Royal Mail to be Privatised....

[Aictos]

What experts were these? As far as I'm aware hardly anyone saw it coming, and governments from the US to Germany and France didn't exactly do much before it hit either.



I agree that cuts needed to be made, however I think it is very risky to start cutting when we are just on the road to recovery. There has been a lot of talking about a double-dip recession, and looking at things such as house prices and inflation it looks more and more like it is going to happen anyway.

The problem is where the cuts are - there was a report last week that showed areas such as the North West, North East and Yorkshire will be less resilient to the cuts than others - mainly due to the fact that these areas are more dependent on the public sector. Why are they so dependent on the public sector? Because when Thatcher was in power she destroyed the traditional industries and sold off the rest - and what replaced them? Public sector jobs - not much private investment around. Even when Nissan decided to locate at Washington it was only because they got tax breaks and free rent for a certain amount of time to sweeten the deal. Plus now of course the RDAs are getting scrapped, even though One North East has done a hell of a job getting more private investment into the region, but still gets erased.

What you'll find is that when these public sector jobs go, you'll have thousands on the dole and there will be no jobs for them at all, so we'll be paying people to sit on their arses when they could have been doing something useful, and paying taxes as well. I hardly see the likes of Tesco and Asda and the like creating as many jobs such as that - plus most jobs created go to foreign workers anyway as they are cheaper to employ.

Bank chief: 'I warned PM on bank collapse'
Jason Beattie, Evening Standard
6 November 2007, 4:46pm

Gordon Brown was dragged into the Northern Rock row today after the Bank of England revealed it had lobbied for legislation which could have prevented the crisis.

The Bank's Governor Mervyn King said he had pressed 'pretty hard' for new laws to protect investors in the event of a banking collapse and stressed the Government needed to act with 'some urgency'.

His comments raise questions about whether Mr Brown should shoulder some of the responsibility for this summer's run on Northern Rock.

It is understood the Bank of England had called for legislation when Mr Brown was still Chancellor and long before the Northern Rock disaster this September.

Mr King implied that if the Government had acted it could have prevented the first run on a bank in Britain for 150 years.

The Governor also shone the spotlight on present Chancellor Alistair Darling's role in the crisis, revealing he had made the decision not to grant a rescue bid by Lloyds TSB.

Shadow chancellor George Osborne said Mr Darling now faced two serious questions: 'First, why did he and the Prime Minister ignore the recommendations of the Governor of the Bank of England to introduce new legislation that could have prevented the run on Northern Rock?

'Second, why did he reject the approach from LloydsTSB that would have averted the crisis?'

In a lucid analysis of why Northern Rock had come unstuck, Mr King said the Bank should have tried harder to make sure 'people understood and took account' of the warnings it made 'in the years leading up' to September's crisis.

Asked what else the Bank would have done differently, he replied: 'We would have pressed even harder than we did - and we did press pretty hard - to inject some urgency into the need for new legislation to enable there to be a procedure for pre-emptive intervention in banks in the form of deposit insurance.'

He said such a 'facility' would have been 'very attractive'.

'If we had had that power that is something I'm sure we would have exercised... because that would have prevented a retail run on the bank. We don't have that power in Britain and we need it,' he told the BBC's File On 4.

He said the Chancellor made the final decision not to support an attempt by Lloyds TSB to take over Northern Rock bank shortly before the scale of its exposure to the American subprime crisis was exposed. Talks broke down after Lloyds demanded a £30bn Bank of England loan at competitive rates as part of the deal.

Mr King said Britain's financial system remains at risk of further Northern Rock-style shocks. He said it would be 'several more months' before banks would be able to return to normal after the American sub-prime mortgage crisis. 'I think most people expect that we have several more months to get through before the banks have revealed all the losses that have occurred, and have taken measures to finance their obligations that result from that, but we're going in the right direction.

'There is always, in a period like this, the possibility that a shock from outside the UK, might create further fragilities but to some extent there are always risks, there are always fragilities... The situation now is different from that in August, though not without risk.'

A spokeswoman for the Bank of England refused to say when it first started lobbying the Treasury for a change in the law. A Treasury spokesman said: 'The tripartite authorities keep under constant review the range of instruments available to maintain financial stability.

