Is greed slowing progress for the economy?

This is a question i've found myself asking more and more often recently and i think i'm slightly afraid of what the answer might well be, even if there's excuses for what that answer could be.

For a loooooong time now as we've known here in the UK and to an extent, in the US too... certainly in places in europe, our economy's are in meltdown. Political people claim to be setting the seeds for a better economy tomorrow, but when is tomorrow going to become today and what is slowing progress.

This is what draws me to the question about big companies.... are they swallowing up the money and making the best out of a bad situation?

You see, like today, my friend went off to KFC to go and get some food, now based on prices for those same items 4 years ago, the price has gone up, infact doubled in some cases, yet the product has remained the same and the cost of buying in the product hasn't gone up much too. Fair enough, the costs of running a KFC has, like paying for the water, gas, electric, staff etc... but not that much.

KFC itself does generate ALOT of profit, infact profit wise, it beats it's main bit of competition mcdonalds hands down. While mcdonalds may make more money, once everything has been paid for, KFC are left with more profit.

But this is exactly the problem you see. KFC has fallen victim (not in a major way) to having to lay staff off and not hire in new ones where needed, because they "cannot afford to", yet the profit margines have rarely dipped, because of the recession.

Where exactly IS this profit going?

While i dread to think it, it is very possible that the money ends up in either an off-shore bank account, gathering interest and dust OR is going into the back pocket of a very happy man (or woman).

The government here in the UK don't seem to be doing much in the way of investing in what people need.... jobs, but at the same time, neither do these big companies.

Put simply, Costa coffee (a coffee shop chain for anyone who doesn't know) advertised 8 new jobs only a few weeks ago, they recieved well over 1,100 applications from different people who are looking for work. We, as a country are desperate to get back into work and start earning more money, to put the great back into britan. Yet where are these jobs? Where's the boss who takes a risk, gives people jobs when times are bad and gets thanked for it when the times are good?

It'd seem no-where and i'm starting to get bored of it all now. While i do understand that the country's finances are in a mess and that times are to be tough for a while, i am starting to grow bored at the lack of progress we're seeing here. Told about this defecit that we're to pay back, otherwise the country's finances grow worse.... you know what? After 3 years, how bad do you expect my finances to be?

Grrr!!!

The offers i've had over the past few months of working in other contries are unbelieveable, but stupidly tempting at the moment. While progress is slow, i'm growing more and more tempted to take people up on these offers....