The Deconomist Magazine

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La Poste raises the price of stamps by 3,6% in order to compensate for lost volumes

Analysts and investors alike felt a pang of relief yesterday at the La Poste investors’ day. The yearly event, which gathers a grand total of one investor, the French State, provided a unique opportunity for La Poste’s CEO to spell out in greater details its strategic plan : Restoring Margins With Paper and Scissors.

According to  La Poste’s CEO, the dramatic decrease of physical mail paves the way for a daring pricing policy, lower volumes leading to exponential increases of the unit price of stamps. By 2020, La Poste’s financial guidance forecasts a stamp price of about 125,568 euros, before inflation, against a final price in 2050 of about 534 millions euros and 37 cts for the very last letter sent via physical mail.

As La Poste’s head of “mortar and mortar" communication underlined during the press conference : “we don’t think that physical mail will disappear, at least as long as people enjoy receiving news from tax authorities, the police, their grand-parents or a combination thereof”.

Sound economics underpin the bold pricing policy as La Poste will keep on selling stamps vastly above marginal costs, shrewdly eschewing innovation, as befits any monopoly worth its salt. La Poste hence remains at the cutting edge of the management theory called “transition despite innovation.”   

The plan is internally known as “3 times more by 2017”, as it will lead to three times pricier mail, three times less volume and three times less to do for everyone. It has the benefit of maintaining low skilled employees in fittingly low paying jobs rather than engaging them in retraining and preparation for an alleged “digitalization of mail”.

Thanks to the decreasing workload, unions have greater latitude to applaud the strategic move, which comes after limiting opening hours of local post offices to fractions of seconds. To that end, La Poste’s CEO reminded skeptics yesterday that such initiative lead to tremendous efficiency gains, French postmen and postwomen ranking first in Europe for their speed in delivering “attempt delivery notices” across the country. 

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Greek macro-economists turn violent against Mr Sapin

Never ending negotiations have taken a darker turn July 20, 2015 with the terrorist attack conducted on the French Ministry of Economy, Michel Sapin.

Mr Sapin, who drives his own car, thinks his own thoughts and eats his own food, was refueling on his way back from Brussels when he was brutally attacked by two Greek macro-economists clad in traditional costumes. Mr Sapin was hit repeatedly with a Golden Rule and thus lost his balance, breaking his right arm in two places, his left arm being already broken since the vote of the Macron law.

The attack was claimed by the newly formed group, Black Moussaka, which aims at restoring Greek’s honor via “delicious, tasty and natural Greek cuisine, sound macroeconomics and attacking European bean counters in their home countries”.

The two perpetrators fled on foot using Marxist rhetoric in order to escape French police forces, mainly trained in fighting liberal policies. It remains to be seen whether Mr Sapin will press charges as the recently signed agreement between Greece and its creditors has limited judicial powers in Greece to “hearing victims with a sympathetic ear and severe scolding of miscreants via email”.

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Was 50 cent undercapitalized, and is there a systemic risk ?

This week, the rapper known as 50 cent filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in a court in Connecticut according to several press reports. The filing briefly halted the sex tape trial featuring 50 vs. Lastonia Leviston, aka Rick Ross' baby mama. The courts recently ordered 50 to pay $5 million after he posted her sex tape online in 2009.

This information immediately raised concerned regarding a potential systemic risk to the whole rapping business sector. According to federal reserve insiders, rescue plans are currently being analyzed, including a potential "qualitative easing" plan in which the federal reserve would provide liquidity against sex-tapes and unused rap lyrics. As a result, Kardashian Inc. and Hilton Ltd stocks increased by respectively 123% and 231%.

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