Perhaps it's just me thinking too much

Such a shame when people lose their jobs at any time but just before Christmas is truly awful ! The wholesale warehouses of Palmer & Harvey went into receivership and some of their delivery drivers only found out in their lorry cabs through messages from fellow workers ! That is a disgusting way to treat employees ....and with the government refusing to discuss Social Mobility, the discord over Universal Credit, the length of time to wait before receiving any benefits when the wages, as in the case of a sudden closure, are not and are not likely to be paid.....I would be in despair , I truly feel sorry for these workers ....

We do have high employment at the moment and no doubt people can find jobs, but what sort of jobs? Many jobs in the so called gig economy are paid very poorly and there is often no choice but to take them. I feel sorry for the delivery drivers haring up and down our road, many of whom get paid a pittance for each delivery. Buying on the internet creates work for some, but much of it poorly paid warehouse or delivery jobs, and there is ultimately a price to be paid somewhere along the line for buying "cheap".

Sadly Toys R Us was likely to be a casualty of the way we shop now. It is easy to get toys in supermarkets and online. (I used to take the children to TRU hen little as a treat - like window shopping - and we only bought pocket money sized items. Most of the toys there were more expensive so I always had to shop around. I am not surprised it has had to close its doors.

As for the handbag, it is ridiculously expensive. Another sign of the times is the way people are exposed to celebrity scrutiny more because of social media and many follow fashion like sheep. I cannot understand the need for overpriced items only the rich can afford. So many youngsters get into financial difficulties trying to live the dream.

Life is hard slog for most. We want for more but most of us have to live within our means. It's a valuable lesson to learn.

there is ultimately a price to be paid somewhere along the line for buying "cheap".

Yes, but that is a coin with two sides, isn't it?

Many people can only afford 'cheap' and quite like getting a bargain. I can buy many things online for cheaper than they are in the shops and there is also a great convenience in having them delivered to the door too.

We cannot turn the clocks back. Life changes constantly, not always for the better, and we learn to adjust. Heaven forfend that us Gransnetters hark back to the good old days!

We are using computers now. Some things are better, but the way many of us shop, work, get information and form opinions has changed drastically since we were children. Not all changes are good or popular but we do adjust and yesterday becomes another page in the history books of time.

Time marches on. We have to bend or break, or stagnate.

Following fashion is hardly new.

Is it the Times newspaper that has a section called "How to spend it" so the rich need ideas for what to spend their money on.

There's nothing wrong with expensive handbags, as long as everybody else can afford to live a reasonable life, and have a reasonable handbag.

As for people being poor because they have made poor choices, can any of us say hand on heart that we have never made a poor choice.

Also circumstances change, circumstances have changed for ToysRus, their business model is becoming outdated, just as some peoples skills become outdated.

I have to buy cheap, no choice , I accept it, waste of time thinking what others have . Envy must be horrible, though I confess I was rather envious of Alan Rickmans wife. ?

I think anyone paying these ludicrous prices for a handbag is mad! Yes we might have a high level of employment, if you believe the government figures, but many of the jobs are zero hours and /or poorly paid. Think how many people in employment are using the food banks. What concerns me about the closure of these toy shops is that they are likely to be in poorer areas where job opportunities are scarce.

This Tory government is cruel to the extreme. In my life I have never known a government that cares so little for hardworking people who earn so little that they rely on food banks to feed their children. There is no need for austerity - it is an ideology designed to crush the poorest and most vulnerable amongst us, while giving huge tax breaks to the wealthy and corporate sectors. I’d like to think karma will catch up with the whole rotten lot of them.

Console yourself with the thought that he was probably quite ordinary as a husband Anniebach

I don't think it's the government who have decided to close ToysRus
Although in fact they have made civil servants redundant over the years.

You are on the wrong thread Coco51 this is about redundancies at Toys R Us.........look for the thread entitled
‘Tory Rants R Us.’

Good posts Quizqueen and Day6

Annie what do you see in Alan Rickman ?

Morgana The person buying that expensive handbag is keeping a lot of people in work. They should be encouraged.

Our local Homebase has just closed.

"In my life I have never known a government that cares so little for hardworking people who earn so little that they rely on food banks to feed their children. "

Apologies - and I fully agree Lemon that Coco51s comment should be on another thread entitled "Yet Another Tory Rant"

All I am saying is - food banks represent a strange sort of progress in many ways. Now food is donated and given to people who cannot buy it for whatever reason. The poor a decade or so - and they existed then - poverty is not new - would have gone without food and remained hungry - and under a Labour government too! Disgusting!

Redundancy is not new either, unfortunately, and I do hope that workers losing their jobs at TrU are able to find something else in the retail industry.

lemon, lusted after him for quite a few years , it was his voice, I have a thing for voices. No I have not started hearing them ?,

Good grief, now it's the fault of the government that a chain of toy stores are closing .

Our local Homebase also closed Eloethan but was re-born after a total re-fit as Bunnings. Local press reported that all Homebase employees were offered jobs and more staff were recruited. It’s a very different store, personally can’t say I enjoy going in there but it does serve a purpose, seems busy and I can only hope it thrives.

I’m with you Not Too Old... they are horrible stores....stacked to the rafters with plastic toys you can’t access and have to ask staff ...who then have to fetch a ladder! I’ve two grandkids ...the stores are NOT child friendly at all...and my grandkids hate them . They needed a complete re-think...and nobody bothered to do it! Argos great for toys...as is Smyths. Shan’t miss them at all, and neither will the staff
when they’re re-employed. Good luck to them all.

I agree with you Day6...we can’t allow ourselves to stagnate. If I hear my husband have another rant about the ‘good old days’ I think i’ll clonk him with an old fashioned frying pan, when he goes on about technology..computers ...lap tops...I-pads...smart phones all being ‘just a passing phase!!!’ ...I point to his smart t.v with 500+ channels...wall to wall live football..indeed ANY sport you can mention and give him a withering look! Ask him if he’d like to go back to Saturday night highlighted football ...1 hour a week. No live at all unless it was an international match....would he like to watch it on a 12” screen in black and white again.!! He gives the universal answer reserved for non-thinkers everywhere...” that’s different” ...times passes and we MUST go with it, or wither away both personally and as a country!

I too hate it when redundancies are made just before Christmas or just after when money which could have been saved has been spent. Although I suppose in most cases the writing has been on the wall and the employees have a good idea of what's coming, it's still a bad time for it to happen when so much enforced jollity, seasonal goodwill and pressure to spend is pouring out of every advert.

I don't mind the rich being rich just as long as they spend it. Then it filters down shedding pennies (if not pounds) to all and sundry along the way. Better still a bit of charity and philanthropy doesn't go amiss. It's when money is hoarded in tax havens and just sits and accumulates it annoys me.

It its very sad to read of this and think of the effects on all these people, especially at Christmas time. Of course companies come and go but the help available to people going through these changes, has changed over my lifetime and is now very precarious. I find those who just wipe away the individual difficulties quite perplexing.

It is interesting - possibly only to those who frequent the politics threads - that you could have guessed many of the replies from some of those who have posted on here. Those who believe in the personal capitalist dream have tossed off a 'that's what happens' reply. Of course they are right; in the world we have configured it is. Those we know to be more socially concerned and more interested in democracy are disturbed by the world we have made and how it treats those at times like this.

You keep showing your concern millymouge. You may be able to do little about it but those whom we have asked to run our world need to know that at least we still care.

Not everyone is as sensitive, gentle and caring as you GG

Indeed Anniebach