new year, new you
If I hear that line one more time I just may be inclined to shove my final mince pie where the sun doesn’t shine… Once upon a time however I did used to join in with all the new-year resolution malarkey. Usually, it involved a selection of self-help books of a man-management nature, which you can now purchase from me via ebay, with a very reasonable ‘buy-now’ price. Ah, those were the days: lose two stone, get the six-pack and start managing that shower of a team that work for you!
Since those halcyon long by-gone days I guess I’ve (almost) stopped trying to become the person I wish I was, and as part of this metamorphosis, the annual new-year resolution has inevitably fallen by the wayside. In truth, and when viewed in the cold hard light of reality, they are pretty ridiculous. Why, in January – the coldest and hardest but certainly not lightest of months – would anyone choose to compile a wish-list that blatantly implores you to stop doing things that you clearly enjoy and replace them with something so utterly joyless? No wonder depression, sorry melancholy, is on the increase. Actually, I’m all for striving to change bad habits but these are often the big things in life – be happy, drink less, eat healthily, change your life, exercise more than once in a blue-moon, smile more – and can’t for the life of me think why this has to happen immediately after whooping it up during Christmas. Protestant guilt-trip I suspect.
Anyway, looking back on 2013 I reckon there are some serious questions that still deserve an answer:
– When are the Government going to admit they got the floatation price of The Royal Mail wrong? In October, the 60% stake was sold at 330p per share and they’re now trading at 580p. Just admit you got it wrong and they were under-priced and I’ll be happy.
– How was the Co-op Bank farce allowed to happen? OK, the Crystal Methodist was bad enough but more importantly, how was the Co-op allowed to almost buy 630 branches from Lloyds, before a £1,500,000,000 black hole was found on its balance sheet? Answers on a used twenty to…
– Is the Eurozone crisis really over? Behave.
– How is Twitter worth $40bn? Just to show you that the value of your investment can indeed rise as well as fall, the microblogging site launched at $26 but now trades at $70, valuing the business at close to $40bn. On annual revenues of $600m. Go figure.
– How does Georgie-Boy think that ‘Help to Buy’ will ease the property situation? Even an lowly A-level economics student like myself could see the property market was doing a good job of stabilising itself so why should decreasing the (in reality, real) price of housing do anything other than send the space back into the stratosphere. Simple Supply and Demand me-thinks.
– Why aren’t zero-hour contracts a big deal? Because the vast majority of those on them really do not have an effective voice and no-one’s listening in any event. Shame on us all.
– Can Ed Milliband really implement his proposed freeze on energy prices? No idea but good on him for kick-starting the debate, and we’ll all have forgotten about it by the time the next election comes around. Renationalisation anyone?
Happy New Year.
Dave Gingell responds:
I enjoyed this post. I agree on the futility of resolutions but the health club industry would go out of business without them.
As for your look backs, Re: RM – I agree that the Government needs to be taken into account on the Royal Mail share offer. As the holder of two lots I was obviously disappointed they didn’t get it more wrong. a 60% upswing only??
Re: Co-Op – a laughing stock. You couldn’t have made that story up and been credible. Re: Twitter. 1999 all over again. Remember a company called Ariba, now part of SAP? At one time valued at $50bn on revenues of $50m, worth more than GM by market cap. One of the most dramatic implosions then followed.
Not sure about Milliband. The wrong brother is in charge of the Labour Party in my opinion. He comes across like he himself is still an A level student. On the other hand, Alan Hanson famously said of Alex Furguson – “you’ll never win anything with kids”, shortly before they went on to win everything in their path, so maybe Boy Ed will triumph at the next election. However I doubt it. I forecast another scramble and another coalition. It is a tragedy that John Smith died early.
