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calscot

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Everything posted by calscot

  1. calscot
    I find it hard to believe any good businessman would genuinely give us an interest free loan with no catches. It's a lose-win situation and most businessmen these days seem to usually go for a win-lose situation even though that's not supposed to be the in the mantra of good business, as long term and sustainable, where win-win is the aim. A win-win situation would be if they offered the loan at the kind of rate they would receive if they put their money somewhere to accumulate interest. Say 4% apr. That would work out at 1% for three months and so £10k instead of £150k. We were supposed to be debt free forever according to our mission statement and so shouldn't really need it at all, but if we're going to use an overdraft, we should be sorting out a proper one with a bank or establishment, at a proper rate of interest and charges and have our "benevolent" board members just guarantee it. The way things are going the only interpretation we can make of the board members is that they are either completely incompetent and stupid, or they are at it. King is playing to the gallery and it's easy for him to do so. I'm not sure what to make of him. However, I doubt there is an successful businessman in the world who you can truly believe.
  2. calscot
    But do you not think the whole think stinks to high heaven? It smells like snake oil to me. At best it's a buy two at six times the normal price and get one free. Now that's generous... not. Part of this deal is horrendous business and the other part is too good to be true. Alarm bells should be ringing. I'd be a lot happier with the Easdales if they lent us the whole amount at REAL market rates, pessimistically let's say, 1% per month, and give them a good return. But the torches and pitchforks are first for Wallace who is acting like a snake oil salesman. The guy is obviously trying to con us in this Q and A. I no longer trust the man or the board who sanctioned the Wonga loan. We really should have checked the market rates at the Coop after buying some land at market rates from the GCC.
  3. calscot
    Can I point out the anomally that Wallace is saying this 30% interest is normal for the market, while Lawwell is saying that their 1.5% from the Coop is normal for the market. Which is it guys? My thoughts is that they are both lying. I think between 4 and 10 percent on property secured loans is more like it.
  4. calscot
    Yes but the point is that Wallace is trumpeting this loan and avoiding talking about the Laxey loan. IF the Easdales' loan is used it will obviously be last and for a very short time. The cost to them could be very minimal if it's say used for two weeks before being the first thing to be paid back when enough season ticket money comes in to do so. They can say how benevolent they are when it's actually only cost them a few grand of interest. I have no problem with the actual loan (whatever it may actually be), it's the wool attempted to be pulled over my eyes I'm bothered about.
  5. calscot
    I still think we only need this loan for three months and so the effective APR is more like 60% (without adding compound interest). When you add in the supposed interest free 500k (if it is ever borrowed which I see as unlikely as it doesn't make sense as they would be losing money), then maybe it's 40%. You can see that Wallace keeps trying to focus on that part of it which just makes him look like a weasel. I did look up Wonga for a comparison and amazingly their representative APR is 5853%! You really have to be pretty thick to go for that. Maybe Wallace sees us all as that thick and so expects 10-15% for a few months should be pretty reasonable in comparison. I've got to say again that I think the 500k free facility is just a front. Either we're not going to use it or it must at least be in some instant access account where it's earning interest till we actually need to spend it. It's just there to deflect from the real loan with the real sting. The fact that the 15% is a fixed fee means that we can't even borrow as we need, starting with the free facility to reduce the interest. I realise that large amounts of money can't just be moved around to enable the lender to calculate daily interest like our bank accounts but even staging the loan over the next three months could be a more efficient way of borrowing as we shouldn't need all of the money immediately. I also think the six month aspect is more bullshit to make the interest not look as bad as it already looks. We should need the money till payday, which is in a few months. It's not like we should need to spend it all at once and have more money coming in a few months later. In a business sense this is like Ally finishing halfway down League One. I don't think I could coach the team better than Ally but I do think I could go to a board meeting and tell them when they are being clueless. But then they aren't really are they? It's all about lining each others pockets rather than running the club in a proper fashion.
