Credit deflation and the reflation cycle to come (part 5)

[Lightscribe]

5 hours ago, sancho panza said:

QUite without the govt willingly miscalculating inflation and running Zirp,these people would have gone pop in 08

Yup, same as it ever was.

People are people at the end of the day. You will always get sub sections of society who are dumb as rocks, and push the envelope as far as they are able to until it all goes pop.

Then the process resets, fingers are burnt, lessons are learnt (then forgotten) and it all starts again.

The central banks and governments this time around - ‘no more boom and bust’ Brown, have blown up a natural cycle into one of systemic risk of implosion (perhaps by design).

[Lightscribe]

3 hours ago, Talking Monkey said:

But that type of debt jubilee would destroy those who held the other side of that debt as an asset. There would be utter carnage. 

Quite. Perhaps a necessary casualty in the grand scheme of things.

From a systematic perspective this 40 year disinflation cycle and the pumping of the ‘‘everything’ bubble has enabled too many sections of society to become ‘asset rich’. Early retirement, FIRE, paid off houses, landlords, debt free etc. It’s not even just the boomer demographic, it’s gen-X and some millennials too.

On the other end of the scale you have a benefits system that have allowed an alternative lifestyle for some of the working age population.

What good is an economic system if large sections of the players have won and withdrawn themselves from the game?

I see the reset being done under the banner of ‘equality’ and equity. We are going to continue to have large migration demographic after all. 

Firstly those with unmanageable mortgage debt (as well as other debt) will be converted to interest only so that the big banks will essentially become institutional landlords.

Student loans will be reset and forgiven.

Everyone will receive UBI which will be an expiring currency (CBDC) so that you can’t save it that can be spent on nationalised assets (energy, food vouchers, transportation etc).

That will exist alongside a digital £ of which previous money will be converted at a ratio (a bit like the 70s decimalisation). 

Edited March 28, 2023 by Lightscribe

[M S E Refugee]

Something weird going on with Royal Mail, they claim to be running out of money and the financial situation is supposed to be dire and yet Daniel Kretinsky has increased his holding from 23% to 24%.

I think the Union have fell for the old problem, reaction, solution strategy.

Royal Mail appear desperate to get rid of the USO so they have created self induced chaos to achieve this goal.

Edited March 28, 2023 by M S E Refugee

[Lightscribe]

They are certainly putting it out there…

https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2023/03/27/petrodollar-dusk-petroyuan-dawn-what-investors-need-to-know/amp/

 

[DurhamBorn]

Back in 2003/4 in my home town terraces went for £12k to £27k for the best ones,they had for around 15 years,never moved a penny.An old flame of mine was the local estate agent,she was selling sniff on the side.Within a period of 6 months southern BTL buyers started ringing her and buying the houses without ever seeing them,and within months,and i mean a few months the houses were all going for between £55k and £80k.I put many friends onto Alison who had shit £12k houses and she unloaded them onto these southerners.Lots of the time when the house went through and they got the keys i had friends who also got a key,and went in that night and removed the boiler,copper,the lot,sometimes even rolling up the insulation in the loft.Nobody gave a toss about southerners up here then,still raw from losing the pits and industry.

As @sancho panza says,all those houses have been in Negative equity since 07,money pits really,and i would guess leveraged buyers will of made very little profit, more likely losses.Those houses are now falling away again and going for around the £50k to £60k areas,so mostly 20% capital losses after 20 years,and houses that need big bucks spending.

Alison is still going,she even tried to rip me off once on a house i was selling for a relative,bending over the table in her tight black trousers,telling me a value £15k under (she would of had someone waiting and she would of got £2k cash backhander),i reminded her this was me,she laughed and said "yeah ,could be Jennifer Anniston bent over and they wouldnt get a quid out of you"

[Yadda yadda yadda]

7 hours ago, sancho panza said:

Wasnt looking for sympathy for them,jsut stating the reality of where were going

Fair enough. It isn't generally like me to lack sympathy for people. We all know there have to be losers for there to be winners. Sounds like these people have lived the lifestyle of winners for a long time without realising that it was built on sand.

[Google247]

7 hours ago, sancho panza said:

you may be too young to remember how much some people overpaid for flats and stuff in the north back in 07.I udnerstand some of them have only emerged from neg equity in the last few years(most likely flats).

