Do you think computers have made the UK less efficient?

i hope to god something takes me out before i get that bad …..

I think he has mild Parkinsons too he shuffles rather than walks.

It starts off mild and can remain so for many years but will in time get worse if it is parkinsons. The first symptom to manifest itself is usually tremors, especially in the hands. But you can easily find out all the symptoms via a google search. Has he been diagnosed? If not he should get it checked out because the symptoms can be treated.

I just got back from Hampstead. Nice place is Hampstead. There are so many specialist food shops. One such shop just did fish. The fish was expensive, but I noticed none of it was discounted, so that indicated to me it was worth a punt. It turned out to be the most divine fish I had come across in many years and often only available in the best restaurants, so for what we paid we were well happy.  The rule of thumb here is if you select those who do not play these games then you can be pretty sure you are dealing with a firm that competes on the product. The owners certainly knew their fish. I can't say the same for those supermarket buyers. 

at said to me it was worth a punt. 

There is high quality food (which is expensive) and then there is adequate quality food. the sort of groceries served up in supermarkets are adequate.

However, people are overwhelmingly eating convenience food. You can see this with the relative size of the sections in supermarkets.

The thing is these days it is rare to see someone do something all right. That little fish shop was doing it all right and running a good business. I the customer am free to spend my money as I like. I see it as rewarding those who do what I want. I used to use a scam mobile provider called O2 which charged me £1.50 for trying to phone a mobile which was switched on and within a few hundred yards, but the system decided it could not make a connection and replayed a message that I was charged this money for. The phone failed me and ripped me off over 100x the going rate. I'm the kind of guy who hates these bastards who run companies like O2. It's like it is against my religion to pay crooks, and I would rather go without the convenience (?) if I feel it is rewarding them to steal. I had the complete opposite feeling in the shop that impressed me. I felt it was good to reward them, and like you pay a tip in a restaurant if the service is good, I honour good work. 

Anyway, this is one principle out of the book of capitalism and another one is paying for expertise. A capitalist firm adds value to their products by expertly aiding the customer to match requirements to market availability. This is a big potential cause of inefficient where a bad firm supplies the customer with a product that does not suit their requirements and then it does not matter how great the product is intrinsically, if it won't do the job that it is required to do, and then the other way this can manifest is a product that over specifies on requirements. I mean from the perspective of the firm supplying ill-fitting products this is more often than not deliberate dishonesty with firms using unintelligent systems of sales targets which is not the same thing as overall financial efficiency targets. Sure you could argue the firm will make more sales and so more money, but the customer will get stung, and if the customer is intelligent the customer will remember the firm that did that and blacklist them to punish them. Through the capitalist customer blacklisting a dishonest firm it is saying effectively, you ripped me once so it is more probably you will rip me again. It often does not stop there because the ultra-capitalist customer mind also thinks I'll warn all my friends of this dodgy firm so they never get bitten in the first place and that increases financial efficiency a great deal more. A bent firm would simply be unable to survive in that economic climate and go bust. They would free up potentially good staff to go and get employed by a firm which believes in financial efficiency and treats their customers in the same way as if they were in their shoes, hence building a lasting relationship in good trade. 

So you tell me most people can't afford fine food which is in fact a great deal healthier than the stuff laced with hazardous chemicals. The burning question is why. Having explained the principles of capitalism above you need to ask, are these poor people following the rule book or not. If not then that's your answer. 

By the way, I do personally agree with you regarding Aldi. I would say they are more closely practicing capitalism than the previous dominant supermarkets we have had. They are benefitting from it, but its the long game they have played. Yes I would give them my custom, and to a capitalist your custom is the greatest of compliments. It means more than words alone can ever mean. People who have regularly used their services are people who have more money now than they would have had if they had gone to alternatives and have noticed by now, so at long last they spread the good news as you have done. They say reputation takes a lifetime to earn and a moment to destroy. 

It's all a matter of the relative. The food you can find in  supermarket is typically fine - so long as you steer significantly away from convenience 'foods' and opt instead to buy actual food.

Yes - high quality food is better, but many people are at the moment eating stuff that isn't even really food at all.