A Ridiculous Stamp Tax, Grumpy Old Man Takes Over

Somewhere along the line I think we are being taken for a ride.

The United Kingdom is in the throes of recession, jobs are becoming harder to come by, people are having to work under more stress, more pressure and increasing demands and now prices in essential commodities are rocketing.

Okay you expect small rises but we are in a recession so everybody's finances are being squeezed to the limits. So what happens - petrol prices continue to rise to ridiculous levels (affecting anybody who has to use their car to get to work), prescription charges are about to go up again (affecting anybody who gets sick) and now we hear of a 30% increase in the cost of postage which will put a second class stamp up from 36p to 50p and a first class up from 46p to 60p. This is simply ludicrous and Royal Mail insult us by telling us they realise how hard this will hit people. This is a statement from their web site:

"We know how hard it is for households and businesses when our economy is as tough as it is now. We have thought very carefully about the impact on our customers and on our own business, before deciding to raise our prices."

So lets take this sentence apart. Firstly they sit in judgement as if they are some wise sages that know just how tough things are.  Secondly they insult us by stating that they have thought long and hard about the impact this will have on customers, when they haven't the first idea of how this will affect individuals or companies and then they decide to raise prices - but not just by a few pence but by a swingeing 28% in the case of second class stamps. Just how can this increase be justified when most people's pay has either taken a drop or been frozen, when pensioners have had their pensions frozen? It defies any kind of reality or grasp on logic whatsoever.

Then there is the fact that buying stamps is going to be means tested as the following explains:

"Households on pension credit and employment and support allowance (or incapacity benefit) will be eligible. They will be able to buy up to three books of 12 stamps – 36 stamps in total – in one purchase from any of the 11,801 Post Office branches from 6 November until the last posting dates before Christmas."

For most of it sending Christmas cards is now going to be a major cost. Sending 100 cards out will cost a ludicrous £50. Add to that the cost of the cards etc and there won't be much change from £100. So say goodbye to traditional Christmas, capitalism has well and truly taken over.

Prescription charges will also be going up by 25p to £7.65 from April 1st and as for petrol, well now we are facing strike action by fuel tanker drivers as the price just continues to spiral out of control.

Marketing - now there's an interesting subject that I do know a bit about, having worked in that sphere for a number of years and become disillusioned by the obvious falsehoods. Marketing professionals are the most important people in a company because they are the people who tell you a product or service is good irrespective of whether it is or not. There seems to be an unwritten law in industry that as long as you tell people how good something is they will genuinely believe you. Actually the public are not that gullible. If the product or service 1s second rate they will soon suss the fact out irrespective of what they are told. So if Royal Mail tell you that raising the cost of postage by up to 30% will improve their services, don't believe them. The service will either remain the same or deteriorate further because that's the kind of don't give a damn world in which we live where customers are referred to as "the most important" people but are then treated with absolute contempt in the search to make fatter profits.

Which takes me onto the fact that I am now going to spent the next couple of hours or so trying to sort out my Napster connection. The music site has been taken over by Rhapsody. All the software for my mp3 player, laptop, desktop etc has to be reloaded and all the tracks I have on my mp3 player will be wiped out. Of course we are told that being with Rhapsody will improve our enjoyment. Comments left on the Internet rather suggest the opposite. I will report back.