This morning I posed a question about whisky. At lunch I travelled to a friendly whisky shop in Cambridge. With some great help from the assistant, I picked the following 5cl bottles:
Springbank 10 yr Bowmore 12 yr Macallan 10 yr Arran 14 yr (*) Robert Burns (another Arran) Glenlivet 12 yr
All held in straw in a second-hand Cuban Bolivar cigar box.
It's not a perfect mix of whiskies, but should be okay to give them a sample of the differing tastes. It looks so good I can scarcely bring myself to give it away!
Oh, and I got a 70cl bottle of Ardbeg Uigeadail for myself! ;-)
Thirsty now. That sounds like a good shop, and as it happens I'll be in Cambridge this weekend - which one is it?
Robert Graham. It's right by Tatties, which I go into regularly, and yet I'd never noticed it. Mainly because it's a smoking shop, and I'm a non-smoker. Recommended, and I had a real laugh with the assistant. They have shops elsewhere as well.
How about the 'little guys' who were injured or lost their lives because they had no other choice than to cycle in even more congested traffic, and ended up underneath a lorry or car?
Crow made a difference to them alright.
Congratulations - Adrian Harper himself would have been proud of that one.
I cycle to work for a couple of reasons, one of which is that we can't afford to run 2 cars. I'm blaming Cameron if I get knocked over.
Mr. Brooke, indeed. Globalisation means there'll be consistent downward pressure on ordinary wages
Only to the point where incomes in the major emerging markets approach those of low skilled incomes in the West. In fact, not even approach - just close the gap to the point where the better organisation, lack of corruption, rule of law etc in the West is worth more. People talk about China's size, but the flip side of that is that once China gets to upper middle income status, there's not many other low income work forces that can replace it at anywhere near the scale.
I'm going to get hammered for this, but I'm dead against the argument that Crow was a dinosaur because he knew how to get the best for his union members. Most on the right are saying he was good for his members interests, but poor for the customer/commuter. I can't agree. You can say that, ultimately, every job should only be all about the customer, but to believe that is to believe that prices and costs should be ever cheaper, regardless of the interests of the employees. If we automate everything, outsource everything, send our jobs overseas to make production costs cheaper, we're losing jobs here, making our life harder.
It's naive of me, I know, but we can't all be bankers, lawyers, doctors, software designers, or business owners. Some of us work for relatively low wages. The government have to effing top up the wages hundreds of thousands of people, for god's sake. That's just plain madness. You'll all tell me that people make their own choices, can carve their own career out. I don't believe you. Bob Crow fought against that, making a difference for the little guy. We need more like him.
The people that most benefit from affordable travel, food, telecoms etc ARE the little guy. If you ramp up wages on the Underground way above the market rate, that is basically a poll tax on everyone commuting to work. As a share of income, the burden falls mainly on millions of low income Londoners. And all this so Tube drivers can get paid more than twice the average wage. This isn't a policy that helps the working poor. It's a racket to benefit a few lucky sods.
Those low income people should be forcibly removed from London, they've got no right to be there, dirtying such a glorious place up.
I'm going to get hammered for this, but I'm dead against the argument that Crow was a dinosaur because he knew how to get the best for his union members. Most on the right are saying he was good for his members interests, but poor for the customer/commuter. I can't agree. You can say that, ultimately, every job should only be all about the customer, but to believe that is to believe that prices and costs should be ever cheaper, regardless of the interests of the employees. If we automate everything, outsource everything, send our jobs overseas to make production costs cheaper, we're losing jobs here, making our life harder.
It's naive of me, I know, but we can't all be bankers, lawyers, doctors, software designers, or business owners. Some of us work for relatively low wages. The government have to effing top up the wages hundreds of thousands of people, for god's sake. That's just plain madness. You'll all tell me that people make their own choices, can carve their own career out. I don't believe you. Bob Crow fought against that, making a difference for the little guy. We need more like him.
The people that most benefit from affordable travel, food, telecoms etc ARE the little guy. If you ramp up wages on the Underground way above the market rate, that is basically a poll tax on everyone commuting to work. As a share of income, the burden falls mainly on millions of low income Londoners. And all this so Tube drivers can get paid more than twice the average wage. This isn't a policy that helps the working poor. It's a racket to benefit a few lucky sods.
Those low income people should be forcibly removed from London, they've got no right to be there, dirtying such a glorious place up.
That's already happened (if they work and are not on benefits of course) .That's why they need cheap fares to come back to work
'''People talk about China's size, but the flip side of that is that once China gets to upper middle income status, there's not many other low income work forces that can replace it at anywhere near the scale. ''
If Chinese labour decides it wants a bigger cut of the cake, then the price of 'cheap' labour will become less cheap. And that will probably be a good thing.
I'm going to get hammered for this, but I'm dead against the argument that Crow was a dinosaur because he knew how to get the best for his union members. Most on the right are saying he was good for his members interests, but poor for the customer/commuter. here, making our life harder.
It's naive of me, I know, but we can't all be bankers, lawyers, doctors, software designers, or business owners. Some of us work for relatively low wages. The government have to effing top up the wages hundreds of thousands of people, for god's sake. That's just plain madness. You'll all tell me that people make their own choices, can carve their own career out. I don't believe you. Bob Crow fought against that, making a difference for the little guy. We need more like him.
The people that most benefit from affordable travel, food, telecoms etc ARE the little guy. If you ramp up wages on the Underground way above the market rate, that is basically a poll tax on everyone commuting to work. As a share of income, the burden falls mainly on millions of low income Londoners. And all this so Tube drivers can get paid more than twice the average wage. This isn't a policy that helps the working poor. It's a racket to benefit a few lucky sods.
Those low income people should be forcibly removed from London, they've got no right to be there, dirtying such a glorious place up.
personally I thought Bob Crow had learnt from London's Financial community on how to charge ransom salaries for fairly straightforward work.
The railways are mainly publically owned, albeit by foreign governments. Here in the desolate north there is an argument about trains being transferred away from Transpennine Express (part owned by the French Government) to Chiltern (wholly owned by the German government). There is an option to transfer some trains from Northern (part owned by the Dutch government) to Transpennine Express providing trains can be freed up elsewhere, perhaps from Greater Anglia (owned by the Dutch government) who have trains off-lease.
The ocean of public subsidy (around £1bn a year - don't have the exact number to hand) which is swallowed up by mainly foreign government taxpayers as subsidy in running lossmaking services could be kept in the UK if the wholly or part nationalised franchises reverted back to UK national ownership at the end of their contract. At zero cost to the taxpayer as we currently pay them. Its madness to demand that we "privatise" East Coast quickly before the election with Eurostar (owned by the French government) leading the running to win the "privatised" bid.
The operators make minimal risks, make minimal decisions (see para 1 - all train decisions made by the government) but hoover up oceans of cash. Instead, why not have them run the service on a concession (Scotrail, Virgin Trains, Great Western) where the private contractor is paid a management fee for their services.
Bob Crow fought against that, making a difference for the little guy. We need more like him.
All the little guys who struggled to get to work when the Underground wasn't working? Who missed bedtimes with children, meetings, time with loved ones?
How about the 'little guys' who were injured or lost their lives because they had no other choice than to cycle in even more congested traffic, and ended up underneath a lorry or car?
Crow made a difference to them alright.
That's a crap reply. If you blame Bob Crow because cyclists die on our roads, because successive governments have never had a clue about how to make cycling safe, or deal effectively with traffic congestion and management, I really don't know what to say to you.
Reread what I wrote.
He can be partly blamed for the deaths and injuries of those inexperienced cyclists who were forced to use that form of transport due to strike action.
If the trains had been running, they wouldn't have been on two wheels.
I presume you have statistical evidence to show that more cyclists were killed on the road during rail strikes and that those who died were inexperienced and would not have been riding had the strikes not been on?
If not then perhaps we should consider your comments as nothing more than a smear.
