315 days ago
Normally when you boycott a company because of some woke nonsense some folks say “but what about the poor workers.” In the case of Starbucks it is not the company, although it has sinned on many an occasion, but on this occasion it is its workers who are revolting.
1044 days ago
What I would love to see in terms of coffee shop diversity is a range of small,independent shops where the folks don’t write your name on a plastic cup but know your name and say hell and chat to you. What Starbucks wants to see is all those stores cleansed from High Streets so that all High Streets look similar with the same big names selling the same mass produced preoducts, a total lack of diversity. But Starbucks cannot wait to tell us how diverse it is, it is a champion virtue signaller..
2851 days ago
Starbucks has kicked off against President Trump after his "Muslim ban" which, of course, is no such thing. Its boss Howard Schultz says he is going to hire 10,000 refugees in 75 countries - many of which do not have minimum wage legislation - to show where it stands. Goodie goodie, more hard working folks who will accept shit wages to boost profits of big corporates and the stock options of their fat cat bosses. But this show of naked self interest, oops I meant real humanity, has impressed some millennials. This snowflake really is virtue incarnate and is going to change the whole fucking world. Bring on the revolution! Power to the people!
2966 days ago
The BBC, like the rest of the liberal media, has not held back in its anger directed towards those who have used cunning wheezes to avoid paying "their fair share" of taxes like the rest of us. Whether it be a wicked capitalist like Phil Green or an evil mega corporation such as Starbucks, the BBC has vented its wrath. So it will no doubt applaud the HMRC which seems to have netted a haul of more than 100 folks earning six figure salaries who have been dodging tax. I refer of course to many of the big names at er....the BBC.
3287 days ago
I am sure folks my age know who sang that classic. The year it came out I was living in Brooklyn. I'm back. Boy its changed. The corner where I used to come out of the subway and get offered drugs is now a plush little oasis. I sit in the Starbucks opposite. How things have changed. In today's bearcast I look at the real scandal and failings at HBOS, explain why flip flop's view of AIM is, like that of the Clown on ADVFN, narrow and distorted and flag up a few interesting factoids explaining my increasing bearishness about the stockmarket.
4080 days ago
My handset is bust and so I had to buy a new one – anyone who has tried to text me in vain over the past week you can now text away as thanks to Chitter Chatter on Leather Lane I am now once again in communication. I wandered in wearing a Time To Leave T-shirt and the cute Asian bird behind the counter asked me to explain. At which point she proudly said she was a supporter of the Libertarian party.
Off we went. The bird, her colleague and I. The NHS, Ron Paul, Welfare, Starbucks and tax, we covered it all. What an enlightened phone shop it is. If you ever need a new handset, served by a cute & enlightened bird, show your support you know where to go.
To engage in conversation with good looking young ladies of an enlightened disposition you can buy your very own “good looking young ladies of an enlightened disposition magnet” It’s Time to Leave T-shirt here
4306 days ago
I do not really like Starbucks coffee. However, when the deluded lefties started boycotting the firm on the grounds that its directors were committing the heinous offence of fulfilling their fiduciary duties perfectly in ensuring that the company paid as little tax as legally possible, I felt a moral duty to show solidarity and drink its plastic offerings. Then Starbucks caved into the lefies and offered up a voluntary tax “donation.” My boycott started.
But where now? The company is showing some spine and warning Call Me Dave (and the lefties) that if it is forced to pay more tax than it legally has to it will – as I warned it would do – curtail UK investment. The political classes who bayed for blood will have their reward: fewer jobs and less PAYE/NI/VAT receipts all round. Such is the sort of victory the lefties have won for Britain.
Pro tem let’s see if Starbucks stands its ground. This may be bluster. The lefties are using its stores again. So for now my boycott continues. If it shows real spine and so triggers another lefty boycott it will at that stage be able to count on at least one new customer. Me.
4354 days ago
This article first appeared in my Tomogrraph Newsletter a couple of weeks ago but prompted my an angry response or two to my article of yesterday (Being on Welfare is NOT a Job) I am goaded into republishing the piece to a wider audience. One chap thinks I am “ bitter and twisted” and a “sad man” for arguing that taxpayers have no obligation to support a life of Sky, fags and booze on welfare. Whatever…folks need to face up to the problem.
This piece deals with those deficit deniers who cannot accept that Britain is heading for bankruptcy and offers up a 13 point plan to deal with the issue – needless to say I do not expect the cowardly Conservatives to adopt even one of my suggestions.
The Autumn statement came and went. George Osborne laughed and smiled. Ed Balls stammered. The left bleated on about wicked Tories and even more wicked cuts. The Tories claimed to be satisfied with the job being in hand. But we are as a nation kidding ourselves. We are all deficit deniers.
Two and a half years into this Parliament, Osborne has missed his forecasts again. Government spending has, in absolute terms risen year on year since the election.
4370 days ago
The Guardian has announced that it is to sell the 50% of AutoTrader that it does not own for £600 million. This is the part of the group where revenues are growing, which makes profits, which people want to read and which could be described as the “family silver” as opposed to the newspaper itself where sales are falling , losses are made, where Polly Toynbee et al produce unreadable piffle and which can be described as “offensive crap.”
The Guardian is, as you know, very keen on evil capitalists, scumbag rich people, Tories and other untermenschen paying more and more tax. It also takes great steps to ensure that it pays as little tax as possible. So on this windfall gain of £600 million what rate of tax do you reckon the Grauniad will pay?
4371 days ago
The political class is today delighted as Starbucks appears to be caving in and agreeing to pay more tax. No doubt Amazon and Google will follow suit. My warning here is that what is going on will cost British jobs and it stinks of high hypocrisy. And yes Margaret Hodge MP I am talking about you.
I start with Hodge who has appointed herself as witchfinder general sniffing out big American companies who pay tax rates of as little as 1% in the UK. You may remember that this was the vile woman who ran Islington Council at a time when an institutionalised paedophile ring operated in its care home system. When this started to be exposed she attacked those doing the exposing as homophobes. Her reward for allowing little kids to get buggered by council employed nonces was to be made Children’s Minister by Tony Blair. You could not make it up.
4396 days ago
A decent man asks me why I do not focus on cutting tax evasion to slash the deficit and save the UK from bankruptcy? Fair point. But I am afraid that the sums do not add up. If only life was that simple. Deluded lefties often confuse tax evasion with tax minimization and that is the problem. The former means breaking the law. It is wrong. The latter means using the system to your maximum advantage in order to pay as little tax as possible and it is neither illegal nor wrong. Why should you pay more tax than you should on money you earn?
4498 days ago
Nasdaq darling Starbucks (SBUX) saw its stock price tank on Friday to a new 5 month low of $47.47 after warning that it would miss full year earnings forecasts. This is not a bad company but I fear its problems are just beginning and as such the shares are still a sell. Short Starbucks – target share price $35 (for starters).
I guess you all know what Starbucks does. It sells pretty bland, milk-filled coffees and a range of other products that do nothing for my diabetes on a grotesque gross margin. It is a brand that does not need to promote itself, we all know Starbucks. Some folks hate it as a symbol of big corporate America. Others love it while most of us treat it with a vague indifference. If I want caffeine I really do not care who serves it up.
