Dear Shareholder,
It’s going brilliantly. Everyone I asked said I was so good the other day when I spoke for your company on television. I told all our shareholders a bit more about me, which is what they all apparently wanted to hear. I had been so busy increasing the borrowings and spending that I had failed to explain just what a lovely family man I am as well. I have always been too self deprecating.
You may have seen that last month when we normally get paid by lots of customers we still managed to spend more than we got in. That’s another crucial milestone in our loan led expansion. I wasn’t sure we could pull that off, so I kept quiet about it in advance. You will also be pleased to see the value of our trading currency going down, which will make it easier to sell abroad, and will mean the sterling loans we have taken out from foreigners get cheaper to repay. If you don’t like the higher prices for all those Chinese goods we buy, just put in for better easy terms which we can organise through our special offers department or through our banking subsidiaries.There’s plenty of money around for eveyone. It just gets better and better.
I am promising a new service of free care for all the elderly, new railway lines to places that would like them, more quango heads, better equipment for our security department workers, and lots of subsidised windmills. I think it’s a great time to promise more and spend more. I love to see the looks on the faces of our killjoy competitors Conco everytime I lift our offer. They keep on asking how we can afford it. They just don’t get it. You borrow it or print it. That takes the waiting out of wanting. They will never get to take over if they remain so reluctant to spend, spend, spend. Now is not the time to damage it when it is all go so swimmingly.
I want to be remembered as the man who spent more than all the others, the one who achieved record spending and borrowing, the one who didn’t want any of you, the shareholders, to want for anything. Never has this company had so many employees on its books before, never has it had so many people receiving its free offers before, and never has it been so large before.
The wonder is that so many previous CEOs did not get on with providing all these goodies. How stupid they were. I can’t see how all those focus groups can be right which suggest we might lose the Board elections. I reckon we will romp home, with so many people for ever grateful that we have been never knowingly underborrowed.
Some board members with faint hearts say we could end up like Greece PLC. I met their CEO this week and I can assure you he can’t give a tv interview like the one I just gave. We are in a different league when it comes to the size of our borrowing and our media performances, so sit back and enjoy the ride.
Yours in the spotlight
CEO
February 20, 2010
This spoof theme has long lost its amusement value for me.
February 22, 2010
I just want to cry.
February 20, 2010
I worry about what will happen after the election. If the Conservatives win, the markets will, initially, take a more optimistic view of the economy. If there is a hung parliament the markets will not like it.
The much bigger question is whether the necessary cuts in borrowing and spending are politically deliverable. If and when cuts start, the full weight of the left-liberal metropolitan chattering classes and the trades unions will be directed against them. In Europe we will see riots in the streets. We may also see unrest in the UK.
Similar cuts are needed in the US, but contributors to American web sites are already beginning to identify the political difficulties. The Democratic Party was elected to tax and spend, not to put public service employees out of work. Can the President and Congress deliver what is needed? For example, the President's campaign for re-election will start in earnest after this Autumn's elections.
Phase II of the Great Credit Crisis is about to begin. The story will be (a) how governments deal (or fail to deal) with deficits and (b) how effective their institutions are in delivering the necessary changes (c) how the markets will react to success or failure and (d) what strategy will be adopted by the Chinese who, par excellence, call the shots on sovereign debt.
February 20, 2010
Simon D: "the full weight of the left-liberal metropolitan chattering classes and the trades unions will be directed against them."
The BBC gets cut first.
February 20, 2010
I think the company needs to get a better media director. Yesterday I was perusing the Telegraph website and I saw the excellent headline that Conco can't be trusted with the Company's future as they don't understand economics. Unfortunately just below that headline was another stating that our company is the third most indebted in the world. Clicking on the link showed that only Greece and Iceland (both in the hands of the receivers) were worse off than ourselves.
Ireland are just below us which is surprising as given their swingeing cuts last year we should be seeing them entering the second phase of a double dip recession by now.
I can't help but think that the adjacency of these two headlines makes yourself and our Finance Director appear a little ridiculous.
Other than that Carry on Spending our way to a brighter future!
February 20, 2010
Dear CEO
Getting a little worried of late that some of our directors are talking about cutting or reducing spending ( a bit like Conco).
Can I suggest we send them off to the NHS to have some cosmetic surgery, like having their mouths wired up and a fixed grin completed, bit like our smiling Foreign Secretary. Understand that waiting times now not too long for this type of operation.
Perhaps you could also have a word with our media friends and secret campaign organisers (BBC), so that these people do not get any air time.
I am covinced if you concentrate on spending enough, on enough people, for enough reasons, then we will win through in the end, after all turkeys do not vote for Christamas do they.
If all else fails perhaps we could secretly import some more immigrant labour to support us, as indeed we have done for the past decade.
Though the latest idea of offering to change the electoral system was a good wheeze, all those liberals voting against Conco would be good for us, if it ever came to being of course.