The railways are mainly publically owned, albeit by foreign governments. Here in the desolate north there is an argument about trains being transferred away from Transpennine Express (part owned by the French Government) to Chiltern (wholly owned by the German government). There is an option to transfer some trains from Northern (part owned by the Dutch government) to Transpennine Express providing trains can be freed up elsewhere, perhaps from Greater Anglia (owned by the Dutch government) who have trains off-lease.
The ocean of public subsidy (around £1bn a year - don't have the exact number to hand) which is swallowed up by mainly foreign government taxpayers as subsidy in running lossmaking services could be kept in the UK if the wholly or part nationalised franchises reverted back to UK national ownership at the end of their contract. At zero cost to the taxpayer as we currently pay them. Its madness to demand that we "privatise" East Coast quickly before the election with Eurostar (owned by the French government) leading the running to win the "privatised" bid.
The operators make minimal risks, make minimal decisions (see para 1 - all train decisions made by the government) but hoover up oceans of cash. Instead, why not have them run the service on a concession (Scotrail, Virgin Trains, Great Western) where the private contractor is paid a management fee for their services.
I'm intrigued by the idea of moving to a concessionary system - see my earlier post on this thread (not the one about whisky!).
He put members interests first and said stuff the politics.
His members did well out of his miltancy, but by the end he was over playing the RMT's hand. Would Boris and co even be considering driverless trains if the RMT had been more co-operative?? I doubt it.
Obvious technological advance. They're used elsewhere.
To put it simply: a change of ownership will not automatically cure the railway's ills. Indeed, if done thoughtlessly it could easily make things much worse.
British Rail was rightly a national joke. Today's trains are clean, fast and in my experience almost always punctual.
I remember john humprys on the today programme on the anniversary of the hatfield crash all doom and gloom about rail safety, how we should remember the anniversary.
A more sane person would have pointed out that a whole year had passed with zero deaths. Meanwhile >3000 people died on the roads. Now we're >10 years on aren't we?
The main problem with the railways is linked to the issue Evan Davis pointed out so well last night on the TV - we are far too London-centric. So commuting into London is miserable because for too many people want to do it.
Bob Crow fought against that, making a difference for the little guy. We need more like him.
All the little guys who struggled to get to work when the Underground wasn't working? Who missed bedtimes with children, meetings, time with loved ones?
How about the 'little guys' who were injured or lost their lives because they had no other choice than to cycle in even more congested traffic, and ended up underneath a lorry or car?
Crow made a difference to them alright.
That's a crap reply. If you blame Bob Crow because cyclists die on our roads, because successive governments have never had a clue about how to make cycling safe, or deal effectively with traffic congestion and management, I really don't know what to say to you.
Reread what I wrote.
He can be partly blamed for the deaths and injuries of those inexperienced cyclists who were forced to use that form of transport due to strike action.
If the trains had been running, they wouldn't have been on two wheels.
I presume you have statistical evidence to show that more cyclists were killed on the road during rail strikes and that those who died were inexperienced and would not have been riding had the strikes not been on?
If not then perhaps we should consider your comments as nothing more than a smear.
I'm also a bit confused why t'Watcher hasn't praised Bob Crow for all the lives he saved on days when the tube wasn't running. At approximately 30 deaths and 4000 injuries a year, each day of service lost must be seen as a fantastic contribution to public wellbeing.
I'm going to get hammered for this, but I'm dead against the argument that Crow was a dinosaur because he knew how to get the best for his union members. Most on the right are saying he was good for his members interests, but poor for the customer/commuter. I can't agree. You can say that, ultimately, every job should only be all about the customer, but to believe that is to believe that prices and costs should be ever cheaper, regardless of the interests of the employees. If we automate everything, outsource everything, send our jobs overseas to make production costs cheaper, we're losing jobs here, making our life harder.
It's naive of me, I know, but we can't all be bankers, lawyers, doctors, software designers, or business owners. Some of us work for relatively low wages. The government have to effing top up the wages hundreds of thousands of people, for god's sake. That's just plain madness. You'll all tell me that people make their own choices, can carve their own career out. I don't believe you. Bob Crow fought against that, making a difference for the little guy. We need more like him.
The people that most benefit from affordable travel, food, telecoms etc ARE the little guy. If you ramp up wages on the Underground way above the market rate, that is basically a poll tax on everyone commuting to work. As a share of income, the burden falls mainly on millions of low income Londoners. And all this so Tube drivers can get paid more than twice the average wage. This isn't a policy that helps the working poor. It's a racket to benefit a few lucky sods.
Those low income people should be forcibly removed from London, they've got no right to be there, dirtying such a glorious place up.
I see you can't engage with my actual arguments so you attempt to debate a straw man instead. It is your supported policy of increasing the costs to customers for such basic things as transport that actually makes London less affordable for those low income people.
The railways are mainly publically owned, albeit by foreign governments. Here in the desolate north there is an argument about trains being transferred away from Transpennine Express (part owned by the French Government) to Chiltern (wholly owned by the German government). There is an option to transfer some trains from Northern (part owned by the Dutch government) to Transpennine Express providing trains can be freed up elsewhere, perhaps from Greater Anglia (owned by the Dutch government) who have trains off-lease.
The ocean of public subsidy (around £1bn a year - don't have the exact number to hand) which is swallowed up by mainly foreign government taxpayers as subsidy in running lossmaking services could be kept in the UK if the wholly or part nationalised franchises reverted back to UK national ownership at the end of their contract. At zero cost to the taxpayer as we currently pay them. Its madness to demand that we "privatise" East Coast quickly before the election with Eurostar (owned by the French government) leading the running to win the "privatised" bid.
The operators make minimal risks, make minimal decisions (see para 1 - all train decisions made by the government) but hoover up oceans of cash. Instead, why not have them run the service on a concession (Scotrail, Virgin Trains, Great Western) where the private contractor is paid a management fee for their services.
It's at plenty of cost to the taxpayer, seeing that we can cancel the contracts of foreign state companies if they fail to perform, whereas we can't do that with a UK state company.
It would be interesting to see a polling breakdown on the basis of users / non-users of the Railway.
and region - As JonC says it maybe a London moan more than anything . I certainly do not experience many problems travelling from outside the commuter belt into London
'''People talk about China's size, but the flip side of that is that once China gets to upper middle income status, there's not many other low income work forces that can replace it at anywhere near the scale. ''
If Chinese labour decides it wants a bigger cut of the cake, then the price of 'cheap' labour will become less cheap. And that will probably be a good thing.
I'm going to get hammered for this, but I'm dead against the argument that Crow was a dinosaur because he knew how to get the best for his union members. Most on the right are saying he was good for his members interests, but poor for the customer/commuter. here, making our life harder.
It's naive of me, I know, but we can't all be bankers, lawyers, doctors, software designers, or business owners. Some of us work for relatively low wages. The government have to effing top up the wages hundreds of thousands of people, for god's sake. That's just plain madness. You'll all tell me that people make their own choices, can carve their own career out. I don't believe you. Bob Crow fought against that, making a difference for the little guy. We need more like him.
The people that most benefit from affordable travel, food, telecoms etc ARE the little guy. If you ramp up wages on the Underground way above the market rate, that is basically a poll tax on everyone commuting to work. As a share of income, the burden falls mainly on millions of low income Londoners. And all this so Tube drivers can get paid more than twice the average wage. This isn't a policy that helps the working poor. It's a racket to benefit a few lucky sods.
Those low income people should be forcibly removed from London, they've got no right to be there, dirtying such a glorious place up.
personally I thought Bob Crow had learnt from London's Financial community on how to charge ransom salaries for fairly straightforward work.
Mr. Brooke
Maybe we should tax the annual bonuses of RMT Drivers in order to provide our feckless youth with free bicyles?
