Nationalisation: What does it mean?

[milly]

It seems strange that you yourself invest money in these markets when you are such a doom and gloom merchant.
You sound like a tinfoil hat wearing doomsday prepper.
I trust you have an adequate supply of water,tinned food,Gold,guns and ammo.

I do try to save for the future Milly - I don't want to be a wage slave for all of the limited time I have on this Earth. But you are wrong about me investing in the stock market.
No - I find that by far the best way to save is to stick cash under the bed - it says so here ..



....doesn't it ??

So what do you invest in then if you don't invest in the stock market I'm intrigued.

[borgpicard]

Aint gonna happen.

[Judgee]

Pre privatisation RM bosses took a 17 year hiatus on pension payments leading to a government bailout of the pension fund and had way too many managers. It was inefficient but mostly got away with it due to a lack of competition. As soon as the competition turned up (albeit with an unfair market advantage kindly provided by RM thanks to Postcomm) RM struggled.

Privatisation isn't great but being renationalised would not recreate a Utopia that failed to exist in the first place, there were problems. I very much doubt it would return RM to the 'good old days' of being paid for endless amounts of ghost overtime and early finishes.

Renationalising RM is a dead duck, a pointless exercise to win votes but sadly people seem to be falling for it.

[saddlerposty]

id love a return to the 70's, back then I had hair and full set of teeth, beer was 24p a pint, flared trousers used to hide my skinny legs , Tiswas on Saturday morning before going off to the footy and getting involved in trouble( ) drooling over sally james and being able to run around on the pitch before my knees got knackered not giving a toss about fuel prices and manifestos, all I had to worry about was wether Sharon from the next street would come to the disco with me .
HAPPY DAYS.

[Wednesday]

id love a return to the 70's, back then I had hair and full set of teeth, beer was 24p a pint, flared trousers used to hide my skinny legs , Tiswas on Saturday morning before going off to the footy and getting involved in trouble( ) drooling over sally james and being able to run around on the pitch before my knees got knackered not giving a toss about fuel prices and manifestos, all I had to worry about was wether Sharon from the next street would come to the disco with me .
HAPPY DAYS.

Made me smile!!(Although I did have the odd channel change to see Sarah Greene!!)

[jetblack]

Pre privatisation RM bosses took a 17 year hiatus on pension

It was Government owned. And most of the Governments over the last 40 years have been Conservative.

As soon as the competition turned up (albeit with an unfair market advantage)

Could you expand on that point please ?

Privatisation isn't great but being renationalised would not recreate a Utopia that failed to exist in the first place

I don't think those that wish to see Royal Mail renationalised are daft TBH. Rather, we wish to see an industry that is a natural monopoly and an essential part of the communications infrastructure of the nation be owned by the people for the people.

Lets see what you say when the commitment to the USO expires in a few years time

[Judgee]

I think you'll find Labour were in charge for most of those 17 years but you stretch those timelines to suit your needs like all Labour voters seem to enjoy!

Competition turning up? Do I need to spell it out? Were you asleep? The market being opened up to rival firms? Whistl mail and that of our competitors being delivered by us at a loss? Ring any bells?

Never said RM workers were daft, just desperately clinging on to the idea the renationalisation will make everything better. It won't!

As for the USO there is nothing anywhere to suggest Labour will or won't commit to it should they renationalise RM you are clutching at straws.

[jetblack]

Yeah - you are right Judgee - privatisation has been great for Royal Mail and, indeed, us as employees.

Royal Mail being in public ownership would be a nightmare.

[Judgee]

Yeah - you are right Judgee - privatisation has been great for Royal Mail and, indeed, us as employees.

Royal Mail being in public ownership would be a nightmare.

God you really talk tosh sometimes! Can you not read? Do you have some kind of mental issues? I have never said being privatised was good for RM just that nationalisation beforehand wasn't any better and renationalisation will make no difference.

Discussing anything with you is like talking to the crazy lady across the road. No matter what anybody says you only hear/read what you want to hear/read!

If you are going to argue a point, try and argue the point in question not the fictitious one in your head!

[TrueBlueTerrier]

The pensions holiday, from 1990 to 2003 http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/87061/ ... sion-break" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

1987–1992 Conservative Margaret Thatcher (<1990) John Major (1990>)
1992–1997 Conservative John Major
1997–2001 Labour Tony Blair
2001–2005 Labour Tony Blair

So it was tight but 7 years for the Conservatives (and they started it) and 6 years under Labour.

