The Corona Virus

[Balanbam00]

BT, I can not believe it,''Mother nature ''has gifted you 'alpine air',and your writing a shortened form of a newspaper,100% inside a stuffy room? The child bride ,although you do not see it ,really wants you do do more gardening, 'be a man!' In this period of time show her just why she picked you? You have done the garden! So do it again! Watch she will come out with a nice glass of lemon drink. So that both of you can sit in deck chairs,to enjoy! When will the next time be?.........''In another 70 years, maybe?''

[1959_60]

Will they indeed ??

Co-op, The 6,500 pupils at 25 Co-op Academy schools who receive free school meals are being given a £20 weekly voucher while schools remain shut.

Timpson, The retail chain, which provides shoe repair, dry cleaning and key-cutting services, says it will keep its 5,500 employees on full pay while its shops remain closed.

Whitbread, The owner of the Premier Inn chain and restaurants including Beefeater and Brewers Fayre is putting some employees on a temporary furlough while its sites remain closed. But it will keep them on full pay by topping up the extra 20% of their wages not covered by the government scheme. Whitbread says it is in discussions with the government about providing rooms in its hotels, located near hospitals, to key workers.

Leon, The restaurant chain is keeping certain branches open to NHS employees and other key workers, and providing takeaway and delivery meals to NHS workers with a 50% discount. It is also bringing together other restaurants, food distributors and suppliers to deliver free daily hot meals to NHS critical care staff.

Pret a Manger, Before the chain was ordered to close, it was offering free hot drinks and a 50% discount on all other purchases for all NHS workers.

Lloyds, Britain’s biggest high street bank said it had granted mortgage holidays to over 70,000 customers in just over a week. The lender also confirmed that it would waive interest on arranged overdrafts up to £300 for all customers across its Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland branches from 6 April.

HSBC, The UK division donated £1m to the National Emergencies Trust Coronavirus Appeal and British Red Cross to help support vulnerable people affected by Covid-19.

Unilever, The company behind brands including Dove and Knorr is contributing €100m (£89m) globally to fight the pandemic, including €50m (£47m) worth of soap, sanitiser, bleach and food. The London-headquartered firm is adapting manufacturing lines to produce sanitiser for use in institutions such as hospitals. It has also pledged to pay its small- and medium-sized suppliers early to help their cashflow.

Jingye, The Chinese company, which recently bought British Steel, sent a private jet filled with medical and protective equipment to the company’s S****horpe steelworks. A private jet owned by Jingye landed at Doncaster Sheffield airport containing equipment including face masks, goggles, thermometers and medical gloves, destined for workers at the S****horpe blast furnace steelworks and the nearby hospital.

McCarthy & Stone, The company, the biggest builder of retirement properties in the UK, has offered government and local authorities more than 300 newly completed apartments in unoccupied developments to house older people recovering from Covid-19 or NHS key workers.

Brompton Bicycles, The folding bicycle maker is providing 200 bikes to hire, free of charge, to NHS key workers.

NCP, The parking company extended its offer of free parking to NHS workers to all key workers.

And that is just a glimpse of the tip of the iceberg.

Of course they will Mon Ami!

In a national emergency normal rules don't apply.

In normal times profit is the main driver for companies.

If you owned a company then, (unless you were one of the small number of exceptions), you would try to maximise you profit. This may mean using suppliers who offered their goods at a better price but perhaps used cheap labour. A few would be willing to pay more knowing that the supplier was more ethical in it's production, but most would buy the cheaper option to create more profit.

Many big pharmaceutical companies have used parts of Africa as a testing area for new drugs. Africa in general gets a very raw deal out of dealing with the more developed countries.

For every company doing it's business in a totally ethical manner I'll show you a dozen who have owners like Mike Ashley.

On a national level, we are quite happy to sell our weapons to countries like Saudi because the money is good.
Wars have been fought over oil supplies.

Profit is everything for most companies.

Profit is v1tal - without profit you haven't got a viable business - but exploiting workers, or even whole countries, to maximise profit seems to be fair game.

[sinkov]

"In a national emergency normal rules don't apply."

Why not ?

[1959_60]

"In a national emergency normal rules don't apply."

Why not ?

Seriously?

It's hardly business as usual, is it?

[The Bedlington Terrier]

Seriously?

It's hardly business as usual, is it?

A lot of the merchants we deal with are your everyday pubs, restaurants, hairdressers, garden centres and their ilk. Another four to eight weeks I reckon is the tipping point for survival of what is the backbone of our economy, after that thousands of small businesses will simply close their doors and vanish. The impact will be devastating.