Mr. Brooke, indeed. Globalisation means there'll be consistent downward pressure on ordinary wages
Only to the point where incomes in the major emerging markets approach those of low skilled incomes in the West. In fact, not even approach - just close the gap to the point where the better organisation, lack of corruption, rule of law etc in the West is worth more. People talk about China's size, but the flip side of that is that once China gets to upper middle income status, there's not many other low income work forces that can replace it at anywhere near the scale.
This is a crucially important point.
And you tend to see it in the development of countries in the Far East (Japan excepted), they seem to find it fairly easy to get to $20-22,000 GDP per capita, and then their growth rate slows to almost Western levels.
The railways are mainly publically owned, albeit by foreign governments. Here in the desolate north there is an argument about trains being transferred away from Transpennine Express (part owned by the French Government) to Chiltern (wholly owned by the German government). There is an option to transfer some trains from Northern (part owned by the Dutch government) to Transpennine Express providing trains can be freed up elsewhere, perhaps from Greater Anglia (owned by the Dutch government) who have trains off-lease.
The ocean of public subsidy (around £1bn a year - don't have the exact number to hand) which is swallowed up by mainly foreign government taxpayers as subsidy in running lossmaking services could be kept in the UK if the wholly or part nationalised franchises reverted back to UK national ownership at the end of their contract. At zero cost to the taxpayer as we currently pay them. Its madness to demand that we "privatise" East Coast quickly before the election with Eurostar (owned by the French government) leading the running to win the "privatised" bid.
The operators make minimal risks, make minimal decisions (see para 1 - all train decisions made by the government) but hoover up oceans of cash. Instead, why not have them run the service on a concession (Scotrail, Virgin Trains, Great Western) where the private contractor is paid a management fee for their services.
It's at plenty of cost to the taxpayer, seeing that we can cancel the contracts of foreign state companies if they fail to perform, whereas we can't do that with a UK state company.
Do the contracts have a clawback clause in them then? If there's a guarantee that a certain service be provided, and in the event of failure we get money back and costs of changing provider covered then there's some upside, but I get the impression that's not how it tends to play out.
Mr. Brooke, indeed. Globalisation means there'll be consistent downward pressure on ordinary wages
People talk about China's size, but the flip side of that is that once China gets to upper middle income status, there's not many other low income work forces that can replace it at anywhere near the scale.
You're joking right? Out of over 7 billion people only 1.3 billion are in China - there's PLENTY of poor and clever people who will happily occupy the bottom rung if China maintains it's march up the income ladder. In fact China is already suffering a working age population reduction and sharp wage inflation. They need a new business model as being the cheap and crappy guys won't take them further. And other countries are starting to eat into their dominance in many sectors - for example alot of really good and really cheap shoes are now made in Somalia and Ethiopia. By Chinese entrepreneurs!
Industrialising at the bottom end will lift you out of poverty. It won't lift you through the middle income trap - you need laws, property, rights, low corruption, technical innovation, functioning markets, efficient capital allocation, a stable political system, etc, etc. The Chinese communists have a very long 'to do' list before average living standards get anywhere near developed world levels. (Not that this doesn't leave them with a wealthy urban elite, mind)
'''People talk about China's size, but the flip side of that is that once China gets to upper middle income status, there's not many other low income work forces that can replace it at anywhere near the scale. ''
If Chinese labour decides it wants a bigger cut of the cake, then the price of 'cheap' labour will become less cheap. And that will probably be a good thing.
They have already been doing this for years.
I'm clearly in "agreeing with Socrates" mode today.
There is enormous upward pressure on wages in tier-one and tier-two cities in China today. Last year, Foxconn / Hon Hai (who make iPhones, and other items of consumer electronics) were forced to put through two 10% pay rises over the course of a year. If you include the fact that the RMB appreciated 5% or so relative to the USD last year, then you are basically saying that Hon Hai employees saw their incomes rise 25-30% last year.
It doesn't take many increases like that before the benefits of outsourcing work to China get absorbed by transport and other costs.
I'm going to get hammered for this, but I'm dead against the argument that Crow was a dinosaur because he knew how to get the best for his union members. Most on the right are saying he was good for his members interests, but poor for the customer/commuter. I can't agree. You can say that, ultimately, every job should only be all about the customer, but to believe that is to believe that prices and costs should be ever cheaper, regardless of the interests of the employees. If we automate everything, outsource everything, send our jobs overseas to make production costs cheaper, we're losing jobs here, making our life harder.
It's naive of me, I know, but we can't all be bankers, lawyers, doctors, software designers, or business owners. Some of us work for relatively low wages. The government have to effing top up the wages hundreds of thousands of people, for god's sake. That's just plain madness. You'll all tell me that people make their own choices, can carve their own career out. I don't believe you. Bob Crow fought against that, making a difference for the little guy. We need more like him.
The people that most benefit from affordable travel, food, telecoms etc ARE the little guy. If you ramp up wages on the Underground way above the market rate, that is basically a poll tax on everyone commuting to work. As a share of income, the burden falls mainly on millions of low income Londoners. And all this so Tube drivers can get paid more than twice the average wage. This isn't a policy that helps the working poor. It's a racket to benefit a few lucky sods.
Those low income people should be forcibly removed from London, they've got no right to be there, dirtying such a glorious place up.
I see you can't engage with my actual arguments so you attempt to debate a straw man instead. It is your supported policy of increasing the costs to customers for such basic things as transport that actually makes London less affordable for those low income people.
I really can't be arsed. Your supported policy is for every public sector worker to work for free, with no pensions, just so your beloved London can thrive. We'll never agree.
I'm going to get hammered for this, but I'm dead against the argument that Crow was a dinosaur because he knew how to get the best for his union members. Most on the right are saying he was good for his members interests, but poor for the customer/commuter. here, making our life harder.
It's naive of me, I know, but we can't all be bankers, lawyers, doctors, software designers, or own choices, can carve their own career out. I don't believe you. Bob Crow fought against that, making a difference for the little guy. We need more like him.
The people that most benefit from affordable travel, food, telecoms etc ARE the little guy. If you ramp up wages on the Underground way above the market rate, that is basically a poll tax on everyone commuting to work. As a share of income, the burden falls mainly on millions of low income Londoners. And all this so Tube drivers can get paid more than twice the average wage. This isn't a policy that helps the working poor. It's a racket to benefit a few lucky sods.
Those low income people should be forcibly removed from London, they've got no right to be there, dirtying such a glorious place up.
personally I thought Bob Crow had learnt from London's Financial community on how to charge ransom salaries for fairly straightforward work.
Mr. Brooke
Maybe we should tax the annual bonuses of RMT Drivers in order to provide our feckless youth with free bicyles?
Mr Pole,
I believe RMT members already have their bonuses taxed as they sit within PAYE. Perhaps we should just ask Osborne to spend their hard earned money better.
Utter rubbish. Do you have a single shred of evidence that lower income workers have left London? They haven't - they are just packed into small rubbish houses because successive governments have failed to build enough subsidised houses.
Network Rail is already a nationalised entity. It will become part of central government for statistical, accounting and parliamentary oversight purposes from September this year. This is due to Eurostat reclassification, as Network Rail was originally structured to be outside Government. One of the impacts of this is the massive Network Rail debt will now become part of the Government debt.
The main problem with nationalising the passenger franchises will be dealing with the rail freight companies which are not franchised, and are run as private enterprises bidding for work from customers and entering into heavily negotiated track contacts with Network Rail. They will not want to give up their precious rights to track access (which last many years). One of the smaller rail freight companies, Direct Rail Services is actually government owned as they transport nuclear fuel amongst other things.
Most of the railway enhancements are designed and built by private firms; although rail maintenance is done in house by Network Rail. In addition most of the rolling stock is owned by various private leasing companies which specialise in this area (eg Porterbrook).
There is a question mark over the role of the office of rail regulation as one of its roles is determining Network Rail's income and outputs for each 5 year period - next financing period starts April 2014.
