Snatching defeat

[Suff]

from the jaws of victory.

As the MP's go to ever extensive lengths to skewer Sir Philip Greene over the BHS pensions scheme, all 7 bidders for Tata Steel assets in the UK look likely to withdraw over the half a billion in pension commitments which are "unresolved".

Normally they would assume it's business as usual and they could just keep on selling them on and watering them down. Now they know. Take on Tata steel holdings in the UK and take on a lead weight around the neck that the MP's will never let you get rid of.

It's nice to see how our MP's are totally blinkered. They think they can radically attack one wealthy businessman in one area and that it will have absolutely no impact on other businessmen trying to rescue jobs and an industry in the UK which they could turn around.

All the MP's are going to achieve, with this approach, is that we lose BHS _AND_ the Steel jobs and the government will be stuck with the cost of funding both the pensions and the DSS.

They guys are supposed to be able to see beyond petty political hobby horses, to the needs of the workers they are supposed to represent.

I can just see Corbyn's "work with businesses to share the wealth for all" activity going a storm. DSS will be going like a merry go round.

The saddest part is that I expected little else from them. Just a bunch of idiot schoolboys trying to run the country. The biggest business of them all....

[edit]

Over the past month or so the TATA steel pension contributions have reach the business equivalence of leprosy.

[Workingman]

Hang on.

Let us not forget that it looks as though Greene removed substantial sums, possibly legally, from the BHS pension fund. If that is the case not only should the loophole be closed, but he does have questions to answer. I have very little sympathy for him.

I also have no sympathy for those who created the loopholes and now wish to prosecute those who profited from their poor oversight, in the fist place, in order to assuage their consciences,

My total sympathy is for the employees on lowish wages who trusted their employers not to sell then a scam, largely to the owner's own benefit. It happens far too often and in too many places for it to be an 'accident', It is done on purpose.

[Suff]

Ah, Yes, I know that it's considered bad form to take a profit from a company which has unfulfilled pension subscriptions. Philip Greene bought BHS and took a profit from it. I do wonder how much of the pension subscriptions were missing when he bought it and who took them?

In fact how is it possible for TATA to have a half a billion missing from the UK subsidiary pension subscriptions? If it's illegal to not provide for them.

In the end my suspicion is that the companies in question paid dividends before pension funds. Using the funds they should have paid to the pension funds to do so.

However this does not change the approach of what they are doing. It would appear that if BHS profits were taken before pension subscriptions were paid (as you said possibly legally), then the MP's manic attempts to win votes by changing the law and applying it retrospectively; will endanger tens of thousands of jobs and the pensions of people who rely on a company to take over our steel infrastructure and the jobs and pension funds that go with them.

As I said, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. If the BHS profits were given legally but the government has decided it should have gone to the pensions first, that will make _any_ UK business with pension fund problems a social leper on the market for companies to be bought.

By being "holier than thou", the government will wind up taking on more pensions debt than would be the case if they took a more conciliatory approach whilst changing the laws to ensure that this doesn't happen again.

Governments are very predictable. They want companies to make profits so that they pay taxes and dividends on which taxes are paid too. Pensions are a tax relief area so governments don't look too hard when dividends are being paid and pensions are being ignored. Well, until it all goes wrong and voters are sitting there asking why their pension was hammered. Followed by the self same government getting on it's high horse and riding roughshod over the people who took that profit and paid those taxes.

I don't notice the government offering to ante up the 20% of taxes they took on the dividend which was paid; so that the companies can pay into the pension schemes....

[Aggers]

The sad fact is that you cannot really trust hardly anyone today. Morals and
ethics throughout business have now almost disappeared without a trace.

It seems that the more affluent society becomes the more greedy
and dishonest people become - rich and poor alike. Money is God.

We used once to be called a nation of shopkeepers.
Now we appear to be more a nation of criminals.

[Suff]

The pressures on businesses to perform and produce a profit in the current world are immense. It is little wonder that pension subscriptions are deemed "optional" and can be dealt with when it becomes critical.

Before Steam Ships, it could be as much as 6 months before the profit from a trade were to come in. After steam it could still be 3 months. With Aircraft it fell to days and with the Internet and immediate always on systems with direct financial access, it is immediately obvious if a company is in trouble.

Whereas, in generations before, there was a time lag to sort out any issues and attempt to rectify the problem, nowadays there is no respite. Everything has to work perfectly first time or it's a failure. As we know nothing works perfectly first time.

A few years back I was reading about toy companies and their flagship toys. The cost is so astronomical to create a production run that the company can, quite literally, go under with one failed run and that failure is obvious within a few weeks of the product going on sale.

Is it any wonder that people try to cut corners or push the laws to their limits. It's not right, but it is understandable.

When Alex Fergusson left Man U, he was talking about how he would have been a failure in todays market because it took him 2 years to stop the rot and a further 3 years to bring the team back to success. Today a manager is lucky if he gets one year. That is the state of our world today.

My expectations are low. I must admit.

Yesterday I was asked for my CV for a prospective job position. It was a friend who asked as they are going to try and sell me into a consulting role for a job which I know better than most in the UK. It's a 122% pay rise on what I'm getting and also I'll probably get about £1400 per month of expenses on top.

If we are talking about the "honourable and honest" environment of ages past, I should, in theory, say no I'm employed.

In reality if I can get a year of that; I'll rip their arms off in a bid to sign... It is just the way the world is today.