Squeezing Every Last Penny From Out of The Big Issue Vendors. By Uncle Monty.

Squeezing Every Last Penny From

Out of The Big Issue Vendors.

Story By Uncle Monty.

Street Photos By Alex Albion.

~~~

And so it came to pass yet again at The Big

Issue at where its street vendors have no say

whatsoever about whatever it decides to im-

pose upon them, in whatever name or excuse it

can find to justify, for example, its latest and

arbitrary 5 pence increase in the wholesale price

of the magazine per copy to those badged vendors

on the cold, poor, and hard streets of the UK.

~~~

As stated elsewhere, 5 English pence, in and of

itself, won't buy you peanuts!! But, when the

wholesale price of The Big Issue was increased to its

vendors by 5p per copy a week ago last Monday the

amount of gain and sheer profit by The Big Issue is

staggering and almost mind-boggling no matter if such

harms whatever its own street vendors may

otherwise make for themselves.

~~~

At that 5p increase per copy at a 149,000 weekly circulation

at say 50 weeks, The Big Issue itself stands to rake in another

£360,000- per annum in pure profits at least and, of course,

at the cold expense and reduced financial gain of its own

nationwide street vendors scattered far and wide across
the mindless socialist face of the UK. If ever the term

"Champagne Socialism" bore an ugly face, then the movers

and shakers behind The Big Issue come out screaming

like mad at you ... and at its victimized vendors!!!
~~~

LSE's Beverly Brittan:

Long-Time Big Issue Buyer.

~~~
What The Big Issue has really done is to make-up for its loss of

donations and gifts by now putting the onus on its vendors to help

make-up for its lost profit margins at The Big Issue itself. While at

the same time, the vendors are being screwed out of whatever tiny

profit margin they may make. When the magazine was at retail

$1.40, most vendors got an extra 60p for themselves when cus-

tomers gave them two quid and told them to keep the change.

~~~

When the Big Issue then went retail to £1.50 at Xmas before last,

they got then only 50p extra if those same customers gave again

two quid. Now, the most they would make is 45p extra for the

same amount. My tiny profiit margin, like for most of my fellow

Big Issue vendors, is once again reduced due to the 5p per copy

increase. In my case, I will also now be forced to give The Big Issue

an extra £100- to £150- per annum to buy my usual weekly stock.

What that means is that I am forced to pay more, but get less

and less in my own pocket. What it also means for many

vendors is that they'll have less money to buy perhaps

needed food and they will have to spend longer hours on the

streets to meet The Big Issue's latest wholesale price increase.

Does The Big Issue really care? HELL NO!! Its bottom line is

always more money for those at the top and less and less for

those at the bottom that happens to be their

own street vendors.

~~~

Over the course of a year, I will automatically lose £100- to £150-

quid in profit because the Big Issue will now get what would have

been profit for me. Usually, I buy 50 copies per week, but because

of poor summer business and with the economy so generally very

poor, I have had to cut back to only 40 copies per week. Sales have

been pretty dicey despite the glowing letters in The Big Issue itself

declaring how some folkz are now buying the magazine for the first

time after seeing the BBC-TV program "Famous, Rich and Homeless."

Yet, I had at least two customers who said they would never buy

The Big Issue again, if it wasn't for me, after watching the same

program! They were disgusted! And, so was I. The rhetoric and

reality of The Big Issue PR spin is spinning out of control even

worse than New Labour's socialistic non-stop pychobabble!
~~~
From "The Faces of Homelessness."

By Uncle Monty. Photos By Alex Albion. ~~~
But above all, the latest wholesale price increase by The Big Issue to

its street vendors couldn't have come at the worst time for them nor

could it have picked a worst time during Britain's ongoing economic

downturn that hits the vunerable homeless to almost breaking point.

At the best of times, the majority of vendors are cash-strapped.

What The Big Issue has now done is not only to compound their

poverty situation but to also treat them so callously and curtly.

Beware then of the cosy rhetoric versus the cruel reality

against the homeless by The Big Issue.

~~~

The 75p profit for the vendor, when he or she sells a copy of The

Big Issue, is in reality nothing but chicken feed. In order to make say

a lousey £75.00 per week, he or she must now sell at least 100 copies

to the public. That's one hell of a weekly task to achieve for most of my

fellow vendors that I have known on the streets from over the past

4 or so years. Any vendor who says he or she sold 100 copies in say

a day is either living in Cockooland or was damn lucky for a change.

What is needed for such vendors is a sharp increase of profit for

their own pockets and not solely for their ecomonic slave

masters at London's Big Issue HQ at Vauxhall.

~~~

The Big Issue needs to be priced and sold at £2.00 per copy

from its present retail price of £1.50. Such would then give the

vendors another 50p profit for themselves and would encourage

vendors to sell more since he or she will rightly make more profit

and money to add to their own pocket and support. The danger,

of course, is the ever-present greed of The Big Issue which might

then want to up the wholesale price yet again because its vendors

are making just alittle bit more money and profit out of such a retail

price increase. All I can say, it's about time for heaven sake's to

give the vendors a break for a change!! Stop exploiting them by

squeezing every last penny from out of The Big Issue vendors.
~~~

British Cops Doing Yet Another

"ID" on a London Rough Sleeper.

Britain has now become a nation of hunters

hunting down the imaginary or real hunted.
~~~
Home Counties Big Issue Street Vendor.

In my own case as a badged vendor, I will now be forced,

let me repeat myself again, to pay at least another 100 to 150

quid more per annum to buy my usual weekly stock. That is a

loss of 100 to 150 quid in profit for me set against the prevailing

national economic downturn in the UK and the already

declining level of street sales due to low summertide trade and

ever-shifting customer base. While most businesses are cutting

back due to the negative state of the national ecomony, The Big

Issue’s only answer has been to sock it to their own vendors by

increasing the wholesale cost to their already strapped vendors.