Brimingham Mailbox type of £250k 07 purchase.Inner city worksop/Derby.I think there were some proper scammers working the patch back then.I forget the name of the guy but he got sotuehrn investors to part with crazy money for absolute dump houses

Wasnt looking for sympathy for them,jsut stating the reality of where were going

QUite without the govt willingly miscalculating inflation and running Zirp,these people would have gone pop in 08

This is very real NA.I will try and find the main lenders who are on the hook for these loans,suspect its the bad bank from 08

I think a fair bit was probably used for living well, but I think the profits have been milked rather than used ot pay debt down because zirp was never going to end was it?

Anecdotally I can attest to this.

My dad bought  a flat 'just outside leeds' probably back around 2005/6 through inside track for £120k... he sold it last year for just over 100k.

Was too far outside Leeds and as they built 1000s of identical flats purely for southern investors to btl the sales prices never rose.

In all reality ot was probably only worth 50/60k when he bought it, but all the marketing spiel and rental yield guarantees set the crazy prices

He also bought 3 houses up in Scotland near falkirk i think, when there was talk of them opening up new railway routes. They were only about 20k each but after getting trashed by tenants multiple times he also sold them at a loss, and obviously lost most of the rent through fixing the damage

Luckily he did buy btls locally aswell in the south east which have saved him through decent capital appreciation, but still all are mortgaged but all under 50% ltv I believe. Mortgage payments on a few he did last year went from about 200 quid to 700 quid a month. Still way below the rents but if he was highly leveraged he would be in big big trouble right now

[Wight Flight]

9 hours ago, Yadda yadda yadda said:

The original post said the properties were purchased 2006-08. They may have released equity but if so it was for spending rather than buying more property.

Yes, they could spend it all easily but the point is that it was very stupid. I went with a conservative £5k or so per month. Probably a bit more than that. Obviously weighted to recent years as interest rates declined and rents increased. If 70 years old they're probably getting some pension as well. Should be no mortgage to pay for their own home either. Or very little. Even if they took the initial deposit from equity they surely had repayment on their abode. If not they're even more stupid. To have bought 20 homes in 2006-08 alone they must have had a decent amount of capital to start with. They couldn't have extracted new equity every 7-8 weeks.

Even if they didn't pay down the mortgages they could easily have had £100k put aside that would enable them to survive voids whilst selling.

Anyway, fuck them.

They may have an issue that they have already spent the CGT liability.

Quite tricky to sell your way out of that position.

[belfastchild]

7 hours ago, sancho panza said:

you may be too young to remember how much some people overpaid for flats and stuff in the north back in 07.I udnerstand some of them have only emerged from neg equity in the last few years(most likely flats).

Ive told the story of my two mates who got chucked out in around 2007-8 here.
One bought a flat for 130k odds, sold it last year for 90k.
One bought a big house for around 300k, rented the rooms out to students when his kids werent there, lost his job, posted the keys back to the bank and fucked off to England.

Even with the mental price rises here in the last couple of years, if Id have bought my house anytime between late 2004 and the crash in 2008-9 Id still be underwater, even more so with mortgage interest.
When I took out my mortgage in 2005 it was estimated Id pay roughly twice the mortgage amount over the 25 years.

I spend so much time over in the Liverpool area Ive often thought about buying a place there, 2 bed terraces have hardly moved in price in 20 years. They had a big jump corresponding to the increases/introduction of housing benefit but one I track recently has increased its asking price by 10% yet the one next door has gone from 600pcm to 520pcm in rental in the last 6 months. I mentioned before, lots and lots of 2 beds going up for sale, some in large blocks, all for the same asking of around 100k. All about the same time as housing benefit being cut strangely enough and new rules about how much you get depending on your kids age/sex etc.

[Pip321]

23 minutes ago, Google247 said:

Anecdotally I can attest to this.

My dad bought  a flat 'just outside leeds' probably back around 2005/6 through inside track for £120k... he sold it last year for just over 100k.

Was too far outside Leeds and as they built 1000s of identical flats purely for southern investors to btl the sales prices never rose.

