From Wake Up New Zealand (source, ZeroHedge)

Do you ever get the sense that your favorite steak at that Quick Service Restaurant of your choice keeps getting thinner and thinner all while your check size at the end of the night continues getting larger and larger. Well, it is.

How else are publicly traded chains going to continue to deliver margin growth to wall street in the midst of rising labor costs, rising commodity costs and shrinking customer traffic?

Related: Shrinkflation – Real Inflation Much Higher Than Reported

As a study in the U.K. just revealed, shrinking portion sizes among food manufacturers is actually way more common than you might think and you probably never even noticed it. In fact, according to data from the Office for National Statistics, over 2,500 consumer products in the U.K. shrunk in size over the past five years despite being sold for the same price.

But it’s not just food manufacturers that are shrinking portions while maintaining price as many consumers goods items from chocolate to coffee to toilet paper are all experiencing the same trends.

READ AT THE LINK

http://www.wakeupkiwi.com/news-articles-93.shtml#Shrinkflation

Photo: Wake Up New Zealand

Our local District Council Building in the Horowhenua currently has large cracks in the basement which the previous powers that be said were perfectly safe. The new Mayor has requested a third report to cover the possibility it is not safe. And here we have more evidence of the darker side of the industry. Again, profits override all else.
EnvirowatchRangitikei

Opportunist builders, dodgy steel and shonky standards create new building crisis ‘worse than leaky homes’

Take a building inspector through the soon-to-be city of Flat Bush in Auckland’s south-east, and watch his hackles rise.

He shakes his head and laments the state of building in New Zealand today. He picks his way through Double Happiness cigarette boxes, jagged bricks sticking out of mud, broken bottles, twisted steel mesh to tut tut at wonky flashings. He – Gerard Ball from Babbage Consultants – notices walls are out of plumb and that polystyrene, plastic bags, and chip packets have drifted into nearby streams.

“Every single building on this street raises red flags for me,” Ball says. “If builders don’t give a damn about what’s visible to the eye, how can they be trusted to properly do things they know can be covered up?”

Employee itinerancy and a lack of professional pride within the construction industry have led to an era dubbed worse than the leaky building crisis.

“It’s a self-destructive industry,” says Ball. “Why bother getting trained if you can leap into a job straight away? Why bother impressing the boss with your work ethic when you’re not dependent on him for your next job? Why bother making a decent job of things when stretched councils don’t have time to inspect thoroughly anyway?”