Last but not least, I urge you to never agree to renegotiate the constituancy boundaries, unless it is to be to our advantage of course.
Oh and don't forget, put the banana skins in the dustbin would not like you to slip up on one.
February 20, 2010
Dear CEO,
I’m pleased to hear that you had such a nice time, with your ego being publicly polished by one of your friends. Modesty is something that should become you – you have much to be modest and self-depreciating about (it saves us the trouble of telling you how rubbish you are).
We noticed your "achievement" of wasting the receipt from your latest invoicing run. There’s no need to display such hubris, as the only surprise would have been if there had been less profligacy.
It has been noted that you have been making lots of promises about new ways to waste our hard earned cash. Please remember that we have had lots of practice in telling when you are lying; it generally happens whenever you are speaking. Our view is that in the unlikely event that you mean any of these promises, you won’t be in power for long enough to put this further nonsense in place.
Don’t worry that we will end up like Greece. The one good thing you did was refuse entry to the Euro, which some of us now think might have been a bad attack of “The Dithers”, rather than some high point of principle. It was good of you to invite the Greek CEO to the UK so that you could show just how much damage could be done to the economic prospects of his county if he really put his mind to it.
Please be assured that you will be remembered not only as the man who wasted the financial and industrial legacy of the UK, but also as the coward who had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the polls (probably literally). If you would like to see just how wrong the focus groups are, it is within your power to check. Find a backbone, and call an election.
Yours heading towards poverty
Mick Anderson
February 20, 2010
Ho Ho Ho
Have just been reading that CONco have plans to have direct access to the Bank Accounts of all of the population.
The reason: So that National Insurance can be calculated from income, and deducted by the Inland Revenue Direct from Personal Bank Accounts.
What a stroke of genius policy that is for us.
We promise not to make our friends and supporters in the Public Service Industries salaries made public knowledge, but they plan to have direct access to their Bank Accounts.
It must be one of the biggest own goals in history, and just before a general election.
They say its because its cheaper to do it that way, but we know its really all about collecting financial information, our Press boys will have a field day on this, even better than that real Tory Conco bloke who spilt the beans the other day and thought other train users were plebs in second class.
That PR bloke in charge of Conco may fail after all.
Just off to the betting office before the odds are cut on us to win !!!!!!.
Their Party will destruct in !!!!!!!!
February 20, 2010
Sorry, Self Destruct in !
February 20, 2010
Alan Jutson: "It must be one of the biggest own goals in history, and just before a general election."
Welcome to the Blu Labour party, same as the old Nu Labour party.
Socialists the lot of them.
Alan Jutson: "The reason: So that National Insurance can be calculated from income .."
National Insurance is a fraud. If a private company ran an insurance fund the way the government runs national insurance, they would be put out of business and the directors prosecuted.
Abolish NI, and as it will be necessary, roll it into income tax.
February 20, 2010
APL
"National Insurance is a fraud etc"
Agree with your comments, have suggested for ages that it should be merged with Income tax for two reasons.
1. Honesty of true direct income based tax rates.
2. Simplification of overheads in collecting (one departmental cost not two).
Problem is most people not aware as to how much the employer also contributes at the same time, so this needs sorting as well.
The true rate of tax is hidden in this Country with the various taxes and the way they are collected, the true tax rate if you include VAT is probably nearer 75-80%.
On another topic Labours suggested £20,000 tax on inheritance for care of the elderly is really £40,000, since first death of a partner will pay it, as will the second, so estates will get hit twice.
If the above proposal is for this to be taken from each estate, we will have the crazy situation where your estate will have to be more than £40,000 before you can pass on anythingto your kids or whoever you wish, but with an estate of £39,000 excluding of course the house, you will not be able to claim any benefits because you will have too much to qualify, what a wonderful incentive for people to try and save and look after themselves.
February 20, 2010
Thank you for another amusing spoof theme article, long may they continue, as long as the present ridiculous CEO does.
February 20, 2010
Dear shareholders I have just discovered that because of Conco cutbacks and failed policies (if they had any) our Private Sector is no longer making things to sell abroad despite my making the opportunities the best ever.
This is a mere bagatelle in the scheme of things as my debt enhancing programme continues to flourish.
I am now off to the G20 meeting in Spain who are not/are in the G20 depending on who I am talking to. Whilst I am there I shall advise the Spanish on how to get out of their Economic problems based on the fiscally astute methods successfully implemented by me for the rest of the World. Whilst I am in Spain I may also give them £10bn or so to help them on their way.
I have left his lordship to run the ship and save Corus as promised whilst I am away. He is a man to be trusted!