I'm going to get hammered for this, but I'm dead against the argument that Crow was a dinosaur because he knew how to get the best for his union members. Most on the right are saying he was good for his members interests, but poor for the customer/commuter. I can't agree. You can say that, ultimately, every job should only be all about the customer, but to believe that is to believe that prices and costs should be ever cheaper, regardless of the interests of the employees. If we automate everything, outsource everything, send our jobs overseas to make production costs cheaper, we're losing jobs here, making our life harder.
It's naive of me, I know, but we can't all be bankers, lawyers, doctors, software designers, or business owners. Some of us work for relatively low wages. The government have to effing top up the wages hundreds of thousands of people, for god's sake. That's just plain madness. You'll all tell me that people make their own choices, can carve their own career out. I don't believe you. Bob Crow fought against that, making a difference for the little guy. We need more like him.
The people that most benefit from affordable travel, food, telecoms etc ARE the little guy. If you ramp up wages on the Underground way above the market rate, that is basically a poll tax on everyone commuting to work. As a share of income, the burden falls mainly on millions of low income Londoners. And all this so Tube drivers can get paid more than twice the average wage. This isn't a policy that helps the working poor. It's a racket to benefit a few lucky sods.
Those low income people should be forcibly removed from London, they've got no right to be there, dirtying such a glorious place up.
I see you can't engage with my actual arguments so you attempt to debate a straw man instead. It is your supported policy of increasing the costs to customers for such basic things as transport that actually makes London less affordable for those low income people.
Automate the trains - far cheaper in the long run.
Stephenson wouldn't have stuck a man in the cab if he'd invented the train in 2014.
The question the privatisation fetishists have to answer is why we allow nationalisation of our own railway by a foreign power, but not our own.
Answers on a postcard to the usual address.
Because it is not "nationalisation of our own railway by a foreign power", but some of our services being run by foreign nationalised operators, at the discretion of, and under the rule set by, our government.
I have never grasped how people like @Socrates quantify who deserves to be paid what. Presumably he thinks he gets paid too little and everyone else too much.
I have never grasped how people like @Socrates quantify who deserves to be paid what. Presumably he thinks he gets paid too little and everyone else too much.
It's a bit like those posters who refuse to commute, because they feel that they're 'better' than those who live outside London and are somehow entitled to have a home in the city.
However until I have a choice of multiple train providers to take me from Glasgow to London there is no true privatisation - only a halfway house.
Competition and privatisation are not synonymous. Indeed the difficulties with competition for certain industries is often an argument against privatisation.
Rail privatisation has reduced government subsidies as a percentage of GDP and increased usage.
Everything else is bullshit.
@RCS - what's your source for the subsidy contention? Christian Wolmar argues that the subsidy has at least doubled in real terms from that under BR...
I have never grasped how people like @Socrates quantify who deserves to be paid what. Presumably he thinks he gets paid too little and everyone else too much.
I don't believe there is a central commission which decides wages or prices in this country. I believe such a commission was tried somewhere in the past.
I have never grasped how people like @Socrates quantify who deserves to be paid what. Presumably he thinks he gets paid too little and everyone else too much.
It's a bit like those posters who refuse to commute, because they feel that they're 'better' than those who live outside London and are somehow entitled to have a home in the city.
Who would these be? I commute for an hour plus, as I work on the other side of London to my home. What's your point?
I have never grasped how people like @Socrates quantify who deserves to be paid what. Presumably he thinks he gets paid too little and everyone else too much.
However until I have a choice of multiple train providers to take me from Glasgow to London there is no true privatisation - only a halfway house.
Competition and privatisation are not synonymous. Indeed the difficulties with competition for certain industries is often an argument against privatisation.
I have never grasped how people like @Socrates quantify who deserves to be paid what. Presumably he thinks he gets paid too little and everyone else too much.
I don't believe there is a central commission which decides wages or prices in this country. I believe such a commission was tried somewhere in the past.
I don't remember it being a huge success.
Indeed. Yet a trade union which gets great deals for its members is criticised. We may not like it, but Crow did a great job.
Rail privatisation has reduced government subsidies as a percentage of GDP and increased usage.
Everything else is bullshit.
@RCS - what's your source for the subsidy contention? Christian Wolmar argues that the subsidy has at least doubled in real terms from that under BR...
Christian Wolmar deflates the numbers by CPI, not as a percentage of GDP, which he knows is deliberately misleading.
He also does not include corporation tax payments on the profits made by operators and by train leasing companies, which is money received by the government which would not have been received when British Rail ran the railways.
Why do we have private operators? Because private is better than public. The public sector can't run anything, its slow, inefficient and a drain on resources.
So we privatise our rail operations and award the contracts to the state railways of France, Germany and the Netherlands. To prove that the state can't run anything presumably.
Its very simple. All of these franchise contracts have an expiry date at whoch point the ownership reverts back to the (British) state. With franchises that cost us a net subsidy (most of them) the cost of not franchising them back out is zero, and then you save the subsidy you are paying to German state pensioners by not reletting the franchise. If you don't want the state to run it directly via Directly Operated Railways Ltd, you award a concession for a fixed period as we have done twice with Virgin Trains, have done with Scotrail, and have just done with Great Western, with the same imminent on Northern Rail.
Noone seriously proposes a reconstituted British Rail, but we can remove a lot of the enormous costs of the railways by removing the complexity and mass of contracts to run said complexity. Ideology aside our railways cost multiples of other nations systems to run, and the report of a few year ago into why this was refused to look at the actual answer - which is the privatised structure.
So set ideology aside, set party politics aside (Labour didn't renationalise remember - apart from Railtrack after they bankrupted themselves) and look at practicalities. We need a small number of operators - Intercity, Network South East, Transpennine, Regional Rail, Wales would be a good starter for 10 - with long concession terms to allow stability and investment. The assumed default state of all these operators is the state running a stand alone business as everyone else in Europe does, with private operators allowed to come in as co-operator/co-investor where they can provide a competitive deal. No more ocean of subsidy, pay the managers to manage. Costs fall by a fifth overnight which can be invested back into fares and infrastructure.
Rail privatisation has reduced government subsidies as a percentage of GDP and increased usage.
Everything else is bullshit.
@RCS - what's your source for the subsidy contention? Christian Wolmar argues that the subsidy has at least doubled in real terms from that under BR...
Christian Wolmar deflates the numbers by CPI, not as a percentage of GDP, which he knows is deliberately misleading.
Or he's too busy as a contender to be the Labour Mayor of London in 2016 to check the figures?
Going back into politics for a moment, you have to ask why the Labour front bench haven't grown a pair and put renationalisation by franchise expiry in as a policy. A nice bit of publicity about who the "private" operators actually are on top of the poll findings shows this policy would be hugely popular.
Ultimately, we don't want civil servants running the railway. They did under BR. They do under "privatisation" only for a far larger taxpayer bill. We need railwaymen running the railway in the interests of their passengers who just happen to be the taxpayers who pay for it. The current system is a disreputable and unworkable joke.
This morning I posed a question about whisky. At lunch I travelled to a friendly whisky shop in Cambridge. With some great help from the assistant, I picked the following 5cl bottles:
Springbank 10 yr Bowmore 12 yr Macallan 10 yr Arran 14 yr (*) Robert Burns (another Arran) Glenlivet 12 yr
All held in straw in a second-hand Cuban Bolivar cigar box.
It's not a perfect mix of whiskies, but should be okay to give them a sample of the differing tastes. It looks so good I can scarcely bring myself to give it away!
Oh, and I got a 70cl bottle of Ardbeg Uigeadail for myself! ;-)
Not a bad selection for your purposes. And Ardbeg Uigeadail is my father's favourite so birthdays and Xmas are never a problem. It's not the same specific casking that it used to be, as it ran out because some idiot per printed a story about it in a newspaper - but it is still very good indeed.
Why do we have private operators? Because private is better than public. The public sector can't run anything, its slow, inefficient and a drain on resources.
Competitive free markets are better than state or private monopolies
I have never grasped how people like @Socrates quantify who deserves to be paid what. Presumably he thinks he gets paid too little and everyone else too much.
