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frozen_out

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Posts posted by frozen_out

  1. There is definitely a smell of fear amongst the retailers.

    On Boxing Day many retailers started sales online often hours before the official times that they had previously announced, presumably to try and get ahead of their competitors, and the number of shops opened tomorrow is greater than any number that I can remember.

    I get a feeling that they are looking at their sales figures in the previous weeks and are having a bit of a panic.

    Saying that, I have been looking at some sport shoe and some cycling clothing sites this morning - not really impressed with what is on sale or what the prices are. I have a feeling that they will be forced to offer better prices a bit later in the month.

    It's holidays now. The Express front page might aswell be an advert. Apparently thousands are cashing in on holidays as firms 'slash' prices.

    I'm a little upset because I always book my summer holiday on boxing day as it used to be really cheap day of the year to book. Not anymore :(

  2. You're the one who was posting in off-topic about the merits of an XPS spectra as a way of investigating a skull to see if it was really from an alien. :rolleyes: But I take your point, I mean if hpcers can't even come up with sensible suggestions about how to determine whether or not a skull is from frickin' space aliens, what could they possibly know about anything!

    30936.jpg

    :lol:

    Errr... I think if you read that thread I was the one who asked what you would expect to find with XPS and never got a reply.

    Regardless, I haven't mocked anyone on this thread.

  3. Same story every year. This is literally 1984, the media play everyone like fiddles.

    2nd week of December: Retailers in trouble due to dire Christmas sales

    3 week of December: Boxing day sales being pulled forward to stimulate Christmas demand

    Post Christmas: Retailers flat out due to post Christmas 'splurge'

    January: Retailers post record Christmas sales

    It's all psychology. Pricing/demand/volume algorithms are now incredibly sophisticated, every sale can be tracked centrally and pricing on particular products/categories adjusted as frequently as necessary to create the right level of demand at the right margin. Put that together with some well timed news stories and the shops get people through the doors in droves.

  4. A checkout operator died in situ during the lunch rush in our local Sainsburys on Monday gone. I would have thought this would have been deemed sufficiently serious to close the shop, but apparently not.... :(

    Apologies, that's not very jolly is it.

    Judging by your previous posts your local Sainsburys must be the same as mine, I think there are only two in the are. I was in one today and it was pretty busy.
  5. Cheer up - I went to Teesside Park last Wednesday evening. It was dead. Spent a bit in Toys'r'Us and a bit less in Hobbycraft.

    I think the overriding problem is that in an age of such abundance, there's nothing that actually leaps out at you to buy. Had a real problem shopping for the daughter this year - the toys on offer are mostly uninspired future landfill.

    I'm perfectly cheerful, unseasonably so :). It's the other miserable sods on HPC you've got to look out for :D

    On your toys point - I hate it when my wife buys toys for the kids, they're always played with for about 20 minutes then left to rot.

    This year we've gone with boardgames, books and clothes. The odd novelty stocking filler but that's about it.

  6. Now you're describing life's lottery winners, the comfortable baby boomers.

    Try B&M, Home Bargains and Aldi/Lidl instead with the untermensch like us.

    Bloody hell, and you're complaining the likes of Asda and TK Maxx are full of Chavs? Anyone shopping at B&M or Home Bargains should really be looking to pick up clothes in Sports Direct. It's like B&M, but with clothes. Or are you a Charity shopper for clothes? Subscribing to the BS HPC meme that you can pick up a fabulous, barely worn Harris Tweed jacket in pretty much any charity shop for about 50p?

    Occasionally I'm reminded how utterly bizarre, skewed and miserable the prevailing HPC wisdom can be. It's good for reminding me not to take the place too seriously on anything.

  7. *anecdotal*

    chatting to someone who works at Asda, they were fully expecting the car-park to be rammed this time of year, hard to get out of the car-park to leave etc

    this year it's half empty no rush, no mad buying.

    perhaps people can sense next years recession coming

    I posted this in one of the other threads on this topic. Ever since 2008 there has been a lot of scaremongering with regards to Christmas spending that was never actually reflected in behaviour I.e. shops were absolutely rammed and people were spending like there was no tommorow.

    I went out to finish off the Christmas shopping last week and it was a ghost town. It was bizarre. Unless the majority of spending has moved online spending has fallen off a cliff.