February 20, 2010
Dear CEO,
I hear that your new slogan is "A Future Fair for All". I thought "Never Knowingly Under Borrowed" – the one you trailed in an earlier letter to shareholders – had a more authentic tone. I presume though that you mean that economic misery and ultimate penury will be equally shared. Just why you have told your other directors and managers not to mention your past achievements is uncharacteristically modest of you. I should have thought that some of your famous claims would form the perfect backdrop to your campaign. I know there is such a long list of which you must be proud. I am thinking particularly of your claim to have ended boom and bust, your promise of British jobs for British workers, paying more of our borrowed money to our parent company in Brussels, creating the largest budget deficit in our history and not forgetting your part in the destruction of company pension schemes and selling our gold reserves at the bottom of the market.
I also noticed that you have named your campaign "Operation Fightback". I'm not sure against whom or what you are fighting but I remember that your predecessor as CEO described you as "the big clunking fist" and that one of your previous directors was seen punching a shareholder during a previous campaign. Are you advising that we should all take a course in self-defence?
Well, I shan't take up any more of your time as you must be so busy adding to that debt mountain you have built so assiduously.
Forever in your debt,
An Impecunious Shareholder
February 20, 2010
[…] See the original post here: John Redwood MP » Letter from the CEO […]
February 20, 2010
Dear Nice Mr CEO,
I like your cuddly TV performances and all that, but can you please stop stealing slogans from the BNP? First you gave us "British jobs for British workers", now we have "Operation fightback". I wouldn't like to slander nice Mr Griffin, but I'm terribly afraid that he might cancel reruns of The Cosby Show.
Yours etc…
February 20, 2010
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/…
Bank lending fell by £4.3 billion in December.
Quantitive Easing is attempting to pump money into the economy via the banks, but they are not lending the money into the wider economy.
Brian Tomkinson: "I presume though that you mean that economic misery and ultimate penury will be equally shared."
"The inherent vice of capitalism is the uneven division of blessings,
while the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal division of
misery." Winston Churchill
February 20, 2010
Very entertaining. Im sure theres a message their.
February 20, 2010
Maybe you could copy Concos latest idea to let HMRC take money directly from our bank accounts. That would allow theft of even more money from the proles and make them even more reliant on Big Brother. Cameron is matching Labour for control freakery.
February 20, 2010
Spoken with a true and honest voice. How refreshing
February 20, 2010
Dear CEO,
We simply must end this nonsensical idea, that we should cut our spending. Quite the opposite is true, we should go all out to borrow our way out of this mess. If we cannot get any more credit cards then I recommend that we simply continue to print more money. After a short while our Money will be so valueless that we will be able to pay our debts with pocket change.We have a problem with unemployment, and by far the most sensible answer to this is to invent even more public sector jobs. I like this idea of a death tax, but isn't there anyway we could take the money before the person actually dies, I recommend a yearly death tax, of £1,000 pounds to be paid on the first of April. We should of course raise income tax, because we cannot trust the population to spend their money wisely, we could then repay part of this additional taxation in food stamps which can only (of course) be used in government approved shops. There are many creative ways in which we can further tax the public and the more we borrow the more we will have to raise in tax. I hope operation Fightback is a massive success, as this nation really needs another Five years of excellent government.
February 20, 2010
I think Cameron and Osborne need to spend more time explaining to the public about the debt.
Brown knows he’s lost this election and is hoping Labour can win the next by painting the Tories as the nasty party making cuts.
A crisis is needed to alert the public, but the rating agencies will not lower our rating until Osborne has pronounced his emergency budget.
I can see the EU tackling their crisis and the markets turning on the UK in the autumn.
February 21, 2010
Badly behaving employees?
A Mail on Sunday investigation has revealed shocking details of how MPs spend more than £800,000 a year on European junkets, which some of them freely admit are an orgy of drinking. Some spend up to two months a year on them, running up bills of around £30,000 each. So little work is done that some politicians regard them as a ‘holiday’. In some instances, MPs use them as opportunities for sex.
They get free business-class travel and a daily allowance of £236 paid direct into their bank account by British taxpayers, with no questions asked.
The incident is described in a new book by Labour MP Paul Flynn, who was at the dinner.
Without naming (the MPs ed), Mr Flynn says CoE meetings were a ‘pretext for shameless alcohol-fuelled jaunts’.
He writes: ‘There was a predictable, crucifying and embarrassing climax to a competition between two British MPs to discover who could drink the most champagne.
‘One cheated and dumped excess champagne into flowerpots at the reception. The other kept drinking to excess.
'He was in a “confused” state en route to a dinner in a splendid French restaurant. More champagne was guzzled. [He] had consumed a near lethal quantity of alcohol.
‘He was placed at the top table where he babbled incoherently. The event was a dinner for delegates from about 20 countries.
‘The reputation of the British is still damaged by this incident. It was not the idiotic competition or the wild inebriation that left an indelible memory. It was the display of projectile vomiting across the top table.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1252602/E…
(I have removed the comments on two named MPs in accordance with the usual policy of not printing allegations against named people which I have not investigated)
February 21, 2010
adam
An excellent example of champagne Socialism and all its stands for.
Benefits at the expense of others.
Its gone on for too long, for too many.
March 10, 2010
this article was very well written, great .. Keep up the good work!