By God, this is the last straw!

[Sarmatian]

Indeed it is:

"The United States Postal Service (USPS) is an independent agency of the United States government (see 39 U.S.C. § 201) responsible for providing postal service in the United States."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Postal_Service

Don't know about USPS, I got my stuff through FedEx and UPS.

BAH! We're talking about the bloody UK here, not some tiny pacific island. They've got the cash. As I said, for a government to start selling off stuff, they'd have to be in deep . The UK isn't even close. The postal service needs a billion or two for infrastructure, you say? Well then, the answer is easy; borrow some money(like states do all the freakin' time), take some from some other place, dig into the treasury reserve, etc etc. The UK isn't in the position where it has to sell stuff to caugh up some cash.

But, no, nobody is doing this "for fun". They're doing it for ideological reasons. Idealists. It has nothing to do with the real world, just like every other idiot privatization out there.

Note that I'm not criticizing privatization in general, I'm criticizing unnecessary privatization. For some people, privatization isn't a means to an end, it's the ultimate goal itself. Bad things happen when those people enter the real world, as there are a bunch of businesses who are much better of in state hands.

We may be talking about bloody US here, it wouldn't change anything. I didn't say how much money it needs, I don't know that. Maybe it needs half a billion, maybe it needs 5, it doesn't matter. Maybe they don't want to pay interest on something that isn't a sure investment. Royal Post, according to the article is getting less and less revenue. They have a monopoly on delivering residential mail and the amount of mail is dropping 7% each year. Just to make it simpler, that means 50% less in 2015. Their revenues fell for one third last year, again according to the article. You don't have to be Soros to recognize the trend here. TNT is already delivering business mail for BT. Why did BT decide for TNT instead of Royal Mail? Obviously they offer either better or cheaper services. Or both...

And as in this case if you were in Britain you wouldn't just be a customer , you through taxes would be the financier .

Valid point, worth discussing, unlike most others that were outcries because someone was selling "national pride".

I should be only a customer. I pay to have my mail delivered. I don't want to have to pay some more through taxes every year because the company is becoming unprofitable.

How happy would you be to have the profitable interests taken from you for a pittance while you retained the non-profitable parts and all accumulated and future debts ?

Maybe I got it wrong, but the article doesn't say future debts. All it says is the government is supposed to take on current pension commitments, not future ones. Also, I'd say it's much more important to have control over pension funds than mail. Even it is unprofitable, it's still better to have unprofitable pension funds than both pension funds and post. If something goes wrong with those pension funds, financial security of many people would be in danger...