The banks and supermarkets (and I'm sure I can get the Government to fit in here somewhere): what do they have in common?
Extensive product lines, high volume of sales and low individual service. Supermarkets and banks have grown to an extent where their customer service has fallen behind and the shopping experience can be less than perfect, to say the least.
Superstores' economies of scale ensure they offer the cheapest price on beer and, for some of us, price and convenience is worth the absence of good customer service.
The banks and supermarkets are always boasting high profits — Tesco this week boasted a £3.54bn pre-tax profit — 11.3% up year on year, although UK profits dipped slightly.
The banks will not generally lend to the pub sector unless you have a pub that has virtually no outgoings and a £1m profit. Even if you find a bank to lend money to you or extend your overdraft it will charge you over the odds for the privilege.
Who created the economic problems in the world? Not the pubs but the banks, but who now has to suffer and who is still making huge profits? Something wrong there, I think.
The supermarkets simply want to sell alcohol continually at a loss, although they will try and tell you different. We all know the facts behind the loss leaders in supermarkets, but the Government still appears to have its blinkers on.
Legislation is continually being drafted and re-drafted to attempt to tackle the problems of alcohol abuse, but do we ever see anything being done to hinder the day-to-day running of supermarkets?
Instead, the pub seems to be swimming against the tide with a barrage of new measures coming in 2012 that could potentially cost the industry hundreds of thousands of pounds, as well as seeing many well-run establishments having to decrease their hours through no fault of the premises.
Come the revolution, supermarkets will sell alcohol at a reasonable, sensible, responsible price and banks will look after pubs and charge correct fees for their services.