Re: Deregulation, casualisation and low pay: how will it wor : Sat Oct 05, 2013 8:18 am  

Sal Paradise wrote:

Who is going to do the construction on these sites - you have been crying out for Keynesian economics - building on this scale will need a lot of people surely even you would see a small plus in that. Or would you rather they stay empty and in public ownership? The problem is it will impossible for the current regime to downsize due to pressure from unions - how do you unlock the value in its current guise?

I like you find it difficult debating with someone with such entrenched ideology that you struggle to rationalise whatsoever?

So you'd quite happily flog off a public service, at a vastly undervalued sum and offer an opportunity for a thousand builders to get some work as mitigation?

Strange

And what's proposed is a million miles from Keynesian economics

Re: Deregulation, casualisation and low pay: how will it wor : Sat Oct 05, 2013 9:03 am  

Sal Paradise wrote:

Who is going to do the construction on these sites

Using the well know politicians back-of-a-fag-packet "blue sky" thinking here is a suggestion, bearing in mind that we are currently the owners of such properties (assuming they aren't privately leased) ...

You identify those city centre properties that are going to be surplus to requirements when the eventual purchaser gets his bargain - in our own city there may not be one as the Royal Mail moved out to Stourton some years ago and either own or lease a huge modern facility there now but there are many local sorting offices that may be suitable for shifting on the closest to me being already in an area of social housing so ideal for my little experiment.

Having identified all of these properties you set a valuation on the site pitched at a level "to sell" which isn't necessarily the same price that an ambitious property agent would set, the price would be fixed and written into the sale of business contract with a condition of sale that the land could only be used for residential development with at least 50% social rent use - not as far fetched as it seems (see Olympic Park legacy), at the same time you draw up a list of preferred purchasers consisting of companies with a proven track record of developing and then managing such mixed use social and private estates (see again Olympic Park), again non of this is unknown to developers and legal people, most local authority building tender documents used to have a list of nominated sub-contractors beyond which the main contractor could not use.

If a government were genuinely interested in solving the shortfall of suitable low cost housing for a whole generation of its citizens they could even make some investment themselves into those housing associations of charitable status who may be suitable for developing such schemes - lets not forget that some of these schemes would be quite localised and small scale, there is no reason why you could not manage the sales on an individual site basis.

Simples.

Now lets see which of those "interested" purchasers are genuinely interested in the distribution of residential mail or were simply sharks circling in the water looking for a quick pension fund top up.

Re: Deregulation, casualisation and low pay: how will it wor : Sat Oct 05, 2013 9:37 am  

Sal Paradise wrote:

Who is going to do the construction on these sites - you have been crying out for Keynesian economics - building on this scale will need a lot of people surely even you would see a small plus in that. Or would you rather they stay empty and in public ownership? The problem is it will impossible for the current regime to downsize due to pressure from unions - how do you unlock the value in its current guise?

I like you find it difficult debating with someone with such entrenched ideology that you struggle to rationalise whatsoever?

Congratulations, I haven't seen anyone completely miss what Keynesian economics was about so spectacularly.

Re: Deregulation, casualisation and low pay: how will it wor : Sat Oct 05, 2013 9:41 am  

cod'ead wrote:

So you'd quite happily flog off a public service, at a vastly undervalued sum and offer an opportunity for a thousand builders to get some work as mitigation?

Strange

And what's proposed is a million miles from Keynesian economics

What is its true value - its true value is what someone will pay for it - how much do you genuinely feel its worth, do you think the business has a long term profitable future? I would suggest not, there are two main strands: parcels the bulk of the business which is currently profitable but in a very competitive market where margins are dropping. Mail where margins are non-existent and if you push the prices higher you will force current participants into other methods of communication. Also this sector competes on technology - whoever buys this will need to inject huge amounts of capital to get the kit up to the same spec as its competitors. All you see is asset stripping - which is where your lefty dogma clouds your reasoning.

Maynard-Keynes suggested at the bottom of the cycle money should be borrowed to undertake large capital projects such as home and road building.

Re: Deregulation, casualisation and low pay: how will it wor : Sat Oct 05, 2013 10:04 am  

Sal Paradise wrote:

What is its true value - its true value is what someone will pay for it - how much do you genuinely feel its worth, do you think the business has a long term profitable future? I would suggest not, there are two main strands: parcels the bulk of the business which is currently profitable but in a very competitive market where margins are dropping. Mail where margins are non-existent and if you push the prices higher you will force current participants into other methods of communication. Also this sector competes on technology - whoever buys this will need to inject huge amounts of capital to get the kit up to the same spec as its competitors. All you see is asset stripping - which is where your lefty dogma clouds your reasoning.

A couple of points...

1. There are no competitors in the mail delivery sector, there is no need to play catch up with competitors - the competitors currently use Royal Mail to make the point of delivery precisely because they have no such facility - that is the attraction to them and whoever takes over that enterprise will have a stranglehold on anyone else who wants to get into it.

2. The unique selling point in the parcels sector is the Post Office Counters network which may or may not be part of the sell-off but is still an integral part of the business. As someone who dispatches quite a few individual parcels each year on a non-regular basis I have yet to find a courier service that offers me collection on demand (they just don't turn up) or a point of delivery for me to attend that is convenient and not across the other side of the city - and that is not to mention the customer loyalty in that brand.