I don't think I've mentioned the word "deserved" in this thread. I think that organisations like TfL should pay people based on what best works to provide an efficient service, rather than a welfare system deciding what people "deserve".
I have never grasped how people like @Socrates quantify who deserves to be paid what. Presumably he thinks he gets paid too little and everyone else too much.
Of course he does. It's built into the theory of competition that every altruistic act distorts the market - markets "clear" much more effectively when everyone is selfish.
The different views that people hold about economics reduce to differences about the underlying psychological assumptions. (At least, I think there's only one form of calculus and we're not disagreeing about that.) People who really believe in free markets should oppose not only State "interference" but also all forms of charitable donation, which also create inefficiencies. It would indeed be interesting to know which Peebies never give to charity on those grounds.
I have never grasped how people like @Socrates quantify who deserves to be paid what. Presumably he thinks he gets paid too little and everyone else too much.
It's a bit like those posters who refuse to commute, because they feel that they're 'better' than those who live outside London and are somehow entitled to have a home in the city.
Going back into politics for a moment, you have to ask why the Labour front bench haven't grown a pair and put renationalisation by franchise expiry in as a policy. A nice bit of publicity about who the "private" operators actually are on top of the poll findings shows this policy would be hugely popular.
Ultimately, we don't want civil servants running the railway. They did under BR. They do under "privatisation" only for a far larger taxpayer bill. We need railwaymen running the railway in the interests of their passengers who just happen to be the taxpayers who pay for it. The current system is a disreputable and unworkable joke.
Quite so, especially if one adds the insanity of dividing the operator from the system and running multiple operators. Even the Stockton and Darlington Railway dumped that idea pdq, and they were still using horses!
I have never grasped how people like @Socrates quantify who deserves to be paid what. Presumably he thinks he gets paid too little and everyone else too much.
It's a bit like those posters who refuse to commute, because they feel that they're 'better' than those who live outside London and are somehow entitled to have a home in the city.
What poster has ever said that?
There used to be one here who continually referred to everything outside London, as 'Bumpkinland'.
Why do we have private operators? Because private is better than public. The public sector can't run anything, its slow, inefficient and a drain on resources.
Competitive free markets are better than state or private monopolies
But that doesn't work for railways, unless one builds several different lines in parallel ... leading to a huge waste of capitalist investor money in the C19 - and most of which got scrapped by BR!
I really can't be arsed. Your supported policy is for every public sector worker to work for free, with no pensions, just so your beloved London can thrive. We'll never agree.
You responded to the very post where I accuse you of creating strawman arguments by creating a strawman argument. You clearly don't even read the posts of people that disagree with you. I know it's easier on the brain to engage in epistemic closure, but it just ends up with you being wrong.
Do the contracts have a clawback clause in them then? If there's a guarantee that a certain service be provided, and in the event of failure we get money back and costs of changing provider covered then there's some upside, but I get the impression that's not how it tends to play out.
I understand that most do, but am happy for someone with more knowledge to weigh in. At the very least, when the franchise is up, you can then pull the rug from underneath them when you give it to someone else, which you certainly can't do with a UK state run operator.
This is the answer to BobaFett's "answers on a postcard", but he doesn't seem to want to listen.
But that doesn't work for railways, unless one builds several different lines in parallel ... leading to a huge waste of capitalist investor money in the C19 - and most of which got scrapped by BR!
That is an absurd argument. A company may have a monopoly on a given railway line. Provided it is not subsidised, it will go out of business unless it competes with other methods of transport, such as the private car, buses and aircraft. The solution is for the government to stop subsidising transport altogether.
I have never grasped how people like @Socrates quantify who deserves to be paid what. Presumably he thinks he gets paid too little and everyone else too much.
Of course he does. It's built into the theory of competition that every altruistic act distorts the market - markets "clear" much more effectively when everyone is selfish.
The different views that people hold about economics reduce to differences about the underlying psychological assumptions. (At least, I think there's only one form of calculus and we're not disagreeing about that.) People who really believe in free markets should oppose not only State "interference" but also all forms of charitable donation, which also create inefficiencies. It would indeed be interesting to know which Peebies never give to charity on those grounds.
It's rather odd to have two people debate my views without ever stopping to consider what my actually voiced views are, and getting my views completely wrong in the process.
"Christian Wolmar is definitely right to point out that the level of taxpayer subsidy to the rail network currently stands at several times the real terms equivalent before privatisation. Indeed the figures show that in some years, Network Rail has received more money from taxpayers than from passengers post-privatisation.
"However the current level of Government investment in the railways may owe much to the ongoing fallout from privatisation, in particular the collapse of Railtrack in 2002, which in turn may mean that subsidies could fall back in the future."
I have never grasped how people like @Socrates quantify who deserves to be paid what. Presumably he thinks he gets paid too little and everyone else too much.
Of course he does. It's built into the theory of competition that every altruistic act distorts the market - markets "clear" much more effectively when everyone is selfish.
The different views that people hold about economics reduce to differences about the underlying psychological assumptions. (At least, I think there's only one form of calculus and we're not disagreeing about that.) People who really believe in free markets should oppose not only State "interference" but also all forms of charitable donation, which also create inefficiencies. It would indeed be interesting to know which Peebies never give to charity on those grounds.
It's rather odd to have two people debate my views without ever stopping to consider what my actually voiced views are, and getting my views completely wrong in the process.
It's even odder that you claim I've misrepresented your views without saying in what way I've done so. For the avoidance of doubt, I'll add that you almost certainly misrepresent them to yourself...
Going back into politics for a moment, you have to ask why the Labour front bench haven't grown a pair and put renationalisation by franchise expiry in as a policy. A nice bit of publicity about who the "private" operators actually are on top of the poll findings shows this policy would be hugely popular.
Ultimately, we don't want civil servants running the railway. They did under BR. They do under "privatisation" only for a far larger taxpayer bill. We need railwaymen running the railway in the interests of their passengers who just happen to be the taxpayers who pay for it. The current system is a disreputable and unworkable joke.
" you have to ask why the Labour front bench haven't grown a pair and put renationalisation by franchise expiry in as a policy."
One possible reason: they can wash their hands when things go wrong. When a train crashes in the 'privatised' railway system, then they can tut-tut and blame others. In the nationalised world, the relevant ministers are much more exposed to blame. The railways become a much bigger political football.
Another possible reason: strikes. At the moment, it is very hard for a strike to effect more than one company. If everyone was employed by the same company, it would be easier to bring the network down with a single grievance. Blairite Labour know this all too well.
Another possible reason: they know the current system is flawed, but is working better than BR did.
I have never grasped how people like @Socrates quantify who deserves to be paid what. Presumably he thinks he gets paid too little and everyone else too much.
I don't believe there is a central commission which decides wages or prices in this country. I believe such a commission was tried somewhere in the past.
I don't remember it being a huge success.
Indeed. Yet a trade union which gets great deals for its members is criticised. We may not like it, but Crow did a great job.
He may have done a great job for his present members and in the short term. The same could be said of past trade union leaders in shipbuilding, car making, mining, the print, sea-faring, the docks and numerous other industries. A refusal to engage with innovation and a stubborn insistence on seeing their industry through a them and us viewpoint (where them was not only the management but the customers and rival trade unions) did not lead to optimal outcomes for their members in the longer term.
That said, the senior management of UK firms has been just as bloody awful and short-termist in outlook.
I've no idea how anyone can be nostalgic for the days of British Rail. We had ancient trains, track and signalling; the trains were frequently dirty and crowded, and the schedule was a work of fiction.
British Rail was rubbish. If there ever was a "golden age" it was perhaps the era before British Rail, although I suspect there's a high degree of sentimentality when recalling that era as well.
The railways now have generally good trains, which are usually reliable and punctual, and amenities at stations and on trains are also pretty good now. Of course we pay quite a lot directly in our ticket prices for this service, and some lines can be crowded as the railways are popular again.