In all reality ot was probably only worth 50/60k when he bought it, but all the marketing spiel and rental yield guarantees set the crazy prices

He also bought 3 houses up in Scotland near falkirk i think, when there was talk of them opening up new railway routes. They were only about 20k each but after getting trashed by tenants multiple times he also sold them at a loss, and obviously lost most of the rent through fixing the damage

Luckily he did buy btls locally aswell in the south east which have saved him through decent capital appreciation, but still all are mortgaged but all under 50% ltv I believe. Mortgage payments on a few he did last year went from about 200 quid to 700 quid a month. Still way below the rents but if he was highly leveraged he would be in big big trouble right now

It’s always been about knowing what you are buying, buying cheaper than retail and treating property as a business not a chicken that pays golden eggs.

I recall a great news article/documentary about a woman who had bought a Manchester city flat around 2006 and by 2009 she was bankrupt. She had bought from a property investment company type scheme. Some initial sympathy (at the time) because she had been duped until I saw her visit the flat with the reporter…it was absolutely evident she didn’t live in Manchester, hadn’t seen the flat prior to buying and since all this had kicked off had only visited the flat 2/3 times and was unfamiliar with it and which was the parking space etc.

She probably does more due diligence on a new tv or vacuum cleaner.

Every house I ever bought was scrutinised physically and financially by me and with plenty of contingency to allow for a drop.  

The last full house I bought was £210k in the 2012/13 dip, and the neighbours were paying £410k albeit on a nicely modernised version. Since then one tried to sell at a balmy £600k. I bet any of the old 1970’s styled landlords (who didn’t compete for property nor did the create a demand bubble) would be offering £200/250k tops.

My bungalow, bought cheaply in 2007 for £160k, goes in the market next week @£269k (the lowest priced 3 bed bungalow in town) but with a view of generating interest and accepting the best robust offer whatever that might be. ie £210k or £300k. 

Like @sancho panza said the property buying companies ended up offering amounts that are for people who really do need the money tomorrow (I guess like I used to😆). Initially they were offering £225k for the bungalow but ended up at £195/200k…which is fine if I had someone knocking on my door but I hope for more and what I get over than my kids can have.

Will let you know what the market is like in North Yorkshire in a few weeks. I am hoping to snag a downsizer.😉

Edited March 28, 2023 by Pip321

[Yadda yadda yadda]

1 hour ago, Lightscribe said:

Quite. Perhaps a necessary casualty in the grand scheme of things.

From a systematic perspective this 40 year disinflation cycle and the pumping of the ‘‘everything’ bubble has enabled too many sections of society to become ‘asset rich’. Early retirement, FIRE, paid off houses, landlords, debt free etc. It’s not even just the boomer demographic, it’s gen-X and some millennials too.

On the other end of the scale you have a benefits system that have allowed an alternative lifestyle for some of the working age population.

What good is an economic system if large sections of the players have won and withdrawn themselves from the game?

I see the reset being done under the banner of ‘equality’ and equity. We are going to continue to have large migration demographic after all. 

Firstly those with unmanageable mortgage debt (as well as other debt) will be converted to interest only so that the big banks will essentially become institutional landlords.

Student loans will be reset and forgiven.

Everyone will receive UBI which will be an expiring currency (CBDC) so that you can’t save it that can be spent on nationalised assets (energy, food vouchers, transportation etc).

That will exist alongside a digital £ of which previous money will be converted at a ratio (a bit like the 70s decimalisation). 

This seems more like it to me. Could see the big debts converted to an equity stake before reset rather than pure interest only. That way the obligation to pay can be switched to the new currency.

With everything there will be winners and losers. Bondholders and cash would be losers in every likely scenario. We have already established this even without a hard reset. Cash would probably be increasingly worthless prior to reset. The reset is to solve the problem of money being inflated to oblivion. Wouldn't it be the case that debts and cash have already been eroded in real terms by the time of reset?

Clive seems to paint a picture where everything is swimming along just fine for the average citizen until one day it all changes. He appears to have studied previous resets so it would have been good for someone to ask more skeptical questions.

[Yadda yadda yadda]

10 minutes ago, belfastchild said:

Ive told the story of my two mates who got chucked out in around 2007-8 here.
One bought a flat for 130k odds, sold it last year for 90k.
One bought a big house for around 300k, rented the rooms out to students when his kids werent there, lost his job, posted the keys back to the bank and fucked off to England.

Even with the mental price rises here in the last couple of years, if Id have bought my house anytime between late 2004 and the crash in 2008-9 Id still be underwater, even more so with mortgage interest.
When I took out my mortgage in 2005 it was estimated Id pay roughly twice the mortgage amount over the 25 years.