  6. calscot
    I'm starting to see Wallace's skill set for earning his huge wage. Like the way I see a lot of top management jobs, it's all about being able to bullshit and lie to everyone while sounding like you're saying something that actually means something, but which laymen wouldn't really understand or be able to argue with. It's about over-complicating things with business babble that sounds very highfalutin but is just disguising the real facts. It used to be known as smoke and mirrors. Oh yeah, second skill is to have a completely brass neck, even under pressure.
  7. calscot
    You think that a hundred grand here and two hundred grand there for nothing in return is OK? This is your best argument? You think we don't need a squad of players for our football team? I really don't know where you're going with this as it's totally absurd. You seem more interested in giving money to the spivs than having a successful football team. It kind of gives your extreme views on our team a bit of context. You think paying players is bad but using the same money to pay excessive fees for a loan we shouldn't need is good? I keep getting offered 4.5% personal loans, my mortgage is less than that, we should at most need a three month loan which wouldn't have been necessary had we had a competent and honest person in charge of the money rather than someone we just paid a fortune to leave before he killed us. At that kind of rate a three month loan of 1m should cost about 11 grand, not 150. Let's be pessimistic and say 20 grand. So we are just giving away 130 grand and you think that's better than paying a player who's been injured? You always have "passengers" in football squads, which is why you need a decent sized one. Some players get injured and some just don't work out. You can't predict which they will be. Football is what we are about, not paying massive interest for loans we shouldn't need. You just don't seem to get it. Are you McMurdo in disguise or something? Before I answer, please provide exactly what each board member provides the club in return for their salary and share options and a comparison of their salary with similar board members with other successful clubs with a cross reference of key performance indicators and whether they have been met.
  8. calscot
    Celtic had no influence over our wins and losses except the games against them. It was a good half season regardless of Celtic results. I think it's obvious the behind the scenes machinations affected the results for the second half of the season. The correlation of bad results with the revelations of off field turmoil is incredibly compelling. But this is something you like to ignore. I don't really know what you're trying to assert here. He was given more money than everyone except Celtic and yet despite a financial collapse that affected results and a 10 point penalty, finished above everyone else. Where is the failure there? He finished exactly where you said he should. Then he wins the next league well ahead of everyone else and seems to be repeating that again this season - where is the failure? If that's your argument then with your criteria, Ally has been a obvious and unqualified success in the leagues. He has not once finished in a position that is less than expected for his budget. If money is so important then he could not possibly be expected to finish above a club that spent more money. He has only had the one chance to do that, looked like he could but then we had the financial meltdown and a 10 point deduction. His cup record may not have been the best but then we know that more money is not everything when it comes to a one off game. If that was the case then pretty much every manager has been a failure. Certainly that would apply to all Rangers managers. But again you choose to ignore almost a whole squad leaving, and illegal transfer embargoes put in place. Even with Whyte, he was messed about with in the transfer market. I'm sure he wouldn't have felt hard done by if he had been given the same budget as Celtic. But the weird thing is having to mention all this again and again as it's as if you don't know about it. McCoist has been handicapped compared to all other Rangers managers, and has still done a passable job when it comes to league position. Even Souness finished behind a team with less money in one season. The point is that there is evidence he can do a job in three different leagues, there is little or no evidence that he can't. As for the cups, I think he could do with a bit of a normal season when it comes to transfers and finances before fully judging. He even seems to be doing a job since he has been able to pick his choice of team and is still in those cups where that has been the case. So why do you keep stating your opinion as fact? Like I've shown, you have very little evidence to base your opinion on bar you subjective view of the stylistic value of the performances. Your basic argument is that when someone is good at something easy then they will struggle when it is hard. That doesn't make sense as you'd expect someone who is good when it's hard to also be good when it's easy. If he was bad at what is easy then you'd have a point. Another piece of counter evidence is that he seems to be improving as he is going up the leagues despite the fact it should be harder and him still having his hands tied when squad building. It would be better for your argument if he was getting worse but that is not the case. There is nothing to suggest he can't continue to improve, especially with a proper Rangers transfer budget, a board that backs him and no embargo. It's unfair to overly criticise him without first giving him the usual tools for the job that previous Rangers managers have been bestowed with. Until he messes up, it could be argued he deserves that chance. It's like putting a youngster like McLeod in the team, he does as well as can be expected, has an odd bad performance and you want to banish him from the team because he's no Ryan Giggs. Can anyone honestly say that if they were playing a football manager computer game, that it through all the off-field stuff that Ally has had at you with the addition of demotivated players and players walking away, all the embargoes and no transfer budget, you get all the results Ally did; that you would be happy if the game then told you you were fired and were a useless manager and should not play the game again? I think most people would be furious with the game, although most people would probably already be so pissed off at what the game threw at them as being unfair, it would have been put in the bin after the first season.
