Pay tax

Starbucks was dragged to the pillory. Amazon and Google followed close behind. One does not raise much public sympathy with trying (very successfully) to avoid paying tax. I don't think they should; they earn money enough. If they suddenly would abandon the tax havens and whatever else they have that keeps their money away from Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, the management top might not trouser the plethora of millions they do now, but I don't think they would get into such financial trouble they would have to fire people. And I think they should. Pay tax, I mean; not fire people.

Do they listen to me? Well, in an incremental way. If I don't buy their products and don't use their services I'm doing my part. With Starbucks that's easy; I rarely get my coffee there anyway. Amazon and Google are more difficult. I'm using Google right here! And Amazon; I used to buy lots of stuff from them. I tried the past week not to. And then you notice how accustomed you are to them. I, for instance, wanted a case for one of my hard disks. Amazon sells good and reasonably priced ones. I thought I'd try elsewhere.

 From the Amazon website

The nearest shop in office paraphernalia does not sell hard disk cases according to its website. The nearest electronics specialist has some, but they're not very much to my liking. Where else do you buy that stuff? Googling (oh dear!) didn't reveal much. Neither did walking through town.

I found another online shop that had something that looked good and wasn't particularly expensive. We'll see! If I have to search that hard every time I'll lose more than HMRC gains...