Owen Gardiner

A minimum wage of £15 would end my coffee shop, it would have to close, as would many other businesses. I’ll explain for the economically illiterate. Staff costs are currently half our costs, a £15 minimum wage is actually more than £15 an hour for the company, because you have to add: - 12.07% holiday - Sick pay - Maternity pay if and when required - National insurance - Pension contributions These costs would mean the shop loses money because remember, energy costs are up, rates are up, regulations are up. Now you can pass these costs onto the consumer - that would mean charging a lot more for coffee, people won’t pay it. The likes of Starbucks and Costa can, because they have economies of scale. The independent doesn’t. Now the little socialist will say well this is your fault, if you can’t run a business that can afford to pay its staff properly, but the little socialist has never run a business and does not understand the dynamics. Now I could pay some staff off and fill those hours myself or reduce us to one staff member during certain periods - but this proves the point that a minimum wage costs jobs. There was a time when these jobs were done by kids, perhaps on the weekend, paid a lower wage, no holiday and no silly employment rights. Perhaps they were even paid cash. The dynamic worked and small businesses like this could operate. It was also a great first job. Sadly now it isn’t worth employing entitlement youngsters at this level of pay. So alas, I don’t need the stress, the business would close, a number of jobs would be lost. Economics is about understanding these dynamics, no vibes. The cost of living is not solved through passing on inflation to the business, it is solved by ending high inflation and creating prosperity. This is what socialists don’t understand, they can’t create prosperity, they can only destroy it.

🚨 NEW: Jet2 is lobbying the Government to create a national database of disruptive passengers to ban them from all flights

SO WE’RE GETTING ADS ON YOUTUBE PREMIUM NOW??? 😭

this is the best feature Apple has ever invented 😍 THANK YOU apple ✨

Asha Sharma became CEO of Xbox only 2 months ago and she's already done some big things for its customers: - Cut Xbox Game Pass Ultimate from $29.99 to $22.99 per month - Announced Project Helix, the codename for the next-gen console - Rebranded from Microsoft Gaming back to simply Xbox - Scrapped the “This is an Xbox” marketing campaign - Committed to human-crafted games and ruled out low-quality AI content - Boosted direct fan engagement on X with faster responses and updates

Save the date. 4.26.26

The new Xbox logo 🟢

Shoplifting happens somewhere in England and Wales every 62 seconds. The Police don’t stop them. And when a shop worker tries to intervene, they get fired. The shoplifter walks away free. Why have the authorities let it become legal?