There may be some merit in changing the structure and ownership of the railways, but people are kidding themselves if they think that the railways are worse than when BR existed.
But that doesn't work for railways, unless one builds several different lines in parallel ... leading to a huge waste of capitalist investor money in the C19 - and most of which got scrapped by BR!
That is an absurd argument. A company may have a monopoly on a given railway line. Provided it is not subsidised, it will go out of business unless it competes with other methods of transport, such as the private car, buses and aircraft. The solution is for the government to stop subsidising transport altogether.
There are some serious externalities to private cars and aircraft, however: notably, congestion and pollution. There's also the fact that the government subsidizes the networks by building them in the first place, and that goes for roads too.
"Christian Wolmar is definitely right to point out that the level of taxpayer subsidy to the rail network currently stands at several times the real terms equivalent before privatisation. Indeed the figures show that in some years, Network Rail has received more money from taxpayers than from passengers post-privatisation.
"However the current level of Government investment in the railways may owe much to the ongoing fallout from privatisation, in particular the collapse of Railtrack in 2002, which in turn may mean that subsidies could fall back in the future."
I have never grasped how people like @Socrates quantify who deserves to be paid what. Presumably he thinks he gets paid too little and everyone else too much.
Of course he does. It's built into the theory of competition that every altruistic act distorts the market - markets "clear" much more effectively when everyone is selfish.
The different views that people hold about economics reduce to differences about the underlying psychological assumptions. (At least, I think there's only one form of calculus and we're not disagreeing about that.) People who really believe in free markets should oppose not only State "interference" but also all forms of charitable donation, which also create inefficiencies. It would indeed be interesting to know which Peebies never give to charity on those grounds.
It's rather odd to have two people debate my views without ever stopping to consider what my actually voiced views are, and getting my views completely wrong in the process.
It's even odder that you claim I've misrepresented your views without saying in what way I've done so. For the avoidance of doubt, I'll add that you almost certainly misrepresent them to yourself...
I've said my views on this matter on this very thread. To repeat, public services should not pay people based on what they feel they morally deserve. They should pay them based on what makes for the most efficient and cost effective public service for the users and taxpayers.
"Christian Wolmar is definitely right to point out that the level of taxpayer subsidy to the rail network currently stands at several times the real terms equivalent before privatisation. Indeed the figures show that in some years, Network Rail has received more money from taxpayers than from passengers post-privatisation.
"However the current level of Government investment in the railways may owe much to the ongoing fallout from privatisation, in particular the collapse of Railtrack in 2002, which in turn may mean that subsidies could fall back in the future."
You must also remember that we are investing much more in the railway's infrastructure as well, and that goes into certain sets of figures - for instance £1.2 billion in Crossrail alone last year. Look at the massive works being done on the network, from Nottingham to Reading, Edinburgh to Dawlish, and you see why more money is going in.
As I have said many times passim: BR were managing a contracting system. The last, and this, government are having to manage a growing system with many more passenger- and freight-miles. That requires massive investment.
1. There cannot be a "competitive free market" on the railways. Most journeys have one operator available so your choice is that operator or a different mode of transport. You cannot use ideology to change reality no matter how zealously you believe in it.
2. There are no real penalties for operators. For example First Group ditched its Great Western franchise early - the structure was heavier subsidy in the front half, then heavier premiums to the taxpayer in the back half with a break clause part way through. Revenues were lower than forecast in the front half so FGW received even higher subsidy from the state, then walked from the contract at the break point. They not only retain all their other franchises with no penalties they were also awarded a short term concession for Great Western to manage services through the current 100% state funded infrastructure works to improve services.
It was the same with National Express who placed a ludicrously high bid to win East Coast, then broke the contract when it became clear that its £1.4bn for a 7.5 yr contract was unviable (following the preceeding failure of GNER's £1.3bn for a 10 year contract!). Penalties were looked at but were ultimately impossible. Essentially the small pool of private operators hold the government over a barrel - they have to let the franchise to someone (as the rules do not allow an award to a UK public sector operator!) so its the same people who insist on the same we win you lose structure.
1. There cannot be a "competitive free market" on the railways. Most journeys have one operator available so your choice is that operator or a different mode of transport. You cannot use ideology to change reality no matter how zealously you believe in it.
2. There are no real penalties for operators. For example First Group ditched its Great Western franchise early - the structure was heavier subsidy in the front half, then heavier premiums to the taxpayer in the back half with a break clause part way through. Revenues were lower than forecast in the front half so FGW received even higher subsidy from the state, then walked from the contract at the break point. They not only retain all their other franchises with no penalties they were also awarded a short term concession for Great Western to manage services through the current 100% state funded infrastructure works to improve services.
It was the same with National Express who placed a ludicrously high bid to win East Coast, then broke the contract when it became clear that its £1.4bn for a 7.5 yr contract was unviable (following the preceeding failure of GNER's £1.3bn for a 10 year contract!). Penalties were looked at but were ultimately impossible. Essentially the small pool of private operators hold the government over a barrel - they have to let the franchise to someone (as the rules do not allow an award to a UK public sector operator!) so its the same people who insist on the same we win you lose structure.
The competition comes in terms of gaining and retaining the franchise rather than fully competitive on gaining customers (although this is still there to some extent given a person can go by other means of transport)- As a regular train user on both the privatised trains and the state ones (LU) the service is far better on the privatised ones
Crossrail is nationalised AIUI (I may be wrong about this)?
From memory (and IANAE, or involved with railways in any way): Crossrail is 'owned' by Transport for London, which I think is owned by the Greater London Authority. So essentially, yes. For accounting purposes, the construction costs are rounded up into railway spending.
The services will be run, I think by (yes, you've guessed it) concession!
I have never grasped how people like @Socrates quantify who deserves to be paid what. Presumably he thinks he gets paid too little and everyone else too much.
Of course he does. It's built into the theory of competition that every altruistic act distorts the market - markets "clear" much more effectively when everyone is selfish.
The different views that people hold about economics reduce to differences about the underlying psychological assumptions. (At least, I think there's only one form of calculus and we're not disagreeing about that.) People who really believe in free markets should oppose not only State "interference" but also all forms of charitable donation, which also create inefficiencies. It would indeed be interesting to know which Peebies never give to charity on those grounds.
It's rather odd to have two people debate my views without ever stopping to consider what my actually voiced views are, and getting my views completely wrong in the process.
It's even odder that you claim I've misrepresented your views without saying in what way I've done so. For the avoidance of doubt, I'll add that you almost certainly misrepresent them to yourself...
I've said my views on this matter on this very thread. To repeat, public services should not pay people based on what they feel they morally deserve. They should pay them based on what makes for the most efficient and cost effective public service for the users and taxpayers.
Let's try to understand this by considering the two nurses I have seen to-day and yesterday. How much should they be paid? The market can't tell us because the market in health care provision is distorted by the NHS. This is a political decision - to distort the market to ensure that people don't go without health care for lack of money. Anyone who believes that market forces should allocate resources across all forms of human activity also believes, by implication, that it is morally good for people (including children) to die because they cannot access health care. Hence the last sentence of my previous post...
Classical economics was known in its own time as "political economy" and certainly Smith and Ricardo (let alone Marx) understood themselves to be engaging in political debate. It was only with the arrival of the "neo-classical" theory of marginal value that political polemic started to try to pass itself off as somehow scientific, and possessed of a superior rationality to other world-views. I have a name for this form of behaviour. Fraud.
There are some serious externalities to private cars and aircraft, however: notably, congestion and pollution. There's also the fact that the government subsidizes the networks by building them in the first place, and that goes for roads too.
The way to deal with those so-called "externalities" is to tax pollution in proportion to the harm it does to the environment, not to subsidise certain types of transport. It is true that the government paid for the building of many of the roads, but the current train operators, or for that matter Network Rail, did not pay for the vast majority of our rail infrastructure. It is better to look at where we are now, and charge users of a given mode of transportation for new infrastructure. Road pricing is a perfectly feasible option.