[milly]

Yeah - you are right Judgee - privatisation has been great for Royal Mail and, indeed, us as employees.

Royal Mail being in public ownership would be a nightmare.

God you really talk tosh sometimes! Can you not read? Do you have some kind of mental issues? I have never said being privatised was good for RM just that nationalisation beforehand wasn't any better and renationalisation will make no difference.

Discussing anything with you is like talking to the crazy lady across the road. No matter what anybody says you only hear/read what you want to hear/read!

If you are going to argue a point, try and argue the point in question not the fictitious one in your head!

I have to agree with you about jetblack
As the quote goes "Do not argue with an idiot.He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience"

[jetblack]

According to this article, apart from the UK, Germany is the only other member of the G20 to have a privatised postal service. Also according to the article, which relates the findings of an Oxford Strategic Consulting investigation into the best postal services in the world, the top 5 are all state owned..Its interesting also that the US, Australian and Canadian postal services are in the top five, as all face a much greater geographical and logistical challenge than Royal Mail, serving as it does an overcrowded little island !!

If they can manage it, and we managed it for 500 years, why can't we manage it again ?

There's no-one quite as keen as successive UK Governments at selling off the family silver. We, the citizens of the UK, are looking like the mugs here for allowing this to happen. And we, it would seem, are the exception to the rule.

Must be a lot of folk out there in the big wide world with "cognitive dissonance" I would say

Privatisation has been an unmitigated disaster for RMG - not only was the sell off bungled in the first instance, thereby depriving the people of this country of several billion that was rightfully theirs and putting that money straight into the pocket of the City/Wall Street - not only was the sale otherwise subsidised by the taxpayer taking on the historic pension liabilty, which should have been part of the sale - but it is now becoming clear exactly what the future holds for this company, the service it provides and the terms and conditions of its employees.
The USO is under threat, pensions are under threat, secure and permanent contracts of employment are under threat. So lets not fool ourselves into thinking that none of this matters - the ownership of our industry does matter. It is currently being run purely in the interest of profit for the institutional equity holders- and no good can come of it. The promised efficiencies have not materialised.

Lets go back to running this company as a service to the nation, and the communities of which its made up.

[milly]

According to this article, apart from the UK, Germany is the only other member of the G20 to have a privatised postal service. Also according to the article, which relates the findings of an Oxford Strategic Consulting investigation into the best postal services in the world, the top 5 are all state owned..Its interesting also that the US, Australian and Canadian postal services are in the top five, as all face a much greater geographical and logistical challenge than Royal Mail, serving as it does an overcrowded little island !!

If they can manage it, and we managed it for 500 years, why can't we manage it again ?

There's no-one quite as keen as successive UK Governments at selling off the family silver. We, the citizens of the UK, are looking like the mugs here for allowing this to happen. And we, it would seem, are the exception to the rule.

Must be a lot of folk out there in the big wide world with "cognitive dissonance" I would say

Privatisation has been an unmitigated disaster for RMG - not only was the sell off bungled in the first instance, thereby depriving the people of this country of several billion that was rightfully theirs and putting that money straight into the pocket of the City/Wall Street - not only was the sale otherwise subsidised by the taxpayer taking on the historic pension liabilty, which should have been part of the sale - but it is now becoming clear exactly what the future holds for this company, the service it provides and the terms and conditions of its employees.
The USO is under threat, pensions are under threat, secure and permanent contracts of employment are under threat. So lets not fool ourselves into thinking that none of this matters - the ownership of our industry does matter. It is currently being run purely in the interest of profit for the institutional equity holders- and no good can come of it. The promised efficiencies have not materialised.

Lets go back to running this company as a service to the nation, and the communities of which its made up.

Yes the U.S Postal service is a fantastic example of how a state run company performs.

After accounting for a $5.8 billion retiree health benefit prefunding obligation, the U.S. Postal Service posted a net loss of approximately $5.6 billion for fiscal year 2016 (October 1, 2015 - September 30, 2016), as compared to a $5.1 billion net loss for the year ended September 30, 2015. Excluding this prefunding obligation, the Postal Service would have recorded net income of approximately $200 million in 2016.