Obviously profit is v-i-t-a-l for a business to survive, but it seems to me the MNC's need a morality check. I have a sneaky feeling as the economy nosedives and jobs become even harder to find the Big Companies will just screw the workers even harder. Zero hour contracts and the gig economy will become the new "norm". Foook me I hope Boris reminds himself he is a Tory and re-opens our economy PDQ.

[sinkov]

Seriously?

It's hardly business as usual, is it?

But it's still business isn't it 59 ? If the profit motive is the sole driver for companies, and exploiting workers and even whole countries is how they maximise their profits as you claim, then what's different now ?

[The Bedlington Terrier]

But it's still business isn't it 59 ? If the profit motive is the sole driver for companies, and exploiting workers and even whole countries is how they maximise their profits as you claim, then what's different now ?

I get your drift, sinkov but as you previously exemplified, not all businesses are simply motivated by greed and profit. The Ashley's, Branson's and Green's of our UK big businesses will get their comeuppance once this COVID-19 malarkey is under control.

People have had the opportunity to see what is wrong with our own Big Business. Waking up and smelling the coffee is a wonderful thing. I will expect boycotts and mass "staying away" from these type of greedy tosspots will be another new "norm". It pains me to say it, but Wetherspoons will not be getting my business, once the pubs re-open. Tim can fooook right off along with Sports Direct, Virgin anything and Arcadia.

[barrie_burn]

A lot of the merchants we deal with are your everyday pubs, restaurants, hairdressers, garden centres and their ilk. Another four to eight weeks I reckon is the tipping point for survival of what is the backbone of our economy, after that thousands of small businesses will simply close their doors and vanish. The impact will be devastating.

Obviously profit is v-i-t-a-l for a business to survive, but it seems to me the MNC's need a morality check. I have a sneaky feeling as the economy nosedives and jobs become even harder to find the Big Companies will just screw the workers even harder. Zero hour contracts and the gig economy will become the new "norm". Foook me I hope Boris reminds himself he is a Tory and re-opens our economy PDQ.

Very difficult balance for the Gov't.My local Esso petrol station/Spar shop closed down over the weekend and I can't see them re-opening.My niece owns a Tattoo parlour and employs her husband plus another couple of staff.She has applied to the Welsh Assembly for a grant but it will be June before she knows whether she will get anything or not,I can see the family having to find some short term funding.After speaking to a friend this morning who is a senior official of Welsh Water he believes that a lot of Companies will now be looking carefully at whether they need the big Offices they now occupy.He confirms that a lot of his staff are now working from home and the business is pretty much running as normal.Take Canary Wharf where all the Big Banks have their Head Offices and rents etc are obviously high,with ever increasing technology how many of the staff there could work from home.Times are changing.

[Supersub6]

I get your drift, sinkov but as you previously exemplified, not all businesses are simply motivated by greed and profit. The Ashley's, Branson's and Green's of our UK big businesses will get their comeuppance once this COVID-19 malarkey is under control.

People have had the opportunity to see what is wrong with our own Big Business. Waking up and smelling the coffee is a wonderful thing. I will expect boycotts and mass "staying away" from these type of greedy tosspots will be another new "norm". It pains me to say it, but Wetherspoons will not be getting my business, once the pubs re-open. Tim can fooook right off along with Sports Direct, Virgin anything and Arcadia.

BT --all well and good boycotting these businesses owned by whoever, however, it will be the workers who suffer in the end because it is their jobs which will go, whether it be the barman at Wetherspoons, the operative at Sports Direct, the Virgin air hostess etc., etc.
Those who own the companies already have the wealth and if they decide to close them down they are, in the main, on a good thing because the workers will not qualify for anything from the companies involved, with one or two exceptions.

This is just an observation because I do not use any of the companies involved.

[The Bedlington Terrier]

BT --all well and good boycotting these businesses owned by whoever, however, it will be the workers who suffer in the end because it is their jobs which will go, whether it be the barman at Wetherspoons, the operative at Sports Direct, the Virgin air hostess etc., etc.
Those who own the companies already have the wealth and if they decide to close them down they are, in the main, on a good thing because the workers will not qualify for anything from the companies involved, with one or two exceptions.

This is just an observation because I do not use any of the companies involved.

I did think of that Supersub6, but this will now become a "Class War" and inevitably there will be casualties.