Even More Private Sector Efficiency

The new owners of Royal Mail have stepped up their propaganda today with fresh warnings that they won't be able to deliver your letters after all. Once again they have blamed competition from other mail carriers who, they suggest, have an unfair advantage over them. Apart from the fact that competition is what capitalism is supposed to be all about, why is is that industries taken out of the public sector are such a disaster? We have an energy industry that is so expensive that many OAP's die in Britain from hyperthermia every winter. We have a property rental sector that is so expensive homelessness is now endemic. We have a water industry that is always short of water in a rain-soaked Britain. We have a segmented railway system that is both expensive and unpleasant to travel on. The threadbare arguments that the privatised sector is somehow more efficient and delivers better value for money is patently and obviously untrue. So what has gone wrong? Capitalism as an economic theory has some very compelling arguments and its antithesis - communism - has been left in its dust since 1990. There can be little doubt that capitalism won the central economic argument during the Cold War hands down. After 1990, however, its been pretty much all down hill. The reason for this is not so difficult to find and it lies not with capitalism as such but with the boneheads who run it. Whereas capitalism was once characterised by competition, risk-taking, innovation and a desire to excel, all this has been replaced with a single characteristic - greed. Greed is not usually associated with great intelligence and tends not towards risk-taking but to outright criminality. The capitalist system was once led by great captains of industry, ruthless and often greedy but also men of vision. Now it is being led by the whinging executive who risks none of his own money and bemoans competition while demanding a new form of socialism that protects him from his own stupidity. He demands ludicrously high pay not because he's so good at what he does but because otherwise he'll run away from home. Capitalism has lost its fire and its vigour because it is now being run by a bunch of bean-counters without any real vision and very little real talent. None of this has been helped by a new breed of politician, as greedy as his business counterpart and with as little vision or talent, eager only to trouser the bribes on offer from so-called lobbyists. The system is corrupt and badly needs an overhaul but there are few involved in running it that have enough working brain cells to realise this.

Private Enterprise - The Excuses.

After one year of Royal Mail privatisation it was revealed today that profits are down 6.5%. So, what could possibly have gone wrong? According to the boss Moya Greene its all due to competition from other mail carriers and this threatens the company's ability to deliver across the entire country. Unfortunately Royal Mail was only privatised because the new private owners promised to maintain a country-wide service while their competitors were operating in much the same way a year ago. So what has really gone wrong? Surely it couldn't be down to profits being siphoned off to pay greedy executives and shareholders? Perish the thought. What appears to be happening is the usual special pleading with the newly privatised business hoping for taxpayers money to maintain a service that it swore it could maintain from profits alone. What they are hinting at is for the extension of the new socialism that the banks enjoy - taxpayers money being given to the wealthy to save them from the consequences of their own ineptitude. The railways have been recipients of a similar "helping hand" from the taxpayer ever since they were privatised, but despite this they continue to operate a ramshackle service while charging the highest prices in Europe. This reporter's own local railway service is a case in point. They have recently introduced what they call "The Falling Leaf Timetable". This, the title of the timetable would seem to suggest, is the railway company's answer to that scourge of all rail operators - the dreaded fallen leaf. Essentially the new timetable means that certain trains no longer stop at all the stations along the route despite the fact that they still have to go through them. So how does this help exactly? It also begs the question as to why the service is just as bad during the summer? Unexpected sunshine? Essentially all of this simply illustrates the problem that many private companies suffer from - the over-paid, bone idle and inept executive who's only real talent is getting something for nothing.

Britain's Damp Squib Economy.

The Tories are so pleased with the unimagined strength of their economic "recovery" that they are planning to raise the threshold for Inheritance Tax from £325,000 to £1 million handing the richest people in Britain a nice little bonus for all the hardships they've had to endure. Inflation, the Tories are boasting, is at its lowest level for four years while wages are poised to bounce upwards sometime after the 2015 election as their austerity measures begin to take effect. You might be forgiven, however, if you've failed to notice any improvement yourself. The idea that wages will soon begin to rise remains a vague and improbable prediction based largely on wishful thinking - yours not theirs - while inflation remains stubbornly high in terms of the necessities that families need with food prices set to soar and no end in sight as far as rising energy prices are concerned. Meanwhile the idea that an economic boom is at hand is undermined by the latest batch of redundancies with 900 jobs lost as Solway Foods in Corby closes, Clydesdale and Yorkshire Bank close 28 branches and Royal Mail plans to cut 1,600 jobs. Meanwhile Honda has cut production in Britain by 15% citing the country's weak growth outlook and is looking to shed at least 340 jobs. There can be little doubt that Osborne's policy of austerity is working as planned with money being shovelled out of the pockets of the poor and into the offshore bank accounts of the rich. The news is also good if you happen to have a nice property portfolio as house price inflation continues unabated. For the rest of us, unfortunately, it's yet another round of "we're all in this together" - the smug, selfish and self-serving rich in clover with rest of is in it up to our necks.

Recovery In Britain Still Non-Existant.