I've said my views on this matter on this very thread. To repeat, public services should not pay people based on what they feel they morally deserve. They should pay them based on what makes for the most efficient and cost effective public service for the users and taxpayers.
Let's try to understand this by considering the two nurses I have seen to-day and yesterday. How much should they be paid? The market can't tell us because the market in health care provision is distorted by the NHS. This is a political decision - to distort the market to ensure that people don't go without health care for lack of money. Anyone who believes that market forces should allocate resources across all forms of human activity also believes, by implication, that it is morally good for people (including children) to die because they cannot access health care. Hence the last sentence of my previous post...
Classical economics was known in its own time as "political economy" and certainly Smith and Ricardo (let alone Marx) understood themselves to be engaging in political debate. It was only with the arrival of the "neo-classical" theory of marginal value that political polemic started to try to pass itself off as somehow scientific, and possessed of a superior rationality to other world-views. I have a name for this form of behaviour. Fraud.
That is unfair I think . Socrates is arguing for market forces in a labour market not in a provision market . The NHS can still be state funded to provide universal health care and still look to use market forces for its employees (In the NHS case I would think that nurse and medical staff would do rather well if we paid what we needed to gain adequate staff levels) as clearly there is a shortage of medical staff at the moment
Mr. Abroad, I was surprised to learn (on the news a month or two ago) that nurses earned about £30,000. Would've thought it would've been rather lower.
I'm going to get hammered for this, but I'm dead against the argument that Crow was a dinosaur because he knew how to get the best for his union members. Most on the right are saying he was good for his members interests, but poor for the customer/commuter. I can't agree. You can say that, ultimately, every job should only be all about the customer, but to believe that is to believe that prices and costs should be ever cheaper, regardless of the interests of the employees. If we automate everything, outsource everything, send our jobs overseas to make production costs cheaper, we're losing jobs here, making our life harder.
It's naive of me, I know, but we can't all be bankers, lawyers, doctors, software designers, or business owners. Some of us work for relatively low wages. The government have to effing top up the wages hundreds of thousands of people, for god's sake. That's just plain madness. You'll all tell me that people make their own choices, can carve their own career out. I don't believe you. Bob Crow fought against that, making a difference for the little guy. We need more like him.
I don't think people on the right are saying that.
The argument is that by driving up his members wages so far and being inflexible in working approach (e.g. the strikes over shifting people from ticket offices to platform duties) he was making it more and more attractive to move to an automated service.
Tube drivers are paid close to £50,000 per year - a decent wage by anyone's standard for something that is a semi skilled role. I'd rather see firemen paid more for what is a dangerous and difficult job (and by its nature difficult to do for a full career) and tube drivers paid less.
I've said my views on this matter on this very thread. To repeat, public services should not pay people based on what they feel they morally deserve. They should pay them based on what makes for the most efficient and cost effective public service for the users and taxpayers.
Let's try to understand this by considering the two nurses I have seen to-day and yesterday. How much should they be paid? The market can't tell us because the market in health care provision is distorted by the NHS. This is a political decision - to distort the market to ensure that people don't go without health care for lack of money. Anyone who believes that market forces should allocate resources across all forms of human activity also believes, by implication, that it is morally good for people (including children) to die because they cannot access health care. Hence the last sentence of my previous post...
Classical economics was known in its own time as "political economy" and certainly Smith and Ricardo (let alone Marx) understood themselves to be engaging in political debate. It was only with the arrival of the "neo-classical" theory of marginal value that political polemic started to try to pass itself off as somehow scientific, and possessed of a superior rationality to other world-views. I have a name for this form of behaviour. Fraud.
That is unfair I think . Socrates is arguing for market forces in a labour market not in a provision market . The NHS can still be state funded to provide universal health care and still look to use market forces for its employees (In the NHS case I would think that nurse and medical staff would do rather well if we paid what we needed to gain adequate staff levels) as clearly there is a shortage of medical staff at the moment
Isn't that a description of the French health-care system? I've never heard of its being advanced as a model of market-based efficiency.
Whether that's so or not, what you're offering is a political proposal. My quarrel is with those who think that there is some a-political alternative. The discussion on the railways illustrates this nicely: there is no consensus as to whether the railways constitute a market or form part of a larger transport market. (It seems obvious to me that the latter is the case. but I would fully accept that what I am doing in saying that is advancing a political proposal, not engaging in some form of scientific description.)
As for £30,000 not being much, I think that's a matter of perspective. Of course, if your wallet is nice and heavy, you can always lighten it by buying some excellent books from Thaddeus White, such as Sir Edric's Temple, Bane of Souls and Journey to Altmortis.
As for £30,000 not being much, I think that's a matter of perspective. Of course, if your wallet is nice and heavy, you can always lighten it by buying some excellent books from Thaddeus White, such as Sir Edric's Temple, Bane of Souls and Journey to Altmortis.
I heartily recommend the books of Thaddeus White, they are utterly awesome.
Out of interest, Mr Dancer, should check out link 19 from last night's nighthawks (both links in it)
Anyone who believes that market forces should allocate resources across all forms of human activity also believes, by implication, that it is morally good for people (including children) to die because they cannot access health care.
Well, perhaps. But I don't believe market forces should allocate resources across all forms of human activity. I just think they should set salaries for public services. I'm quite happy for the existence of a tax and welfare redistribution system after the fact, but in that system public servants should be treated on the same basis as private sector workers.
As for nurses, it's perfectly possible to get a market system with a state-run NHS. You simply decentralise decision making after attaching the funds for healthcare to the individual patients.
Mr. Eagles, I always said your taste in literature was as exquisite as your knowledge of history is appalling.
Ah, the Aegates Islands. Such a shame for the Carthaginians they only had one Hamilcar.
The First Punic War was a bit weird. The Carthaginians (especially latterly under Hamilcar) won, or at least did well, on land [despite being a seapower] whereas the Romans won because of a naval victory.
Fun fact: the Battle of Ecnomus is amongst the largest battles in history. It was a naval encounter involving over a quarter of a million men.
Comments
Those low income people should be forcibly removed from London, they've got no right to be there, dirtying such a glorious place up.
If Chinese labour decides it wants a bigger cut of the cake, then the price of 'cheap' labour will become less cheap. And that will probably be a good thing.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkXp1GelHpQ&
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/video-flightglobal39s-david-learmount-looks-at-mh370-396832/
The ocean of public subsidy (around £1bn a year - don't have the exact number to hand) which is swallowed up by mainly foreign government taxpayers as subsidy in running lossmaking services could be kept in the UK if the wholly or part nationalised franchises reverted back to UK national ownership at the end of their contract. At zero cost to the taxpayer as we currently pay them. Its madness to demand that we "privatise" East Coast quickly before the election with Eurostar (owned by the French government) leading the running to win the "privatised" bid.
The operators make minimal risks, make minimal decisions (see para 1 - all train decisions made by the government) but hoover up oceans of cash. Instead, why not have them run the service on a concession (Scotrail, Virgin Trains, Great Western) where the private contractor is paid a management fee for their services.
If not then perhaps we should consider your comments as nothing more than a smear.
#Shouldn'thavelaidoff
British Rail was rightly a national joke. Today's trains are clean, fast and in my experience almost always punctual.
I remember john humprys on the today programme on the anniversary of the hatfield crash all doom and gloom about rail safety, how we should remember the anniversary.
A more sane person would have pointed out that a whole year had passed with zero deaths. Meanwhile >3000 people died on the roads. Now we're >10 years on aren't we?
The main problem with the railways is linked to the issue Evan Davis pointed out so well last night on the TV - we are far too London-centric. So commuting into London is miserable because for too many people want to do it.
Maybe we should tax the annual bonuses of RMT Drivers in order to provide our feckless youth with free bicyles?
