Interesting piece in today's Observer re the Royal Mail sale. "It is a natioanl disgrce that another great British organisation as the Royal Mail, is to be cast into this maelstrom. The directors of the Royal Mailwill be under the same relentless hammer as those in every other British plc. They will put up prices as much as the regulator will allow, cut into universal provision and contract out as much of the delivery to the lowest paid, least protected workers: none of this will be enough to satisfy the owners. Eventually, the directors, vastly enriched with share options, incentive plans and 200% bonuses, will run up the white flag. Within a decade, the Royal Mail will be sold overseas, probably to another state-owned postal service, if not to a private equity fund based in a tax haven. Who knows? It could even be the Chinese communist party that ends up owning this great British insitution"."You don't need to be a great seer to predict this future. It is exactly what has happened with our privatised water and energy companies. Economists will say the mail service is more efficient, rather as they discussed the way financial deregulation promoted banking efficiency up to the the financial crash of 2008 without ever anticipating the costs of the crash that overwhlemed those gains. By one yardstick, this "efficiency" is guaranteed: the Royal Mail's 150,000 workforce will shrink".Talk about depressing - lessons certainly have not been learned, all in the name of ideology, shameful.
Vanessa Smith ● 4587d