China's bubble about to burst?

"THINK back to when you were a child. You blew a bubble, it grew and eventually it burst. That’s how some of my former colleagues in Hong Kong are feeling about China’s prospects at the moment. There has been very little economic news to get excited about over the past two weeks. Britain is officially back in recession, Spain is on the brink of disaster, and a shrinking manufacturing sector and slowing growth in China are making economists I know ever so twitchy. During a visit to some of my old haunts from the 1990s, I was astonished to find that the shop where I used to buy newspapers (and the occasional cigar) now sold Dior and Fendi. “China’s going to hell in a handbag shop,” quipped one bearish friend." quote from twitter #cityinsider

Royal Mail still hanging on in there?

I've recently started looking more closely at the activities I do at work, to identify patterns of similarity and streamline repetitive tasks. I try to implement some Japanese methodologies such as Total Quality Management (TQM), the 5s and root cause analysis. Above all else I try to learn from my mistakes at a faster rate, this is one of human's greatest talents compared to Neanderthal chimps. One thing I find myself doing almost on a regular business and I will try hard to refrain my blog becoming a rant. When returning home from work I find more post for other people than there is for me. I’m sure its fairly typical of living in a rental property but is frustrating. I use to right neatly on the front of the envelopes, "Return to sender, not know at this address" and stick it back in the post box. Now I just write "RTS - NKATA" sod it! But what happens to that persons new credit card and bank details that they care about less than I do. The return address is on the reverse and I presume it is sent back to the sender. I question whether it is possible for the Royal Mail to process returned mail to a greater level of detail and certainly record the failed recipients address, as well as the return senders address. If this were to happen over a period of weeks a database can be accessed where it can be assumed the recipient really does not live at that address. This would certainly solve my repeated attempts to flush out all mail with no recipient. In the interest of a balanced argument I suggest that the Royal Mail would say they have a duty of care to deliver the mail in which they have been trusted to deliver. But is is possible they could feedback to the sender a history of undeliverable mail. Its also possible that the Royal Mail gets paid twice, once for delivering the mail and the second time, charging a fee for returning the mail. If the sender has an inability to get hold of their customer by another method and stop sending mail, is of no concern to the Royal Mail. In fact it is possible to suggest that Royal Mail benefits from this inefficiency. Of course the Royal Mail also provide their own redirection service for a handsome fee, but does not catch all. Until the Royal Mail develop, evolve and stop selling profitable parts of their business they may never improve from their position now. They may also not deteriorate any further???