Despite the theft of Royal Mail, one of Britain's largest national assets, and George Osborne's efforts to re-inflate the property bubble, the economy remains stubbornly in intensive care. As the Office for National Statistics cannot help but point out manufacturing output is still flat with no discernible improvement over the last six months while the building industry is still in the doldrums. How can this be? In terms of the Royal Mail the reason is easy to see. A national asset that once added value to Britain's overall economy has been flogged off for far less than it was worth to a bunch of already wealthy crooks who have now stuffed their "profits" into the nearest available offshore account. Not only has much of the turnover from this huge industry been diverted into private hands and the money generated taken out of circulation, tax revenues have also fallen as the crooks who gobbled up the shares run off with their tax-free swag. With no improvement in manufacturing and exports Osborne's so-called "recovery" is revealed for what it is - a fairy tale based on a notional belief that house prices have grown, at least in London if nowhere else. The "recovery" is, therefore, restricted to those who own at least two properties, one of which can be sold while the owner lives in the other and one of which happens to be in London. What kind of person has two over-priced houses one of which happens to be in London I wonder? Of course such a person would be even better off if someone else, the taxpayer for instance, had bought both properties for them. But who would fall into this category? Surely not George Osborne, the architect of this "recovery", and his fellow conspirators in the Tory party? What a coincidence! What an unexpected windfall! What a surprise! What a bunch of crooks!

Banks Pocket Billions From Royal Mail Sell Off.

Vince Cable, pictured above with the new £10 stamp, has been defending the obvious scam that he's helped foist off on the British public over the sale of Royal Mail. "This is about more than just the level of proceeds received on day one," he told reporters without explaining what the hell that is supposed to mean. The truth is that shares in Royal Mail were sold for less than a third of their true worth and handed over publicly-owned assets worth at least £10 billion for a measly £3.3 billion. It was certainly the crime of the century - especially for the banks who "advised" the government during the sale. It was they who determined what price that the shares should go for and it was they, having picked up a nice little £17 million fee for their "advice", that greedily gobbled up most of the shares available at the knock-down price. According to the "Guardian" the banks have "strongly denied any of the banks would directly profit from the being allocated shares" since the shares had been "bought to help make money on behalf of clients in the asset management divisions". The fact that these "clients" were mainly hedge funds owned by those same banks is, apparently, neither here nor there. The government, it would seem, has not gone to any great lengths to obscure this obvious fraud but, then again, they don't have to. Such a theft of publicly-owned assets is perfectly legal according to the laws they have framed for their own convenience while the dubious morality of such a thing is hardly of great concern to such an accomplished bunch of crooks, spivs and conmen. As usual, though, it is the British public who will lose and who will lose even more as mail services are cut to the bone, wages for mail workers are slashed and prices climb ever higher to feed the insatiable greed of executives, shareholders and, of course, the banks.

Tories Place Value On Their Latest Fraud.

The Tories are salivating at the amount of money they and their multinational pals hope to glum out of their latest scam. The sale of Royal Mail is expected to raise up to £3.3 billion in a three-step plan that the Tories hope will cover their tracks and avoid charges of fraud. In the first instance shares will be offered to "the public" - those who already own the organisation - although they will have to buy at least £700 of shares in order to avoid inadvertently selling any of them to those without substantial savings. These people, whom the Tories fervently hope will be mainly Tory voters, are then confidently expected to sell on their shares at a reasonable profit to multinational companies. With the shares now safely in the hands of a bunch of crooks the Tories can then look forward to some nice juicy "donations" from their grateful mates who will be free to rob the public blind in order to fill their already bulging offshore accounts. Thus at least part of the £3.3 billion will find its way into the Tory party coffers in what amounts to the money laundering of public money. With a straight face Business minister Michael Fallon told the BBC that the six-day-a-week delivery, or "universal service", was "completely protected". In other words the Royal Mail, or whatever its new name will be, will be "too big and too important to fail" and, while profits will be privatised, any losses will be nationalised with the taxpayer as the "bank of last resort." Sweet.

Royal Mail Executives Stuff Their Pension Funds With Taxpayers Money.

In anticipation of the Tories sell off of yet another publicly owned industry the executives at Royal Mail are already stealing taxpayers money to line their own pockets with. Having already stolen £19 million to pad out their pension pots in December they then stole another £20 million in March as well as "negotiating" a further £10 million of extra cash every year until 2018. All in all they have effectively nabbed a cool £90 million of our money while rank-and-file workers have been forced to accept reduced pension rights. We asked a Royal Mail spokesman for an explanation; "The trouble with ordinary working class people is that they simply don't understand high finance. This is not theft in the accepted sense. I like to think of it in terms of an anticipation of bonus payments for all the hard work involved in the forthcoming privatisation. This involves such difficult decisions as how to get rid of unionised staff in order to cut costs, how to avoid paying out redundancy payments unless those being made redundant are executives and which offshore bank to stuff all our bonuses in order to avoid paying tax. I'm surprised that we don't get more sympathy from the public who must surely know that we're worth every penny we can get our hands on. I urge everyone to buy shares in Royal Mail so that we have access to even more cash. After all you don't want to miss out on buying something that you already own now do you?"

Tories Looking Forward To Bumper Crop Of Backhanders.

The Tories are drooling tonight over their latest scam, the privatisation of Royal Mail, and the "donations" they expect to receive from grateful "investors". "I can't believe that we're going to get away with this shit again," an anonymous Tory party spokesman told our reporter. "The electorate in this country really are as stupid as we've always hoped they are. Swindling the British public is child's play - it's a bit like shooting fish in a barrel. By this time next year stamps will cost £10 a pop and we've already begun to think about legislation that will force people to use the post whether they want to or not. I particularly like the idea that children will have to be posted to their school every morning and rail and bus passengers will soon be regarded as freight. It's a dream come true and we're looking forward to an increase in backhanders from the various crooks and spivs who'll be getting yet another national asset for next to nothing. Mind you we fully expect this little £3 billion scam to pale into insignificance when compared to the privatisation of the NHS next year. That will be deal of the century - for us and our crooked mates at any rate. People often talk about "rip off Britain", but they haven't seen anything yet."