Coronavirus/COVID-19 part 2

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macliam
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Re: Coronavirus/COVID-19 part 2

Post by macliam » Fri Mar 18 2022 10:32am

blythburgh wrote:
Fri Mar 18 2022 8:55am
macliam wrote:
Thu Mar 17 2022 3:37pm
expressman33 wrote:
Tue Feb 22 2022 10:29pm

Boots to charge £5.99 for one lateral flow test as England ends free packs
https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... test-packs
This is approximately twice what I was paying OTC in Portugal before Christmas.

Good old rip-off Britain!
Black market op there, mo chara
Yeah, that'll be why they had less Covid and far fewer deaths pro rata....... cheap knock-off virus, not as potent as good British stuff!

Obviously France, Germany and the rest of Europe use the same black market - and Spain, and Italy - remember them? Remember how, early on, they were used to show how well the UK was doing against Europe?...... until the UK passed them. Then, suddenly, the we discovered we were using the wrong stats, but even after massaging them, the levels of infection and death were still higher!!

Good old black market. That'll be why good butter in Portugal costs €1.50 a pack, when the equivalent here cost over £2.... due to "world prices". Clearly not. :roll:
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Re: Coronavirus/COVID-19 part 2

Post by macliam » Fri Mar 18 2022 10:42am

BTW, Paddy's Day came up trumps......... after all the rubbish I had to go through to get my first 2 doses of vaccine, including trips into Ipswich hospital......I managed to book my booster yesterday - and I got an appointment for TODAY in my nearest town!! :thumbup:
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Re: Coronavirus/COVID-19 part 2

Post by Chadwick » Fri Mar 18 2022 1:42pm

macliam wrote:
Fri Mar 18 2022 10:32am
Good old black market. That'll be why good butter in Portugal costs €1.50 a pack, when the equivalent here cost over £2.... due to "world prices". Clearly not. :roll:
There's other factors as well. Cost of labour and taxes probably being the most significant. Look at petrol prices in UK vs US for example.
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Re: Coronavirus/COVID-19 part 2

Post by macliam » Fri Mar 18 2022 2:04pm

Chadwick wrote:
Fri Mar 18 2022 1:42pm
macliam wrote:
Fri Mar 18 2022 10:32am
Good old black market. That'll be why good butter in Portugal costs €1.50 a pack, when the equivalent here cost over £2.... due to "world prices". Clearly not. :roll:
There's other factors as well. Cost of labour and taxes probably being the most significant. Look at petrol prices in UK vs US for example.
That sounds like the same old excuse "it's not comparable" - look at UK buying power, set against that of Portugal.... and, on taxes, Portuguese standard VAT is 23%, Butter, as a foodstuff is at the reduced rate of 13%, medicines/tests at 6% - there is no zero rating apart from travel.

With tests we're comparing Boots with a small pharmacy in Portugal. With butter, the Portuguese eat less of it (so lower quantity) and I'm buying it from the equivalent of a Tesco Metro. So again, buying power, quantity and economics of scale should all favour the UK.
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Re: Coronavirus/COVID-19 part 2

Post by Chadwick » Fri Mar 18 2022 5:50pm

macliam wrote:
Fri Mar 18 2022 2:04pm
Chadwick wrote:
Fri Mar 18 2022 1:42pm
macliam wrote:
Fri Mar 18 2022 10:32am
Good old black market. That'll be why good butter in Portugal costs €1.50 a pack, when the equivalent here cost over £2.... due to "world prices". Clearly not. :roll:
There's other factors as well. Cost of labour and taxes probably being the most significant. Look at petrol prices in UK vs US for example.
That sounds like the same old excuse "it's not comparable" - look at UK buying power, set against that of Portugal.... and, on taxes, Portuguese standard VAT is 23%, Butter, as a foodstuff is at the reduced rate of 13%, medicines/tests at 6% - there is no zero rating apart from travel.

With tests we're comparing Boots with a small pharmacy in Portugal. With butter, the Portuguese eat less of it (so lower quantity) and I'm buying it from the equivalent of a Tesco Metro. So again, buying power, quantity and economics of scale should all favour the UK.
The cost of living in Portugal is much lower than the UK. You know that. Wages are significantly lower than in the UK too. I'm not an economist so I can't explain why some countries cost more to live in than others. I'm just aware that we don't pay the same price for the same product everywhere.

That's why P&O have just sacked 800 of their staff: to replace them with 800 cheaper people (from outside the UK).
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Re: Coronavirus/COVID-19 part 2

Post by Richard Frost » Fri Mar 18 2022 6:08pm

Chadwick wrote:
Fri Mar 18 2022 1:42pm

That's why P&O have just sacked 800 of their staff: to replace them with 800 cheaper people (from outside the UK).
Actually it would appear that they have not been replaced with staff from abroad (although that may or may not be the long term aim.) but with agency staff.

