It has come to my attention recently that we are increasingly being short changed, particularly by large companies, and getting less and less than we are paying for.
I have noticed that this applies to chocolate in particular, one of my favourite things, as my expanding waistline shows. Where so called special offers or bumper packs are concerned; once you open them, they now reveal not quite the contents we might have expected to receive. I find this extremely irritating when there are no longer enough sweets to go around.
Take Quality Street as an example; a popular and relatively inexpensive present to give one’s colleagues at the office. The price has stayed pretty much the same but the size has sneakily decreased downwards from 1kg. to 750 grams, with little difference evident in the dimensions of the container, except if you are planning to re-use it as a cake tin, where nowadays it is just that little bit too shallow to transport a decent sized Victoria sandwich cake. There is also the issue of the purple ones, my preference, with the hazelnut in the centre; as one of the more expensive ingredients used in the mix they offer, I have noticed that there are fewer of them these days. Mars bars and other similar snack bars have gone the same way. Where once they were keen to ensure we were all buying super sized packs, the size, but not the price, has begun to shrink. The same goes for boxes of cereal and similar foodstuffs, in addition to cosmetics and many other items; the list is endless.
There is of course the argument that too much chocolate is not good for us, but these canny and deceptive operators have been able to establish that there is a price point beyond which, especially for impulse buys, many of us will not go, especially when we have limited funds available.
When it comes to local government and the NHS the situation is pretty much the same. In an effort to ensure that council tax does not increase (a mistake to my mind) something has had to give, and in this case the result is an ever-shrinking service provision and stretched and stressed staff; those that haven’t yet been made redundant. That’s all well and good, and there has to be a general acceptance that we are reaping the results of spending and borrowing beyond our means.
However we were not all irresponsible although we are all suffering as a result; the price we pay for democracy and the concept of shared responsibility.
It is however those without a voice that are likely to suffer the most as the public sector faces increasing pressure from central government to down size. There is a certain point at which the level of cuts can no longer be sustained without irreparable harm to our long-term future.
Whilst it is encouraging to see that the economy appears to be on the up, with house prices showing a slight rise, where will first time buyers find the money to be able to afford to own their home, once the dream of us all?
This, along with the aim for a college or university education, where graduates are unable to find work and get left with huge student loans to pay off, will only serve to foster an increasing sense of disillusionment, and the realisation that when it comes to looking forward to the future, size really does matter when we no longer have the resources or finances to enable our hopes and aspirations to be realised.
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