{"id":5110,"date":"2015-08-05T16:21:40","date_gmt":"2015-08-05T15:21:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=5110"},"modified":"2015-08-05T16:21:40","modified_gmt":"2015-08-05T15:21:40","slug":"osbornes-fire-sale-only-the-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=5110","title":{"rendered":"Osborne\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fire sale only the first"},"content":{"rendered":"
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As chancellor George Osborne rushed through the sale of \u00c2\u01412.1bn in RBS shares on Monday night (August 3) \u00e2\u20ac\u201c at a massive loss to the taxpayer \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a new analysis shows that this most recent fire-sale of a public asset is only the beginning in the government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s privatise-at-all-costs regime.<\/p>\n

 
\nOnce the planned sale of stakes in other taxpayer-owned assets goes through, including the Royal Mail, RBS, Lloyd\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s and others, the chancellor will have raised more money from sell-offs in one year alone than previous governments have raised in the past two decades combined.<\/p>\n

 
\nThe Press Association analysis found that government sales planned for this year will amount to \u00c2\u014131.8bn, while the money generated from disposal of public assets since 1993 amounts to \u00c2\u014131.7bn.<\/p>\n

 
\nThe previous 12-month record was \u00c2\u014122.5bn in today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s money, set in 1991, after the sell-off of government stakes in BT, National Power, PowerGen and regional electricity companies in Scotland.<\/p>\n

 
\nThe chancellor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s programme is already poised to eclipse the Thatcher-era privatisation boom.<\/p>\n

 
\nChancellor Nigel Lawson raised the most money out of any chancellor, raising roughly \u00c2\u014173bn in seven years between 1983 and 1989. To put this into context, Osborne is almost half way to achieving this seven-year record in 12 months alone.<\/p>\n

 
\nUnite general secretary Len McCluskey condemned Osborne\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s irresponsible, politically motivated fire-sales that will cheat taxpayers out of billions.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWhat we are seeing is the sale of the century of public assets by a chancellor hell-bent in rewarding the Tory party\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s friends in the City in a spectacularly lavish style,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 McCluskey noted.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThese are public assets belonging to the taxpayer, held in trust for the future for the benefit of the many, not for the financial gain of a rich City elite,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he added.<\/p>\n

 
\nMonday night\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s most recent flotation of RBS shares show just how much this City elite stands to gain \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 60 per cent of the shares were snapped up by hedge funds.<\/p>\n

 
\nAccording to the Financial Times<\/a>, hedge funds also made a \u00e2\u20ac\u015bfast buck\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 by betting against RBS shares shortly before the government started selling them, in a technique called short selling.<\/p>\n

 
\nThis involves, as the FT explained, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bborrowing a stock to bet it will fall in value, between the bank\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s interim results on Thursday and on Monday evening\u00e2\u20ac\u0165.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bShort selling tends to exacerbate any price fall. If this resulted in a lower placing price by the government, as looks likely, it would mean that traders benefited at the taxpayer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s expense,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 the FT highlighted.<\/p>\n

 
\nMcCluskey called Osborne\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s actions \u00e2\u20ac\u015butterly irresponsible and inconsistent\u00e2\u20ac\u0165.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bOn the one hand he announces \u00c2\u014112bn of cuts, the pain of which will be felt by the most vulnerable, on the other he rushes through the RBS sale and in the process loses out on a \u00c2\u014114bn return to taxpayers,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThis is money that could have been spent on infrastructure investment, education and health for the benefit of all,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 McCluskey added.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bOsborne is behaving in his best Bullingdon Boy manner, but now he is using the nation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s economy as his own personal casino.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt was a former Tory prime minister, Harold MacmiIllan who warned the Thatcher government about \u00e2\u20ac\u0098selling off the family silver\u00e2\u20ac\u2122. What we are seeing now is the knock-down sale of the family home and its foundations revealing this government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s complete contempt for the common good.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\nThe Press Association analysis also found that:<\/p>\n

 
\nThe figure of \u00c2\u014131.8 billion for 2015\/16 is roughly one fifth of the total amount raised by all privatisations from 1979 to 2014 (\u00c2\u0141151 billion).<\/p>\n

 
\nThe sale of the government’s remaining shares in Lloyds, estimated to bring in \u00c2\u014112.9 billion this year, would be the single biggest privatisation since the sale of British Gas in 1986, which raised \u00c2\u014120.3 billion.<\/p>\n

 
\nDuring the Labour governments of 1997-2010, only \u00c2\u01416.4 billion of public assets were sold, including National Air Traffic Services in 2001 and British Nuclear Fuels Limited from 2006 to 2009.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As chancellor George Osborne rushed through the sale of \u00c2\u01412.1bn in RBS shares on Monday night (August 3) \u00e2\u20ac\u201c at a massive loss to the taxpayer \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a new analysis shows that this most recent fire-sale of a public asset is only the beginning in the government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s privatise-at-all-costs regime.   Once the planned sale of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5111,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[123,314],"wps_subtitle":"Back to the 80s as Osborne\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sell off madness starts ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5110"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5110"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5112,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5110\/revisions\/5112"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}