Am I Missing Something Obvious?

So the UK government is to announce* on Thursday plans to sell a 30% stake in the Royal Mail, probably the oldest postal service in the world with a proud tradition of carrying mail promptly anywhere in the country for a set charge.




Top employee Pat always gets the mail delivered on time LOL.









Apparently the service needs modernising and the only way to do this, so the argument goes, is to sell it off to a rival. Go figure. You would have thought with the "global credit crunch"- our governments preferred phrase- it is not the best time to sell off a state asset, when market prices will be at an all time low. Not to mention the alleged hole in the company pension that needs plugging. Will a new part-owner willingly take this debt on? I doubt it.

Then again you have to remember our Prime Minister Gordon Brown is the man responsible (as Chancellor of the Exchequer) for selling off the vast majority of our Gold reserves when those prices were at an all time low. So not exactly a great track record getting the best deal for the nation. Not to mention this same man, who by means of heavy taxation, raided public and private company pension plans to such a degree we will all need to work longer before we can afford to retire. Unless you happen to be a Member of Parliament of course.

You know, Dad was telling me recently that since he retired in 1996 his pension has risen steadily each year but thanks to increased taxes, he gets far less net pay now than he did at retirement.

So where Mr Brown, has all that money from the 'good times' gone? You spend billions part or fully privatizing our banks but you can't support an already state-owned service. And that's the rub- I thought the Post Office was meant to be a service for the benefit of the nation, not a company that turns a profit. I don't understand, am I missing something obvious?

* Am I the only one getting annoyed with the current trend of pre-announcing everything?