned about all of it.

His reward? A vindictive state that has trawled through every aspect of Tommy's life and behaviour and punished him at every turn.

Now we have Ant Middleton, ex-SAS soldier, who will be running as a candidate for London Mayor for Reform. He has a good chance of winning. His reward for daring to challenge the state? He is being sued by the MOD for releasing aspects of his service in the SAS. 

Yeah, sounds pretty vindictive to me, as we know those who are favoured by the state face no repercussions.

Then we have the raft of jail sentences for those who dare to protest outside asylum hotels. Two more men have been sent down by a judge who already has form for being the heavy hand of Kier Starmer. 

The people have already awoken. They know that for decades, successive government's have conspired against them. 

All they need to do is figure out how to acquire the weapons with which to fight back. 

Nobody likes a vindictive state. 

I would hope that the CIA Head of House in London is acquiring the means to support the Christian side in the coming civil war in the UK. If he's not, he's going to need to eventually find a way to secure the British Nukes. Better get stuck in and get the network active now.

Fuck M.I..5 and M.I.6. Literally. And fuck James. Enough is Enough.