Elizabeth Warren and others are running around blaming inflation on greedy corporations’ “price gouging.” Of course, this narrative falls apart when you realize producer prices are rising faster than consumer prices. If anything, producers are letting consumers gouge them by not passing on all of their rising costs. But the “greedy corporation” narrative is great for politicians. It lets... 

More than a dozen police officers were injured overnight after a riot broke out in the middle of the southwestern German city of Stuttgart. Shops were damaged and looted in the city center. According to police, the unrest erupted around midnight when officers were conducting checks downtown in relation to suspected drug crime. Groups of people began confronting the police “in an extremely aggressive... 

Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior Matteo Salvini is planning a 9 p.m. curfew for “ethnic shops” which attract drunks, drug dealers, and “people who raise hell” at night. The populist-nationalist League (Lega) leader, whose popularity has surged since he joined with the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) to form a eurosceptic, anti-mass migration coalition,... 

Haiti—the Western Hemisphere’s oldest independent black republic—has collapsed into Third World chaos once again as its African population pillaged, burned and vandalized shops in the capital city in ingoing violence despite the government backing down from attempts to raise the fuel price—allegedly the cause of the latest outbreak of unrest. African rioters blocked streets using felled trees... 

Just when you thought it was impossible for surveillance to get any creepier, a company has announced it has created mannequins with cameras installed inside that can be used to spy on shoppers and record their conversations – and that they’ve already been rolled out at numerous fashion stores across the world. The EyeSee mannequin, developed by Italian firm Almax, relies on technology used to... 

We were recently given the news that over 30 retail shops close every day – suggesting that the demise of the High Street is gaining momentum. Many reasons are put forward for this demise but the reason we see so many empty shops is really very simple – and the reason incidentally, I got out of retailing many years ago. That reason being Value Added Tax. VAT is an accountant’s tax and as such,... 

Riot police took to the streets of Spain as protesters burned bins, vandalized shops and attacked officers during a one day nationwide general strike. Spaniards angry with having the eurozone’s highest unemployment rate refused to go to work in protest at further crushing austerity measures being brought in by the new center-right Popular Party government.  Read More »

From 1 January shops will have to stop supplying shoppers with plastic bags A ban on plastic bags is coming into effect in Italy, which has one of the highest rates of consumption of the bags in Europe. The ban begins in shops across Italy on 1 January, with only biodegradable, cloth or paper bags to be offered. Italians use 20 billion plastic bags a year – more than 300 per person. Supporters...