[jetblack]

.. the Postal Service would have recorded net income of approximately $200 million in 2016.

You mean net profit ?

Milly - first off, when you reply, you don't have to quote my entire post everytime. Only reason I mention it is that it unnecessarily clogs up the thread.

Secondly, re. your point about the USPS loss etc, if I'm not very much mistaken, the reason for this is that the US govt. has made the company face the bill for retirees potential health costs in retirement. That is because, Milly, in the United States, they have no publicly funded healthcare system old son - your healthcare in the States depends on the private health insurance that you may or may not be able to afford, or have afforded during your working life.

That is not a problem they would face in the US if they had a publicly funded healthcare system such as our very own National Health Service. That is, a "nationalised" health service free at the point of delivery.

So, in effect, a state run company is being asked to pay for private healthcare - that is, a direct transference of wealth away from the taxpayer to the private sector. I think that is known as various things, but "corporate kleptocracy" and "crony capitalism" come to mind.

And you claim this is a reason for its inefficiency ?

Even in light of the fact that the study I cited showed it to be the best postal service in the world ?

Thing is about postal services is that they don't lend themselves well to competition - they are what is known as a "natural monopoly" :-

"A natural monopoly is a monopoly in an industry in which high infrastructural costs and other barriers to entry relative to the size of the market give the largest supplier in an industry, often the first supplier in a market, an overwhelming advantage over potential competitors. This frequently occurs in industries where capital costs predominate, creating economies of scale that are large in relation to the size of the market; examples include public utilities such as water services and electricity.[1] Natural monopolies were discussed as a potential source of market failure by John Stuart Mill, who advocated government regulation to make them serve the public good."


When you hand over control of these industries to the private sector you are, in effect, 1) potentially compromising the integrity of the service that the monopoly provides, and which is often of utmost importance to the running of the economy, and 2) giving a licence to print money to the private stakeholders.

Doesn't make any sense IMO - and that Milly is why we are the only one of the 20 richest nations on Earth (bar Germany) whose postal service is owned by Blackrock.

[milly]

.. the Postal Service would have recorded net income of approximately $200 million in 2016.

You mean net profit ?

Milly - first off, when you reply, you don't have to quote my entire post everytime. Only reason I mention it is that it unnecessarily clogs up the thread.

Secondly, re. your point about the USPS loss etc, if I'm not very much mistaken, the reason for this is that the US govt. has made the company face the bill for retirees potential health costs in retirement. That is because, Milly, in the United States, they have no publicly funded healthcare system old son - your healthcare in the States depends on the private health insurance that you may or may not be able to afford, or have afforded during your working life.

That is not a problem they would face in the US if they had a publicly funded healthcare system such as our very own National Health Service. That is, a "nationalised" health service free at the point of delivery.

So, in effect, a state run company is being asked to pay for private healthcare - that is, a direct transference of wealth away from the taxpayer to the private sector. I think that is known as various things, but "corporate kleptocracy" and "crony capitalism" come to mind.

And you claim this is a reason for its inefficiency ?

Even in light of the fact that the study I cited showed it to be the best postal service in the world ?

Thing is about postal services is that they don't lend themselves well to competition - they are what is known as a "natural monopoly" :-

"A natural monopoly is a monopoly in an industry in which high infrastructural costs and other barriers to entry relative to the size of the market give the largest supplier in an industry, often the first supplier in a market, an overwhelming advantage over potential competitors. This frequently occurs in industries where capital costs predominate, creating economies of scale that are large in relation to the size of the market; examples include public utilities such as water services and electricity.[1] Natural monopolies were discussed as a potential source of market failure by John Stuart Mill, who advocated government regulation to make them serve the public good."


When you hand over control of these industries to the private sector you are, in effect, 1) potentially compromising the integrity of the service that the monopoly provides, and which is often of utmost importance to the running of the economy, and 2) giving a licence to print money to the private stakeholders.

Doesn't make any sense IMO - and that Milly is why we are the only one of the 20 richest nations on Earth (bar Germany) whose postal service is owned by Blackrock.

Firstly I agree that quoting your responses clog up the thread mainly due to your verbosity and fondness of posting pictures and charts
Surely the U.S Postal Service's lack of funding in its Healthcare and Pension scheme is due to the fact that is doesn't make anywhere near enough money to cover any of its costs and commitments to its employees.