You know what really grinds my gears? The Gears Strike Back

We have just been told at work there is major steel and copper shortages……
That’s going to be fun

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That’s been going on for a while. The price of steel/stainless/aluminium/brass etc has been going massively up in the last 12 months. Some of our orders at work that we used to be able to do next-day are trading s couple of weeks. Body nightmare…

Had to re-price lots of work too which has upset some customers :grimacing:

Plastics, timber, shipping, and electronics have all royally screwed my industry. Some distributors are on their 4th price increase since March. And that’s just the ones I know of and doesn’t include bespoke items that are priced per job.

Even the big DIYers have reached a point where they can’t absorb the cost prices increases for much longer

The price for copper will continue going up fast for a long while they need it in larger quantities for the move to electric vehicles.

And now we reap the rewards for destroying our manufacturing base in this Country.

Congratulations every Govt since 1945.

And let’s not forgot who controls most of the lithium ion battery production… The very same country who are dominating global trade through warehousing shipping containers!

Their economic modelling at the moment is on fire!

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Yes, but do you think people will care how they make the batteries etc as they strip the earth bare doing so….

Nope. Nor the amount of pollutants generated in unregulated factories in downtown China simply in the making of their EV!

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Hence this: Hydrogen power offers jobs boost, says government - BBC News

Surely if we had a strong manufacturing base still, we’d be just as ducked? If not more, because we’d have more manufacturers struggling for resources.

Possibly.
But also, we might have better supply chains as a result.

Arguably, because we haven’t been building anything, and have had to import almost everything, the supply chains WERE more than capable.

It’s just broken globally because the containers are all in the wrong places, and the container companies are seemingly not competing against eachother and keeping prices high.

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GMG is the entire conveyancing industry partying like it’s 1812. I can’t wait until they are all replaced with artificial intelligence.

I thought we’d get a better experience this time as we are paying a premium for what was sold as a better service, but they still won’t answer the phone :angry:

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That’s the legal industry in August. Everyone’s on holiday, especially the judiciary. Less judges working, means less cases can be booked into court those weeks, so lawyers go on holiday.

It’s a great time to be a junior lawyer, you get to do the work that is on, and it’s usually above your usual pay grade as well.

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Not really grinding my gears but making me really sad is the death of Sean Lock. He would regularly make me cry with laughter.

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Whattttttt??? Jeez, I didn’t know that! :cry:

although the Govt is not blameless, neither do they own the manufacturing business…it is the CEOs etc who do and it is their decision to close sites in the UK and move manufacture elsewhere, often due to cheaper labour and /or other costs.
the Got can be held accountable for the country having “high” labour rates due to a successful economy, but they can’t be accused of being at fault of destroying manufacturing because of it

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My work’s HR department.

Loved his sense of humour, and always made me laugh.

Such a sad day. My thoughts go out to his family, and to his fans. Taken too soon.

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