  9. calscot
    You seem to be fishing for something, I don't know what. There are plenty of examples with Stockbridge given a huge payoff for being incompetent and losing us millions, Laxey now have a £150k pay off for a short term loan that according to the CEO (and Stockbridge) shouldn't have been required. That is not normal rates. You really want proof for those? You actually think the board are value for money? Personally, I'd get rid of all of them if I could.
  10. calscot
    We were successful in the top league for half a season even with Craig Whyte at the helm. I know Ally is no managerial genius but he has shown no evidence that he is worse than any feasible alternative, while working under a huge handicap since he started. Just c&c 'manager'.
  11. calscot
    Not sure that will work, we blooded loads of them last year and the fans were left very unimpressed...
  12. calscot
    How much money did we have left in the bank at the end of last season? If you add that to the loans then it seems that's what loss we have made in the last year. The positive is that it looks to be a lot less than the year before, but the negative is that we still can't survive without outside funding which is obviously unsustainable. The board will expect an increase in revenue from a hike in ticket prices for next season but the question is, will that be fulfilled by a very disgruntled fan base who don't trust said board? I still believe the squad expenditure is in proportion to our income, but we still seem to be hemorrhaging money to give windfalls to board members and certain large investors. The player wage bill actually seems to be low in comparison to the total bill and there are surely cuts that can be made, not least starting with the boardroom and executives, but also the bloated wage bill for the rest of the operations. The latter seems out of step with other large clubs with low TV income like Leeds Utd and the Sheffield sides. Those clubs simply couldn't afford to run Ibrox as their stadium under the current costs. Unless we now earn at least 1.65m more than we earn in the next six months we're going to need further funding from a share issue or loan, and the only optimism left from that is the possibility of Dave King heavily investing. However, I can't see that as something the current larger shareholders and the board will welcome. It seems like the gravy train has not yet reached the terminus.
  13. calscot
    No matter what you think of the game, we're well clear at the top of the league, in a final and a quarter final of the cups. That suggest some level of success. You may not like the league we're in or the Ramsden Cup but the fact that we're there is nothing to do with the manager. You might cite the loss in the League Cup but that would be ignoring the fact that the 'manager' could not pick many of his choice of players, and dwelling on that would also suggest a season is not successful unless every trophy entered is won - which kind of says we were never a successful side and likely never will be. I think the correct wording is "you will never see us as a successful team with Ally in charge". I'd bet you didn't see us as a successful side under Walter either. The sooner some of our 'supporters' actually start to 'support' us the better.
  14. calscot
    Looking at a one off statistic with just those basic facts - the Dunfermline youth players play for the first team, the Rangers youth players don't; the Rangers youths win. What is the obvious superficial conclusion about how playing for the first team helps the development of the players? This is also skewed by the severe criticism of our youth system - so we also apparently had no advantage there to use for mitigation.
  15. calscot
    You're probaly right, my memory is hazy.
  16. calscot
    Sounds like we're paying a fee of 150k for a 1m loan. The strange thing is that even people using Wonga are usually more savvy. They borrow until pay day and then pay it back when the money comes in. Our pay day is in June and yet we're borrowing till September. It's like getting a Wonga loan a few days before you get your monthly wage and then inexplicably paying it back three weeks later and accumulating all the interest for nothing.
  17. calscot
    It's actually calculating the APR which is the standard used for comparing loans. I really don't get your logic at all. Doubling it to show the yearly interest doesn't show it to be worse, it shows it to be exactly what it is - 30% per annum, no matter which way you care to look at it. Just because you drove for only 30 minutes for a 30 mile journey, doesn't mean a policeman saying you averaged 60 miles an HOUR is making it sound a lot worse than it was. No wonder Wonga do so well with that kind of thinking.