  8. Funny place, Teesside Park. There's actually very little point going there. When it opened my wife and I could wander round wondering at all the things we could buy if only we had the money. Now we've got a bit of money I never seem to see anything there I would want to buy. And all the shops are replicated elsewhere.

    Basically if you're not a Teesside chav paying over the odds for branded crap from Sports Direct it's a bit of a waste of time.

    Can't agree with that. Morrison's, big TK Maxx, large Boots, Curry's/PC world, Argos, Asda, Game. Big stores for all the high street majors in one place + free parking. As good as anywhere for Christmas shopping of that particular kind.

  9. Many of the miners expanded or bought out miners during the height of the commodity demand from China. It takes years to open a new mine and getting it operational so many of those mines, started when Chinese demand was high and seemingly due to continue going higher, have recently begun coming online. Oops.

    China is the key. All of the answers are there.

  10. It's utter, utter carnage in the commodity and energy production sectors jobs wise globally. I think it takes about 18 months for these major employment swings to impact the rest of the economy if I recall? (I wonder if that period is linked to the time taken to blow your redundancy? :) ) Although as the UK doesn't actually do anything productive with primary resources anymore perhaps we won't be impacted? See how our leaders protect us from these shit storms?

    Yep. We've just announced 200+contractors. That's not on the above list. Teeside saw about 6k redundancies in the last month.

  11. China has wrecked everything.

    Many global core industries were in a reasonable equilibrium, China has completely smashed the equilibrium to the point here for some key raw materials and basic intermediates the products are cheaper than the raw materials. Companies worldwide expanded to meet the artificial demand created by China's unsustainable expansion and that is now winding back. Whose steel built the Chinese steel factories?

  12. That time of year again. The festive double whammy of 'worst festive sales ever' quickly followed in January by 'best festive sales ever'.

    Black Friday is an embarrassment to the human race and anyone participating needs to take a long hard look at themselves. 'I don't know how much it costs, I just know it's a bargain'. If ever there was a single phrase that summed up the insanity of a generation.

  13. Easier for growing numbers to grab something on the run and pay a hefty price for something of inferior quality......£5 can buy a nice joint, roast potatoes and seasonal vegetables to feed four....easier said than done for some.

    £5 for a nice joint + enough veg to feed 4???

    I'd like to see it!

    We use McDonalds fairly regularly. The kids like it. I always lobby for BK but I always get over ruled.

  14. Wy don't you?

    I'm just not sure why you're being so coy for a change and how 50% more than the arbitrary we're using is somehow the same. That's all.

    Coy? Not a word I would use to describe myself.

    I don't really know why you've taken issue with me. I'm one of the few on HPC who claims to be entirely average. Everyone else has super duper investment strategies and high paying recession proof jobs that guarantee they can buy a house for cash when they consider the price to be right.

    I'm an average earner, in a not particularly secure job that I'm good at and for the most part enjoy. I'm average, not particularly proud of that, but unlike the twonk in the nail bar I did actually work hard to get to a position of average earnings.

    In answer to the question why don't I do it? I guess ultimately it's unsustainable. Maintaining a profession means no gaps in the CV, once you're out of it and into something else it's really difficult to go back.

  15. Mr big shot travelling engineer numbers don't add up.

    I don't earn much but I can't remember when I only brought home £1750 a month. That must be close to £30,000 p.a?

    I wondered how long it would take someone to bite. Never claimed to be a big shot, I've often pointed out that I'm almost entirely average in every way. Although I do enjoy my travel with work.

    After tax, NI, pension and other bits and pieces of deductions my net is about £600 a week.

    I should run a nail bar and just collect my 400 off the government.

  16. I know its been mentioned on other threads. And I know there's been a few other stories, all of the same.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3275451/Shame-Tearful-mother-blasts-speechless-Tory-minister-Question-Time-tax-credits-cut.html

    Why oh why oh why does someone - journalist perhaps??? - not ask the sad faced TCer the following:

    1) How mnay hours do you work?

    2) How much money - various tax credits, HB, etc do you receive in a month?

    3) How much does the average UK worker earn?

    All these sad faced people saying 'Im down 2k' would be terrible if they were only claiming ~6K.

    They are not! Try 28K net FFS.

    It's madness, I earn just over 40k and don't net much more than £400 a week once all my contribution s are taken into account. And she nets that on top of whatever she takes from her sad-ass nail bar.

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