This they are doing right at the worst time of the continuing

economic downturn and recession that is hurting the vunerable

vendors even more so than the general public.

~~~

I believe one of the real reasons for the lastest wholesale price

increase is to offset, at the vendors' expense, the substantial

drop in corporate and private donations to The Big Issue.

British and American charities across the board have been

hit badly be the ongoing decline of business and private

giving. In Britain, many charities are crying over each

other and their substantial loss of revenues, which in the

past they have recklessly squandered by sheer misman-

agement and outrageous misinvestment. Plus, there are

simply too many charities in England at where almost any

Tom, Dick or Harry can start another charity at the blink

of an eye! While I love all animals, how many dog and cat

charities, for example, do we really need? As for homeless

charities, their function seems to be more in line with keep-

ing their own charity and staff gainfully employed more

than in resolving the pressing issue of ever-increasing

homelessness. The business of homelessness is a growth

enterprise, much like the business of poverty, at where

billions of dollars have been ploughed into poverty

charities and their well-paid activists who seem to

mainly sit pretty while the grimness of poverty

and homelessness seems to be barely touched.

~~~

I understand, too, that The Big Issue has cut back on hiring

new staff. It has seen sales reduction of inserts and declining

donations, while the magazine has expanded to 11 full pages of

advertising in its 46-page issue of No. 856. It was in that same

issue, like a bullet to the the vendor's head, which announced

the following: "As of this week Big Issue vendors will buy the

magazine from us for 75p and sell it to you (the customer)

for £1.50, making 75p profit on each copy. This slight in-

crease in the price paid by vendors has been necessary

to cover rising costs and to secure the long-term future of

the services we offer." I see! So at only a "slight" increase

of £360,000 (or over half-million US dollars) in new

profits per annum for The Big Issue? Bollocks!!

~~~

The vendor has now been forced to become a gang-

pressed donor or giver, right? You bet! In my own case,

I am now forced to give The Big Issue another 100 to 150

quid more per annum for the mere pleasure of selling its

magazine. That in other words is money and profit taken

from me in the name of absorbing "rising costs and (to)

secure the long-term future of (The Big Issue) services ...,"

so we're flatly informed in the No. 856 issue without any

warning of such until that issue came out a week

ago last Monday.

~~~

And, what real services are they talking about? A

twopenny free haircut for vendors at their Vauxhall

H.Q. on a Saturday morning? Or having some young

college kid visiting your pitch to see if you're in need

of something like housing or hostel placement or

opening a bank account? I've yet to fathom out what

actual services The Big Issue really provides other

than alot of fancy rhetoric and clever spin and

even open show biz!!!
~~~

London Big Issue Vendor on The Strand.

~~~

Also on The Strand is Steve, perhaps unique

as Big Issue vendors go. He entertains his

customers so well at close to the famed

Trafalgar Square almost daily. At Xmas, he

becomes a first class Santa. Bravo, to him!!!

.Then we have above this young lad Michael Otterway at age 12, who stopped by last week at my Long Acre pitch to declare he was a first-time buyer of The Big Issue with his mom beaming at him and me! Obviously a very bright lad and he spoke much like he was a prep schoolboy rather than just some run of the mill British state school ignoramus that are all too common thesedays in today's "Broken New Britain." Welcome to my customer list, Michael!!
~~~
Uncle Monty With Two Nice "Nuns."
~~~
The Big Issue is oftentimes Back-to-Front, literally.
I may be back to add more comments regarding the ongoing situation of the street vendors now caught up in the latest profit squeeze against them by The Big Issue. In the meantime, I'll leave you with this item I discovered on the internet just yesterday:

:: Open Letter To John Bird of The Big Issue ::
And one last final thought. Why don’t you offer a stake in your (Big Issue) venture to all the homeless people who register to sell you magazine on the streets? That might make them feel that they are part of something big, that they are not alone anymore. And that would be a good thing, wouldn’t it? Yours faithfully, Alexander Nekrassov.

http://www.stirringtroubleinternationally.com/2008/04/25/open-letter-to-john-bird-of-the-big-issue/

Return soon, Uncle Monty. +William Wilberforce, 2oo9.

Historic Images. By Alex Albion.

My love for historic and esoteric photographs
exceeds all of my love for all things of modern
photography. Sometime in the coming future,
I may present a small selection of some of the
rare images that I have collected over the past
few years on my travels here and there.
The above rare historical image of two Russian
sailors of circa 1895 is a photographic gem, aside
from being perhaps rather all too gay for my person-
al taste. Nevertheless, such is a classic photo of the
late 19th century "studio photography" that was
very popular and widespread at that time both
in New America and Old Europe.
~~~

:: Welcome To Ugly "Broken New Britain" ::

More than 58,000 English boys phoned the NSPCC charity in 2007/8 with problems ranging from loneliness to violent abuse. Most calls to ChildLine are from girls - but during the past five years the proportion made by boys rose from one in every five to one in every three. Boys are most likely to call about bullying, with 12,568 cases last year. Head of ChildLine Sue Minto said: "Desperate boys call because they feel they have no-one to turn to. It's heartbreaking to hear their stories of rape and violent beatings, often by their parents."

~ ~ WHY BOYS RING CHILDLINE ~ ~
The most common concerns of boys calling in 2007/8:
Bullying, 12,568 calls - Physical abuse, 6,403 calls
Family problems, 6,016 calls - Facts of life, 5,362 calls
Sexual abuse, 4,780 calls - Sexuality, 3,510 calls
Loneliness, 1,817 calls - Rape, 1,803 calls

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{Click above on any image to Enlarge}
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