I spend so much time over in the Liverpool area Ive often thought about buying a place there, 2 bed terraces have hardly moved in price in 20 years. They had a big jump corresponding to the increases/introduction of housing benefit but one I track recently has increased its asking price by 10% yet the one next door has gone from 600pcm to 520pcm in rental in the last 6 months. I mentioned before, lots and lots of 2 beds going up for sale, some in large blocks, all for the same asking of around 100k. All about the same time as housing benefit being cut strangely enough and new rules about how much you get depending on your kids age/sex etc.

Robbie Fowler selling up?

[HousePriceMania]

13 hours ago, Pip321 said:

Basically property, low interest rates and house price growth offered an unbelievable opportunity for some to create genuine wealth.

[THE SOUP DRAGON]

24 minutes ago, Yadda yadda yadda said:

This seems more like it to me. Could see the big debts converted to an equity stake before reset rather than pure interest only. That way the obligation to pay can be switched to the new currency.

With everything there will be winners and losers. Bondholders and cash would be losers in every likely scenario. We have already established this even without a hard reset. Cash would probably be increasingly worthless prior to reset. The reset is to solve the problem of money being inflated to oblivion. Wouldn't it be the case that debts and cash have already been eroded in real terms by the time of reset?

Clive seems to paint a picture where everything is swimming along just fine for the average citizen until one day it all changes. He appears to have studied previous resets so it would have been good for someone to ask more skeptical questions.

The interviewers seemed more interested in pushing XRT and ripple. 

[HousePriceMania]

15 hours ago, sancho panza said:

#debt deflation cometh series

 

this is a hard anecdotal to write but this feels the place to put it after all these years. particuarly @spygirl as he has been banging the drum on this one for a long time

There are going to be laods like this coming and for all thsoe waiting for a cheap hosue,they're coming.

Basically an old friend of my Mums has been in touch after many years and asked her for advice/help with their BTL empire.

She bought 20 hosues/flats around the country in 2006-2008,owes about £3mn.looks like all IO,current rental income circa £15k.Was ok in 2019 with mortgage costs circa £6k.Now mrotgage costs circa £18k and with a couple of empty up for sale short on the monthly bill.

Bascially,now facing repossession and bankruptcy,including repossession of their main family home which is still mrotgaged(head hits table)......

The hosues are all over the country in the manner of southern investors in the north around that time.Apparently,she believes equity to be £500k but also tells my Mum that she's been to the 'buy now' companies but the offers are 'derisory' circa 60% of EA valueation and well below mrotgage debt.She's bascially looking to get together a group of investors to group fund her.The CEO (my Mum) was incredulous at the figures.

Having been sent the email for my view the following leapt out at me

'The model provides a good living at 3%.'

Words fail me.Genuienly,how did these people get to borrwo £3mn froma regulated institution? For anyone wondering why we're in the mess we're in you jsut need to read that.

 

 

and let's consider the repercussions here for UK banks that are on the hook here.These are legacy loans from the last financial crisis that should have been cleaned up then.The fact that they're coming back to haunt the banks now should be a worry for any Brit about what's coming.

I know on here we understand the benefit of lwoer hosue rpices for society but we know there'll be transitional pain until the marekt finds it's new level.But our economy is clearly headed for the rocks.

The bankruptcy rpocess looks like it's been forced by HMRC as I suspect section 24 caught them off guard.And with 20 houses the banks would be wary of initiating I suspect

I realsie tehy won't find much sympathy down here but lsoing everything at 70 is going to be tough to watch.a warning to us all to be careful out there.I know there's a few on here who like me, who like some elverage on their trades eg call options/scottish play (a leveraged play on hope).

For anyone thinking a credit deflation isn't coming to the UK,I'd think again.There are loads of these toxic laons about to come home to roost.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for cheering me up SP.  

[HousePriceMania]

1 hour ago, M S E Refugee said:

Something weird going on with Royal Mail, they claim to be running out of money and the financial situation is supposed to be dire and yet Daniel Kretinsky has increased his holding from 23% to 24%.

 

Take over bid coming ?

[M S E Refugee]

25 minutes ago, HousePriceMania said:

Take over bid coming ?

