Erm... am I missing something? It's been announced that major supermarkets like Tesco and Sainsburys, and a host of others, made an estimated £270m out of an illegal milk pricefixing scam back in 2002, and have been fined £116m. Can someone tell me how this is a punishment?
As far as I can make out that's an overall profit for the supermarkets of £154m - a brilliant success and absolutely no reason why they shouldn't do it all again.
Which of course they are all doing right now. £1.50 for a pack of butter? Come off it...
Time to face up to it: supermarkets have been engaging in anti-competitive activity for years. They inveigled their way onto town councils throughout the country and upped the price of market stalls, to the extent that our town markets are now mostly a sad old memory, they've taken losses aggressively to push small grocers and greengrocers - even newsagents - out of business, just to create a monopoly.
Free market my arse. This is monopoly at its worst - socially divisive, coming down heaviest on the poor and elderly. The fact that it's allowed to go on at all just shows how much in the pockets of their corporate paymasters our supine government and media really are. Fleecing the people, fleecing the producers, and all for what - to give us choice? I'm sorry, I happen to think eating food is a necessity, not a choice, and a 50% rise in the price of staples in one year is not acceptable, no matter how cheap CDs and DVD players are...
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