Dan,
A little tale I heard in Shanghai recently, from two of my colleagues there, both in their early 30s.
China as you know has a "one child" policy. What is less publicised is that if you are in the countryside, you can have 2 kids. It also has stopped free education above secondary level.
The two Shanghainese were effectively saying...we have an underclass of peasants. If not now, then later. No-one in the countryside can afford to go to university/get an education. So the "average" is being lowered. They'll always be peasants, and the few in the cities will get fed by them. (let's not imagine the long term consequences of that...)
On leaving the office that afternoon, one driver nearly knocked an old dear off her bike, as he swerved to avoid a brand new, custom colour SL55AMG...
As an aside, we're constantly fed the line that "we" want cheap food, and won't pay for quality - at least that's what we're told here as Tesco and Asda/Walmart cut prices once again. OK, I am not necessarily representative, but I'd rather have quality, fresh, sustainable sourced food than "cheap". No-one asked me
And don't get me started on the Fairtrade issue. It's not Fairtrade so in buying it am I saying "it's cheap and I really don't give a flying fig for the poor Guatemalan and his family who slaved away for nowt so i can get banana's two cents a kilo cheaper"? Surely, all of it should be "fair"...
Oh, and huge problems here right now for the retailers:
Unleaded is likely to go above £1 a litre. Most of their signage, and pumps, are only calibrated to 99.99p per litre. Oh, how we laughed!