Kretinsky must be poised, I can't see Royal Mail going into administration as I would assume Kretinsky would lose his money.

The USO is seen as a massive hindrance to Royal Mail.

I collect from a business that sends out a couple of Pallets of Whisky with DPD whilst I take away 4 or 5 Parcels that are destined for the Scottish Highlands and Islands.

Royal Mail are left to deliver all the expensive Parcels whilst the rest of the profitable Parcels are delivered by the other Couriers.

Edited March 28, 2023 by M S E Refugee

[Lightly Toasted]

9 hours ago, JMD said:

For example he tells the positive side of home mortgage debts effectively being wiped out because the liability will remain on the balance sheet of the lending bank but in the old-currency. However he also comments there is nothing preventing governments from taxing the gain the homeowner has made.

Maybe debts would be ported over to the new currency in a controlled manner. A repayment (e.g. monthly mortgage) schedule could be set up to closely mirror the wealth transfer of the previous arrangement. This would be involve less moral hazard than implementing a debt jubilee (by devaluing the old money to zero) and then trying to readjust fairly through taxation. 

Quote

 

Remember a 'currency reset' is a loose term and in reality it is far wider - it's an economic reset. So government will also be actively looking to rescue certain sectors, and raising new taxes from property profits and redirecting those taxes into saving some (favored) bank's could happen. 

Similarly, inflation dangers could be managed, if industry/productive companies were selected and given loans, whereas service companies for example might be 'encouraged' to go bankrupt. Plus those sweet shops you mention (and other luxuries) will exist but the new-currency will probably come with spending controls... Much depends on how laissez-faire or Draconian our government wants to be, my bet would be on the latter.

 

In China there used to be a currency unit called the FEC (Foreign Exchange Certificate) that was officially 1:1 with the Chinese RMB. FECs were for visitors, who would buy them with hard currency, and spendable at special outlets. It was a currency bifurcation: the same value printed on the notes, but worlds apart in terms of what you could get.

What they were really doing was privileging money that was "close to" hard currency in terms of how it had been gained. Other countries didn't bother with such a scheme, they just used dollars directly.

A CBDC could have this kind of partitioning built in to its architecture. E.g. imported goods might be cheaper (or only gettable) with money [recently?] gained by exporting something == directly equivalent to the Chinese FEC.

As dubious as I am about the control/programmability aspects of CBDC, the possibility to introduce positive economic incentives  to work/export while cutting bogus earnings, benefits etc without nominally defaulting on them would be attractive, given our current position.

 

 

[Axeman123]

10 hours ago, Yadda yadda yadda said:

Yes, they could spend it all easily but the point is that it was very stupid.

Totally agree. It is interesting that even having executed a grand scale "property 118" strategy they wouldn't have been able to fly first class multiple times a year etc without either another significant source of income or spending the equity. The mythical landlord lifestyle of conspicuous consmption and having all day free for ostentatious "charity work" (and all while "building generational wealth" too!) doesn't even work with 20 houses! Maybe that is why so many of them are convinced that they are hard-working and providing a service.

10 hours ago, Yadda yadda yadda said:

To have bought 20 homes in 2006-08 alone they must have had a decent amount of capital to start with. They couldn't have extracted new equity every 7-8 weeks.

I had missed that bit. IMO they were likely doing the full "Property course" strategy, remortgaging ASAP to pull the next deposit etc, just to have managed that. The fact they apparently did all that buying when that strategy still "worked" and then stopped dead when it didn't is the proof, at least as I see it.

10 hours ago, THE SOUP DRAGON said:

He spelt out that effectively anyone who had a mortgage would be debt free, companies would no longer have any debt liabilities and the government would be starting from a clean slate. He then went on to say there would be an almighty spending boom with all of this new found ability to take on "new" debt, I'm really puzzled with this. surely this would just lead to absolute mad inflation? with everybody simultaneously declared debt free all piling into the sweet shop at the same time.  

I haven't watched the video, but surely the opposite would happen. One man's debt is another one's asset. A debt jubilee would be massively deflationary, in that it would wipe out vast swathes of wealth held as claims for repayment. The idea that anyone would be in a hurry to lend right after seeing lenders get wiped out seems bloody niave to me as well. How banks or savings survive that is a msystery to me too. IMO you would be back to a cash-on-delivery and physical-wage-packet economy after that, all faith and credit would be extinguished.

