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Doom and gloom – and a bit more
doom! You don’t need me to explain the current economic situation, you only have to open a newspaper, turn on the television or radio and once you’ve either read, watched or listened to the latest news, you don’t know whether to cut your throat or jump out of the window! We all know things are not as they should be, but the media like to make things even worse by frightening the life out of everyone. Consequently, the public are too frightened to spend money just in case they lose their job, or any savings they’ve acquired that they might need in the future. So they only spend what they have to and the economic situation worsens. Some of the big High Street outlets recently announced their figures for the current financial year and all made a profit - albeit less than last year. But what did the media do? They never concentrated on the companies making a profit, they went into hysterics about lower profits than last year. I could understand if these High Street stores suddenly showed losses, then everyone could justifiably be concerned, but for goodness sake they were still in profit. I like to watch the 10 o’clock news in the evening and either BBC or ITV recently announced they were re-introducing something they had in the early nineties - announcing job losses on a daily basis. "We now take you to Newcastle where 500 job losses were announced today… now on to Norfolk where 83 job losses were announced at a Turkey farm!" Goodness me, it’s right that the public be kept aware of what is happening in the country, however, William Joyce – the man known in WW2 as Lord Haw Haw - would have been proud of what our media is achieving and the hysteria it is provoking. There is not any question that some of the top bankers in the world have mismanaged their business, so much so that |
 Governments around the worldhave stepped in to bale them out and rightly so, however, I wonder if the same would be done for Dial-a-Cab if ever we were to have financial difficulties? Because London is the financial capital of the world, the slow down has taken its toll here and particularly in our industry where all the large financial institutions seem to have an account with us. Consequently, they are all looking at costs from every aspect of their respective organisations and their Ground Transportation budget comes in for particular scrutiny. They are all looking at our charges and there is not any question that they are endeavouring to move as much work as they can from taxis into cars as they are seen as a cheaper alternative. But I can assure you, they sell cheap but deliver more expensively in large amounts of the time. The problem we also face is that if things do get any worse and people lose their jobs, some of them will seek refuge in the Private Hire / minicab industry where they can obtain a job and a licence almost immediately and as we are all aware, they cater for a large transient workforce. That in turn will enable the minicab industry to grow and present us with an even greater problem as they confront us with larger fleets. At the time of writing, OPEC have announced a cut their production of around 5% in order to stop the price of a barrel of oil dropping, while in the longer term begin its increase. They obviously prefer the $150 a barrel we encountered some months ago rather than at $70 – and why wouldn’t they? All cheaper pricing does is reduce our inflation and help the remainder of the world out of any recession! |
Good News Anyway, writing the above makes me as bad as the media that I have just criticised, so I’ll give you some good news in an attempt to ease the pain. I have learned this week from two of our accounts - one in Great Winchester Street and the other at Canada Square - that they will not being going out to tender as they should, but will both be extending our contract for a further year. I hope you agree with me that in this climate, that is certainly good news.
Payments 2007 AGM
Brian Rice |