  18. calscot
    I thought he pretty much was for his first season with us. Improved immeasurably in the second.
  19. calscot
    If I wanted to aim it at you personally, I'd have quoted you directly - which is what I usually do when I want to counter to what someone is saying. This time there seemed a possible inference, in what seems a less than clear argument, that it might go down the road of a premise which contends that fighting in a war defines that you will have a certain viewpoint on independence. I wanted to shine a light on the flaw of that way of thinking in case that's the way it went - a pre-emptive counter if you like. The dig is to that way of thinking rather than anyone in particular. If you don't think that way then all I can see that I've done is but help to clarify that...
  20. calscot
    Didn't even mention you or quote you. I just asserted that a certain presumption of other people's opinion based on such a very simple premise is stupid. To be attributed, it's all depends whether you subscribe to that type of thinking. If you don't, then fine. I'm not going to presume to know one way of the other.
  21. calscot
    I've got to say that saying because someone fought in the British Army means that are not for independence is nothing short of stupid and has an arrogance of presuming not just to know how someone thinks but to completely simplify them. It could be said that in WWII, people were notionally fighting for Europe as much as the UK so does that mean they all want a United States of Europe? There is no chance they could be Eurosceptics? After all the EC was originally bourne out of the idea that countries who are economically and politically involved with each other are unlikely to start another huge war between them. You can like the rest of the UK, want them to do well, want to have a great relationship with them and still want to be independent. You can love your family and be loyal to them but there can still be a time when you want to leave home.
  22. calscot
    Maybe they should have made people write a few Rangers slogans in some text fields before being able to enter the survey, like "We are the people", "Rangers are Scotland's most successful club", "God save the Queen" etc. I doubt they would be able to bring themselves to type those in even for their mischief.
  23. calscot
    The unlikelihood of admin 2 due to a spiv loan was widely predicted and so it's no surprise. The problem is that as with any debt funding, there has to be a future surplus in income to make it feasible - ie there has to be a way of paying it back and then running on a profit or at least breaking even. You can't borrow every year to make ends meet; the debt just gets bigger and borrowing earlier until the business goes under. I think the current loan is another one off where they know there will be a future share issue and a significant increase in income when we're back in the top league. It's another bite at the cherry where they get in some more investment on the first floor (instead of the ground floor) knowing it will be worth a lot more in a few years time. Safeguards with unreasonable arrangement fees and favourable share values will make sure they are well rewarded no matter how the share price fluctuates. Until the easy money making options run out, I think it's going to be the way we are run.
  24. calscot
    I don' t really think it's about giving Celtic an easy final, Lawwell showed it to be transparently an attempt to self-aggrandize Celtic Park as the premier ground in the country. It wasn't so much the money either, although two finals should bring in more than two semis, but the prestige is the more important thing as shown by the location of the Challenge Cup final. The latter was totally illogical when Lawwell's fantasy logic is applied. The really ominous part is that it shows how much grip Celtic have on the SPFL and SFA with licence to exclusively promote only one club in Scotland, which itself claims not to be Scottish. They are killing Scottish football and the the rest of the clubs are sychophantically kissing their collective arse while they do it. Motherwell are already paying for the reduction in second place prize money which paid for some of the bribes. I just can't wait till we make that despicable reap what they sowed in that instance. The irony is that when we are back on top, the income for the other clubs will start to drop off even more when many are already struggling with their effective blue subsidies from our elective prize money, TV rights and ticket purchases. I do hope we turn that knife with lower uptake of away tickets in the top league as I have now have no love left for the teams who kicked us when we were down. Scottish football is moribund in the three senses of competitive level, finances and integrity. The sooner we leave for a more international league, the better. There is nothing left to really play for in our own country apart from our own self respect.
  25. calscot
    I agree but with the threat of admin II, I think most will feel compelled to renew, although they won't like being forced to. The board are playing a dangerous game with the fans.
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