9 hours ago, wherebee said:

many ancient societies used to do this debt reset on a regular basis.  It worked.  Yes, winners and losers, but it obviously held benefits for the overall society.

The purpose of debt jubilees in an ancient society would be to deter debt/credit balances building up in the first place, which is probably not a bad thing. We live in a financialised and highly leveraged economy, there is just no equivalence IMO.

[Castlevania]

2 hours ago, M S E Refugee said:

Something weird going on with Royal Mail, they claim to be running out of money and the financial situation is supposed to be dire and yet Daniel Kretinsky has increased his holding from 23% to 24%.

I think the Union have fell for the old problem, reaction, solution strategy.

Royal Mail appear desperate to get rid of the USO so they have created self induced chaos to achieve this goal.

I’m assuming he just wants the international business. 

[Lightly Toasted]

6 hours ago, Talking Monkey said:

But that type of debt jubilee would destroy those who held the other side of that debt as an asset. There would be utter carnage. 

The whole ledger would be stranded in the old system: the borrower's debt, the lender's assets, the obligations of the lender. Therefore creditors would not be destroyed, at least not in the sense of being forced into default themselves.

Anyone with large positive balances would lose [part of] them, though.

 

[Jay]

1 hour ago, Yadda yadda yadda said:

This seems more like it to me. Could see the big debts converted to an equity stake before reset rather than pure interest only. That way the obligation to pay can be switched to the new currency.

With everything there will be winners and losers. Bondholders and cash would be losers in every likely scenario. We have already established this even without a hard reset. Cash would probably be increasingly worthless prior to reset. The reset is to solve the problem of money being inflated to oblivion. Wouldn't it be the case that debts and cash have already been eroded in real terms by the time of reset?

Clive seems to paint a picture where everything is swimming along just fine for the average citizen until one day it all changes. He appears to have studied previous resets so it would have been good for someone to ask more skeptical questions.

I seem to remember that with Credit Suisse the bond holders got shafted before the shareholders….it should have been the other way round…my intrepretation of this is anything is possible…expect the unexpected..it’s changing and we are living it..slowly and then quickly..again many thanks to the many posters who have opened my eyes and mind slightly to what is occurring..without their contribution I would not think that the times  are a changing..

[Yadda yadda yadda]

9 minutes ago, Jay said:

I seem to remember that with Credit Suisse the bond holders got shafted before the shareholders….it should have been the other way round…my intrepretation of this is anything is possible…expect the unexpected..it’s changing and we are living it..slowly and then quickly..again many thanks to the many posters who have opened my eyes and mind slightly to what is occurring..without their contribution I would not think that the times  are a changing..

The Credit Suisse bond holders were shafted to an extent. The shareholders were written down to almost zero so a lot of that pain would have been taken by the bond holders anyway. I've seen figures of 2 to 3.2 bn USD for the shares, paid in UBS shares. Which is better than nothing but isn't the 17 bn valuation of tier one bonds.

[Starsend]

9 hours ago, wherebee said:

many ancient societies used to do this debt reset on a regular basis.  It worked.  Yes, winners and losers, but it obviously held benefits for the overall society.

The devil will be in the detail. I'll wager that they didn't have as financialised an economy as we have - I doubt mortgages even existed. I don't see how you could gift half the country a free house while stealing that directly from those who've worked a lifetime to pay for theirs and save for their old age - leaving them in poverty. I cannot see how this could possibly work without ripping the entire country apart (never mind working well).

The only way they could get away with it (without being hung from the nearest lamp-post) is by making sure that only a small number lose while a majority gain. What was being suggested would mean many losing, more than those who gained.

 

[Bilbo]

1 hour ago, M S E Refugee said:

Kretinsky must be poised, I can't see Royal Mail going into administration as I would assume Kretinsky would lose his money.

The USO is seen as a massive hindrance to Royal Mail.

I collect from a business that sends out a couple of Pallets of Whisky with DPD whilst I take away 4 or 5 Parcels that are destined for the Scottish Highlands and Islands.

Royal Mail are left to deliver all the expensive Parcels whilst the rest of the profitable Parcels are delivered by the other Couriers.

I think just one delivery a week would be ok for most domestic homes.

Telegraph today.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/03/28/royal-mail-bosses-threaten-administration-amid-strike-chaos0/