Re: Deregulation, casualisation and low pay: how will it wor : Sat Oct 05, 2013 10:31 am  

Sal Paradise wrote:

What is its true value - its true value is what someone will pay for it.

As has been said before, you know the cost of everything but the value of nowt.

Re: Deregulation, casualisation and low pay: how will it wor : Sat Oct 05, 2013 11:08 am  

Sal Paradise wrote:

What is its true value - its true value is what someone will pay for it - how much do you genuinely feel its worth, do you think the business has a long term profitable future? I would suggest not, there are two main strands: parcels the bulk of the business which is currently profitable but in a very competitive market where margins are dropping. Mail where margins are non-existent and if you push the prices higher you will force current participants into other methods of communication. Also this sector competes on technology - whoever buys this will need to inject huge amounts of capital to get the kit up to the same spec as its competitors. All you see is asset stripping - which is where your lefty dogma clouds your reasoning.

Maynard-Keynes suggested at the bottom of the cycle money should be borrowed to undertake large capital projects such as home and road building.

Goldman Sachs and UBS advised the government on the price to fix the shares (for a fee of £21+ millions) the same Goldman Sachs who audited Greece's books before they were allowed into the EU, not to mention other dodgy deals they've been involved with.

It is epected that shares will be masively oversubsribed, so the retail customers (the likes of you and me) will get far fewer shares than they apply for. Hedge funds and Institutional investors have upped the scope of their applications, with many applying for hundreds of millions of shares, knowing that they will only get a fraction. Some stockbrokers are working all weekend and remaining open until midnight Tuesday to process applications.

It is anticipated that once allocated, shares will then be trading at 30% above initial price within 24 hours but the retail customers will have to wait a further week before they can trade.

The whole thing is a stitch-up to flog off, on the cheap, to the benefit of a select few

Re: Deregulation, casualisation and low pay: how will it wor : Sat Oct 05, 2013 2:43 pm  

JerryChicken wrote:

A couple of points...

1. There are no competitors in the mail delivery sector, there is no need to play catch up with competitors - the competitors currently use Royal Mail to make the point of delivery precisely because they have no such facility - that is the attraction to them and whoever takes over that enterprise will have a stranglehold on anyone else who wants to get into it.

2. The unique selling point in the parcels sector is the Post Office Counters network which may or may not be part of the sell-off but is still an integral part of the business. As someone who dispatches quite a few individual parcels each year on a non-regular basis I have yet to find a courier service that offers me collection on demand (they just don't turn up) or a point of delivery for me to attend that is convenient and not across the other side of the city - and that is not to mention the customer loyalty in that brand.

Even you don't get it - the competition isn't other postal firms - it is how you deliver the message, if you increase postal costs, direct mail - a huge chunk of the revenue - will be forced to use other less costly channels like e-mail or digital platforms. That is before you talk about personal letters, volumes of which have been dropping over many years. Do you think volumes will increase or decrease when the cost gets near the £1 a letter?

Amazing that given point two any other courier can survive let alone prosper - how is that possible?

Re: Deregulation, casualisation and low pay: how will it wor : Sat Oct 05, 2013 3:24 pm  

Sal Paradise wrote:

Even you don't get it - the competition isn't other postal firms - it is how you deliver the message, if you increase postal costs, direct mail - a huge chunk of the revenue - will be forced to use other less costly channels like e-mail or digital platforms. That is before you talk about personal letters, volumes of which have been dropping over many years. Do you think volumes will increase or decrease when the cost gets near the £1 a letter?

Amazing that given point two any other courier can survive let alone prosper - how is that possible?

1. Personal post must be a fraction of the mail delivered these days but despite concerted attempts by all businesses who deal direct with the public there is still a huge majority who insist on receiving postal bills, statements and the rest and always will be, and whilst the likes of me might be shocked when I have to buy a second class stamp and find its at least 20p more than I thought it was going to be (last Monday), the businesses that are legally obliged to send postal correspondence have no choice but to pay the discounted franked bulk mail rate - most mail received in households is from businesses.

2. Business to business and business to home as you well know, the sector where Royal Mail has a massive monopoly at the moment is in personal parcel post, either the boom in eBay transactions or returns to other couriers from internet shopping - strange how the likes of Yodel can get a courier van to your door within 24 hours but if its the wrong size or colour and you need to return it they then have to pay the Post office Counters to accept their returns.

Re: Deregulation, casualisation and low pay: how will it wor : Sat Oct 05, 2013 3:29 pm  

cod'ead wrote:

Goldman Sachs and UBS advised the government on the price to fix the shares (for a fee of £21+ millions) the same Goldman Sachs who audited Greece's books before they were allowed into the EU, not to mention other dodgy deals they've been involved with.

It is epected that shares will be masively oversubsribed, so the retail customers (the likes of you and me) will get far fewer shares than they apply for. Hedge funds and Institutional investors have upped the scope of their applications, with many applying for hundreds of millions of shares, knowing that they will only get a fraction. Some stockbrokers are working all weekend and remaining open until midnight Tuesday to process applications.

It is anticipated that once allocated, shares will then be trading at 30% above initial price within 24 hours but the retail customers will have to wait a further week before they can trade.

The whole thing is a stitch-up to flog off, on the cheap, to the benefit of a select few

Initially the price will rise but it will settle back within a month to somewhere close to the offer level - let's see where the share price is in a year when the true reality of running this business - outside of state ownership final hits home and the hedge funds cannot justify the value of their holding.