I know of at least one case where a agency worker arrived on a chartered bus realised what was happening and decided to get the train home.
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Re: Coronavirus/COVID-19 part 2

Post by macliam » Fri Mar 18 2022 6:10pm

Chadwick wrote:
Fri Mar 18 2022 5:50pm
macliam wrote:
Fri Mar 18 2022 2:04pm
Chadwick wrote:
Fri Mar 18 2022 1:42pm


There's other factors as well. Cost of labour and taxes probably being the most significant. Look at petrol prices in UK vs US for example.
That sounds like the same old excuse "it's not comparable" - look at UK buying power, set against that of Portugal.... and, on taxes, Portuguese standard VAT is 23%, Butter, as a foodstuff is at the reduced rate of 13%, medicines/tests at 6% - there is no zero rating apart from travel.

With tests we're comparing Boots with a small pharmacy in Portugal. With butter, the Portuguese eat less of it (so lower quantity) and I'm buying it from the equivalent of a Tesco Metro. So again, buying power, quantity and economics of scale should all favour the UK.
The cost of living in Portugal is much lower than the UK. You know that. Wages are significantly lower than in the UK too. I'm not an economist so I can't explain why some countries cost more to live in than others. I'm just aware that we don't pay the same price for the same product everywhere.

That's why P&O have just sacked 800 of their staff: to replace them with 800 cheaper people (from outside the UK).
and? so what? We are talking about a test kit that is imported from China and distributed, yet costs double in the UK. We are talking about a british staple, which is more expensive in the UK than in Portugal where it is not a staple. You know as well as I do that these eamples have nothing to do with the relative cost of living..... that is a simplistic measure - otherwise, why are cars and petrol more expensive there than here?
Last edited by macliam on Sat Mar 19 2022 7:39pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Coronavirus/COVID-19 part 2

Post by macliam » Fri Mar 18 2022 8:21pm

Yay, booster all done. Now I've almost caught up!! :thumbup:
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Re: Coronavirus/COVID-19 part 2

Post by blythburgh » Sat Mar 19 2022 9:24am

Richard Frost wrote:
Fri Mar 18 2022 6:08pm
Chadwick wrote:
Fri Mar 18 2022 1:42pm

That's why P&O have just sacked 800 of their staff: to replace them with 800 cheaper people (from outside the UK).
Actually it would appear that they have not been replaced with staff from abroad (although that may or may not be the long term aim.) but with agency staff.

I know of at least one case where a agency worker arrived on a chartered bus realised what was happening and decided to get the train home.
As 'im indoors will testify the flagging out of ships and replacing the British crew with low paid foreign ones is nothing new. Apparently the new crew are being trained but as the rep from the Officers Union pointed out the ships have to go back and forth across the busiest shipping lanes in the world. A bit like walking across the M25 and they have to be trained???? In the good old days the new Captain would have trained by working under the previous Captain so knew exactly what they were doing. Never believed that studying in class was the same as getting your hands dirty and doing the job. I mean would you like to be operated on by a surgeon who had merely studied how to do it in a classroom?
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Re: Coronavirus/COVID-19 part 2

Post by Chadwick » Sat Mar 19 2022 7:04pm

macliam wrote:
Fri Mar 18 2022 6:10pm
Chadwick wrote:
Fri Mar 18 2022 5:50pm
macliam wrote:
Fri Mar 18 2022 2:04pm

That sounds like the same old excuse "it's not comparable" - look at UK buying power, set against that of Portugal.... and, on taxes, Portuguese standard VAT is 23%, Butter, as a foodstuff is at the reduced rate of 13%, medicines/tests at 6% - there is no zero rating apart from travel.

With tests we're comparing Boots with a small pharmacy in Portugal. With butter, the Portuguese eat less of it (so lower quantity) and I'm buying it from the equivalent of a Tesco Metro. So again, buying power, quantity and economics of scale should all favour the UK.
The cost of living in Portugal is much lower than the UK. You know that. Wages are significantly lower than in the UK too. I'm not an economist so I can't explain why some countries cost more to live in than others. I'm just aware that we don't pay the same price for the same product everywhere.

That's why P&O have just sacked 800 of their staff: to replace them with 800 cheaper people (from outside the UK).
and? so what? We are talking about a test kit that is imported from China and districuted, yet costs double in the UK. We are talking about a british staple, which is more expensive in the UK than in Portugal where it is not a staple. You know as well as I do that these eamples have nothing to do with the relative cost of living..... that is a simplistic measure - otherwise, why are cars and petrol more expensive there than here?
Yes, "cost of living" is a simple measure of many complex and interacting factors.
I have no idea why cars and petrol are more expensive in Portugal and cheaper in the US. Economies of scale, supply and demand, amount of domestic production, local labour costs...? I imagine they all play a part.
Same re butter prices.

My original point was just that the price differences between UK and Portugal are probably due to more than just UK retailers/suppliers/logistics adding a hefty margin for personal gain.
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