'All were agreed of the need to consider further improvements to legislative framework. Proposals will be taken forward in the next session to achieve this.'

Read more: http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=426017&in_page_id=2#ixzz0zaFT7pSj

 

[Greenback]

Just acomment. I got a letter this morning

Postmark Gatwick 0847pm 13.09.10

Time it arrived 11.00am 14.09.10

Why privatise the Royal Mail? Leave well alone I say.

ow nice to see some positive recognition of the postal system!

A real job is one that is paid for out of revenue that comes from people willingly paying for a service.

I have no doubt that most people (aside from the extreme right wingers) would happily pay for a professional fire service, police service, medical service, armed forces, council services etc etc and they do, though not in the conventional way at point of use.

I'd love to see the shambles that would result if these essential services were transferred to the private sector and you had to quote your credit card number before the appliance turned up to deal with a fire in your bedroom! When you look at the mess that some TOC's (FGW, NXEC) have made of running trains, how can one ever hope that private companies can run public services is beyond me.

Of course, there are areas of waste that could be eliminated, and a lot of these are enshrined in well intentioned New Labour legislation, such as the travel plans that every public sector organisation must complete.

Similarly, many people realised that the economic boom was the result of the easy availability of credit and rocketing house prices, and there were plenty of cautionary voices between 2003 and 2007 warning that this was unsustainable. it's probably fair to say, though, that no one foresaw the depth of the crisis and how quickly it woudl run through the entire banking system.

The banking crisis itself was caused by the greed of some of the lenders. They were reckless in lending a lot of money to people who would, realistically, never pay it back. It has been argued that it was the greed of the borrowers that also contributed to the mess, but I would just say that if a parent threw a ton of sweets into a toddlers hands, who would be responsible when the child ate them all in one go and was sick? That is how I see the way the banks bombarded people with offers of money!

 

[Zoe]

It has been argued that it was the greed of the borrowers that also contributed to the mess, but I would just say that if a parent threw a ton of sweets into a toddlers hands, who would be responsible when the child ate them all in one go and was sick? That is how I see the way the banks bombarded people with offers of money!

I really don't get the point of credit at all. It should simply be a case of if you can't afford it then you don't have it. The banks know most people though are materialistic and want what everyone else has and they though they could make money out of the poor by getting them to have these loans.

 

[Aictos]

With privatisation, it would have been better had we gone for the French model and split BR into just two companies, one responsible for services and one responsible for maintenance which would have worked a lot better then the current system besides if the French can get away with it then why can't we? And

As to the Royal Mail, well the service around my area isn't as good as it was pre 1997 as back then you knew who the local postie was and were sure of when to expect the mail and who dressed smartly, now you don't know who the local postie is, when he's likely to come with the mail and comes dressed like he's off on his holidays.

Yes it is a good system but change is needed to make it better then it currently is.

 

[sTEAM Stewart]

I wondered how long it would be before the Conservatives got up to their old tricks and started to Privatise the few British Assests we have left
This smacks of short-term gain, however in the long-term, we'll all pay

Totally agree. When it comes to letter post, there Royal Mail are generally amazing. Yes, there are occasional delays and losses - but considering the staggering volume processed daily that's understandable. Personally I still think first and second class post are a bargain for the service provided.

I couldn't agree more

 

[Greenback]

I really don't get the point of credit at all. It should simply be a case of if you can't afford it then you don't have it. The banks know most people though are materialistic and want what everyone else has and they though they could make money out of the poor by getting them to have these loans.

That was how it used to be, and how it has become again. The banks etc are much stricter now, and will not elnd money unless they are confident that someone is able to repay it.

I have never bought anything on credit, except for the house, and when I do use a credit card I pay it off at the end of the month. Othe rmembers of my family, however, are not so responsible and borrowed to the hilt during the good times...suffice to say they have experienced a great deal of misery and worry over the last couple of years now that the tap has been turned off and people ant their money back!

With privatisation, it would have been better had we gone for the French model and split BR into just two companies, one responsible for services and one responsible for maintenance which would have worked a lot better then the current system besides if the French can get away with it then why can't we? And

As to the Royal Mail, well the service around my area isn't as good as it was pre 1997 as back then you knew who the local postie was and were sure of when to expect the mail and who dressed smartly, now you don't know who the local postie is, when he's likely to come with the mail and comes dressed like he's off on his holidays.

