Post Office Flotation....mistake!

[ToraToraTora]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23249466
Generally I agree with privatisation but certain things should remain under state control and I think the post office is one of them. Rather disturbingly for me I found myself agreeing with a union guy on News 24 this morning when he said that within a couple of years they'll only be delivering mail to the profitable areas and the rural areas won't get much of a service. What do you think?

[factor-fiction]

I'll wait until we see the details. I don't see that anything is being stolen from you and sold back to you (unless you are going to buy shares)- the money raised will go to the Treasury/the taxpayer . I'm a bit nervous about privatising key services but i can see that there could be benefits and certainly it will be easier for a privatised RM to raise capital for investment. I was in USA a recently and their postal service is also struggling

[Octavius]

Apart from via the franking system at work, I can't remember the last time I sent anything in the post personally. As said above, I imagine some over complicated pricing systems that will result in you never knowing what to pay for what, receivers being charged excess release fees, and even more missing mail.

[FredPuli43]

Don't follow how privatising something owned by the state, by us, is selling us our own property. The 'us' is different. The 'us' which buys shares gives they other us, the rest of us, money for the shares. In return, the share-buying us takes on the risks and the profit of running the business. We generally sell at a higher price than the business is worth; that's the nature of popular flotations;but, for a while, even that price is bettered on the open market because the number of shares each subscriber can buy to start with is limited per applicant.

[mikey4444]

Fred...If I, as a tax payer and more importantly, a rate payer already own a stake in, say the Water Board, why do I have to pay to own a share ? If the Government want to sell it off, why can't we all have a free shares ?

All those wonderful reservoirs in Mid Wales were built and paid for by the rate payers in Birmingham. So when the water industry was "privatised" why wasn't the City of Birmingham given their money back, so that they could pass it back to the rate payers of Brum ?

Even if you argue that we all received a benefit through the Exchequer, where did this benefit go ? It was used mainly to fund massive tax rebates for very rich people. It was also used as a bribe because people who bought £200's worth of shares, made a small profit. This profit was more than eaten up by huge hikes in the cost of basic utility prices, like water, electricity and gas. And that is what this present Tory government is doing, setting up a bribe ready for the election in May 2015.

Even Thatcher stayed away from privatising the Royal Mail !

[spudqueen]

The Post Office is now a separate company from Royal Mail. But I think this is 'progress' that you cannot stop. It's like a runaway train.

[Bazile]

My My - the right & the left , in one voice ( almost ).

I cannot see any company would want to take over the Royal Mail , with the added proviso that they must retain a universal service .
Unless of course there is some ' subsidy ' from the government - but then that would not be true privitisation .

How many companies are out there, that could afford the price tag ?

I can see venture capitalists eying over this proposed sale - but we all know
the business plan of these types of fund providers , dont we .

If you live in the sticks , you might as well tape your letter boxes up - at least you will stop the draft coming in .

[sandyRoe]

Harold MacMillan had it right all those years ago in the Thatcher era when he likened flotations to selling off the family silver.
We'll probably pay more for a worse service.