Dead city

I went shopping yesterday for a laptop in Liverpool city centre. I only found 1 shop that sold computers! That shop was Dixons.They only had a selection of 2 laptops around the £500 range. I searched the whole city centre. I find this astounding, but it is not the first time that I have noticed the absolute lack of choice or competition in English towns and cities. If I had wanted to buy sport shoes or tracksuits or get a perm or spray on tan I would have had no problem. There is also only 2 travel agents, 4 mobile phone companies, 1 camera/camera repair shop.All towns are full of the same shops- Topman,Boots,Hmv,Virgin,Marks,Woolworths,Whsmith,Mcds,Argos.The average city centre could fit into 1 shopping mall in Hong Kong, maybe not enough to fill Ocean Centre or Pacific Place. The big companies have taken over-Lock Stock and Barrel.There is no choice, no competition,no character.
I find it incredible that Liverpool does not have a computer shop, or computer repair shop. most of the electrical chains here sell extended warranties with their products, for example; a 3 year warranty costing £100 can be bought with a TV costing £150! The consumer has no choice, nobody can repair the tv when it breaks down the day after the 1 year warranty runs out.
When i do eventually buy a laptop the only software preinstalled nowadays is windows XP. Word needs to be bougseparatelyely-at extortionate prices, as does any other software which makes the computer perform the baminimummum expected of it in 2006.
This is really the price we pay fglobalizationion, dead cities, and no competition.
Those Wto protesters may actually have a point.
I should be able to buy cheap Chinese nobrand computers here in Liverpool, and fill it with imitation-not copy software from India.
I cannot see the European economies continuing to flourish with such stale markets, a nice big recession-1930's style is needed to liven things up a bit.