Yes it is a good system but change is needed to make it better then it currently is.

There have been changes in Royal Mail since 1996, not all of which have been driven by the workforce! The new 'uniforms' that were brought in have received a lot of criticism from employees, some of whom would rather not wear poloshirts, baseball caps, tee shirts and shorts! The argument was won, though by the management as the new items are more comfortable to wear while out on delivery (and cheaper!).

It's also not possible to have the same postman all the time now, as duties have been rearranged to ensure that staff no longer have to work six days a week. Again, this has not been without criticism, some staff prefer working more days per week but shroter hours (the opposite to me!) and every delivery office could choose for itself how the changes were implemented.

The result of this has been more switching between rounds, with rotating days off, much as it is on the railway. Most delivery staff now have a long weekend every six weeks, or alternatively , where it was agreed locally to stick with six day weeks, they get a week off every sixth week!

 

[Tom B]

I really don't get the point of credit at all. It should simply be a case of if you can't afford it then you don't have it. The banks know most people though are materialistic and want what everyone else has and they though they could make money out of the poor by getting them to have these loans.

That's a bit short-sighted - should I have not paid rent last month because I was late in getting my paycheque? As it is, I paid it and used credit to do so - which I paid off within a few days.

 

[Greenback]

Well, that's a bit different to taking out every loan that's thrown at you, in order to fund a lavish lifestyle!

Used properly, credit is a useful way to manage your finances!

 

[jimrbrobinson]

Properly managed, credit is a good thing, and a useful tool. It is when credit is abused that the problems occur. Borrowing more than you can afford to pay back is asking for trouble, and that is just what the banks had been doing during the boom-times. When it all crashes though, and there's suddenly not enough money to pay the debts, the pain starts. Unfortunately the banks were not only borrowing too much, they were using a large proportion of that borrowing to lend to others, hence the whole house of cards came crashing down and the global mess that followed.

 

[Zoe]

Well, that's a bit different to taking out every loan that's thrown at you, in order to fund a lavish lifestyle!

Indeed, that's what I was getting at. Remeber 2004 - 2007 when just about every other ad on TV was for a loan?

 

[jon0844]

Loans, in theory, are easy to pay off if you pay a fixed amount each month - and don't accept a top-up loan near the end of the term (another con, just as you were about to pay it off.. they say 'here's £nnn and you just keep up the payments).

What about the credit card companies that offered 0% balance transfers, and got people getting loads of cards and shifting balances around. With a credit card, you can keep spending more - and then they were allowed to reduce the minimum payment to a level that you'd barely cover the interest so would take millions of years to clear the balance.

The last Government allowed that to happen, and even seemed to encourage it as if people who enjoy material goods, holidays, new cars and self-certify to buy larger homes than they could afford are all happy people. Not so happy when the bubble bursts!

 

[Greenback]

Yes, my relative did that too! And the last government didn't discourage it - maybe they knew that the economic prosperity was in fact built on foundations of sand?!

 

[jon0844]

I've spoken to 'economists' who believed you could keep on going seemingly forever, just by continuing to give people credit.

If house prices hadn't shot up by as much as they did, people might just have been able to pay for the loans and credit, but when they started to need £20-30,000 for a deposit on a house and a spare £800-1000 per month for their mortgage, it didn't leave a lot to pay off loans.

And, a LOT of people also took loans to get a deposit for a house too! How stupid was that, but everyone wanted in on the property market.. and every TV programme on Channel 4 or satellite seemed to be saying that buying property (or two properties) was a sound investment. Erm, maybe if you bought in the early 1990s when house prices were low (or, normal) but not the mid 2000s when you'd be banking, literally, on the boom continuing for years.

Anyway, not sure what this has to do with the Royal Mail... to keep on topic, I'm going to reception to see if they've delivered my package from Amazon on time. Was sent yesterday first class, so it better be there!

Update (10pm): It never turned up!

Also; http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/new...-only-privatisation-can-save-our-postmen.html

Never thought I'd agree with Andrew Gilligan but he makes some very good points (and I know that in Sweden, parcels are left at convenience stores that are open until late - to allow you to collect parcels when you get home from work). Not that you'd HAVE to privatise the Royal Mail to do any of this, just shake things up as they are.