And you tend to see it in the development of countries in the Far East (Japan excepted), they seem to find it fairly easy to get to $20-22,000 GDP per capita, and then their growth rate slows to almost Western levels.
Industrialising at the bottom end will lift you out of poverty. It won't lift you through the middle income trap - you need laws, property, rights, low corruption, technical innovation, functioning markets, efficient capital allocation, a stable political system, etc, etc. The Chinese communists have a very long 'to do' list before average living standards get anywhere near developed world levels. (Not that this doesn't leave them with a wealthy urban elite, mind)
There is enormous upward pressure on wages in tier-one and tier-two cities in China today. Last year, Foxconn / Hon Hai (who make iPhones, and other items of consumer electronics) were forced to put through two 10% pay rises over the course of a year. If you include the fact that the RMB appreciated 5% or so relative to the USD last year, then you are basically saying that Hon Hai employees saw their incomes rise 25-30% last year.
It doesn't take many increases like that before the benefits of outsourcing work to China get absorbed by transport and other costs.
I believe RMT members already have their bonuses taxed as they sit within PAYE. Perhaps we should just ask Osborne to spend their hard earned money better.
Utter rubbish. Do you have a single shred of evidence that lower income workers have left London? They haven't - they are just packed into small rubbish houses because successive governments have failed to build enough subsidised houses.
The main problem with nationalising the passenger franchises will be dealing with the rail freight companies which are not franchised, and are run as private enterprises bidding for work from customers and entering into heavily negotiated track contacts with Network Rail. They will not want to give up their precious rights to track access (which last many years). One of the smaller rail freight companies, Direct Rail Services is actually government owned as they transport nuclear fuel amongst other things.
Most of the railway enhancements are designed and built by private firms; although rail maintenance is done in house by Network Rail. In addition most of the rolling stock is owned by various private leasing companies which specialise in this area (eg Porterbrook).
There is a question mark over the role of the office of rail regulation as one of its roles is determining Network Rail's income and outputs for each 5 year period - next financing period starts April 2014.
Stephenson wouldn't have stuck a man in the cab if he'd invented the train in 2014.
Great post.
The question the privatisation fetishists have to answer is why we allow nationalisation of our own railway by a foreign power, but not our own.
Answers on a postcard to the usual address.
There is a world of difference between the two.
As are telephones, airports, airlines and Hinchingbrook hospital.
I have never grasped how people like @Socrates quantify who deserves to be paid what. Presumably he thinks he gets paid too little and everyone else too much.
Fine - so why not let our own public bodies run them too?
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/new-book-suggests-angela-merkel-was-closer-to-communism-than-thought-a-899768.html
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GBR_rail_passenegers_by_year.gif
Rail privatisation has reduced government subsidies as a percentage of GDP and increased usage.
Everything else is bullshit.
To add insult to injury, not only did they lose billions of taxpayers' money, they refused Mr. Brooke credit.
The two Eds should never again be allowed to get their four claws on the UK economy.
I don't remember it being a huge success.
He also does not include corporation tax payments on the profits made by operators and by train leasing companies, which is money received by the government which would not have been received when British Rail ran the railways.
So we privatise our rail operations and award the contracts to the state railways of France, Germany and the Netherlands. To prove that the state can't run anything presumably.
Its very simple. All of these franchise contracts have an expiry date at whoch point the ownership reverts back to the (British) state. With franchises that cost us a net subsidy (most of them) the cost of not franchising them back out is zero, and then you save the subsidy you are paying to German state pensioners by not reletting the franchise. If you don't want the state to run it directly via Directly Operated Railways Ltd, you award a concession for a fixed period as we have done twice with Virgin Trains, have done with Scotrail, and have just done with Great Western, with the same imminent on Northern Rail.
Noone seriously proposes a reconstituted British Rail, but we can remove a lot of the enormous costs of the railways by removing the complexity and mass of contracts to run said complexity. Ideology aside our railways cost multiples of other nations systems to run, and the report of a few year ago into why this was refused to look at the actual answer - which is the privatised structure.
So set ideology aside, set party politics aside (Labour didn't renationalise remember - apart from Railtrack after they bankrupted themselves) and look at practicalities. We need a small number of operators - Intercity, Network South East, Transpennine, Regional Rail, Wales would be a good starter for 10 - with long concession terms to allow stability and investment. The assumed default state of all these operators is the state running a stand alone business as everyone else in Europe does, with private operators allowed to come in as co-operator/co-investor where they can provide a competitive deal. No more ocean of subsidy, pay the managers to manage. Costs fall by a fifth overnight which can be invested back into fares and infrastructure.
Ultimately, we don't want civil servants running the railway. They did under BR. They do under "privatisation" only for a far larger taxpayer bill. We need railwaymen running the railway in the interests of their passengers who just happen to be the taxpayers who pay for it. The current system is a disreputable and unworkable joke.
Competitive free markets are better than state or private monopolies
What's your source for this?
The different views that people hold about economics reduce to differences about the underlying psychological assumptions. (At least, I think there's only one form of calculus and we're not disagreeing about that.) People who really believe in free markets should oppose not only State "interference" but also all forms of charitable donation, which also create inefficiencies. It would indeed be interesting to know which Peebies never give to charity on those grounds.
This is the answer to BobaFett's "answers on a postcard", but he doesn't seem to want to listen.
"Christian Wolmar is definitely right to point out that the level of taxpayer subsidy to the rail network currently stands at several times the real terms equivalent before privatisation. Indeed the figures show that in some years, Network Rail has received more money from taxpayers than from passengers post-privatisation.
"However the current level of Government investment in the railways may owe much to the ongoing fallout from privatisation, in particular the collapse of Railtrack in 2002, which in turn may mean that subsidies could fall back in the future."
https://fullfact.org/factchecks/taxpayer_subsidy_train_network_nationalisation-3391
One possible reason: they can wash their hands when things go wrong. When a train crashes in the 'privatised' railway system, then they can tut-tut and blame others. In the nationalised world, the relevant ministers are much more exposed to blame. The railways become a much bigger political football.
Another possible reason: strikes. At the moment, it is very hard for a strike to effect more than one company. If everyone was employed by the same company, it would be easier to bring the network down with a single grievance. Blairite Labour know this all too well.
Another possible reason: they know the current system is flawed, but is working better than BR did.
There are doubtless other reasons as well.
That said, the senior management of UK firms has been just as bloody awful and short-termist in outlook.
British Rail was rubbish. If there ever was a "golden age" it was perhaps the era before British Rail, although I suspect there's a high degree of sentimentality when recalling that era as well.
The railways now have generally good trains, which are usually reliable and punctual, and amenities at stations and on trains are also pretty good now. Of course we pay quite a lot directly in our ticket prices for this service, and some lines can be crowded as the railways are popular again.
There may be some merit in changing the structure and ownership of the railways, but people are kidding themselves if they think that the railways are worse than when BR existed.
UK GDP in 1990 was £900bn against £1.5trn in 2013. So, you need to deflate the numbers by almost 40%.
That analysis also completely ignores corporation tax receipts from either the train leasing companies or the operators.
As I have said many times passim: BR were managing a contracting system. The last, and this, government are having to manage a growing system with many more passenger- and freight-miles. That requires massive investment.
1. There cannot be a "competitive free market" on the railways. Most journeys have one operator available so your choice is that operator or a different mode of transport. You cannot use ideology to change reality no matter how zealously you believe in it.
2. There are no real penalties for operators. For example First Group ditched its Great Western franchise early - the structure was heavier subsidy in the front half, then heavier premiums to the taxpayer in the back half with a break clause part way through. Revenues were lower than forecast in the front half so FGW received even higher subsidy from the state, then walked from the contract at the break point. They not only retain all their other franchises with no penalties they were also awarded a short term concession for Great Western to manage services through the current 100% state funded infrastructure works to improve services.
It was the same with National Express who placed a ludicrously high bid to win East Coast, then broke the contract when it became clear that its £1.4bn for a 7.5 yr contract was unviable (following the preceeding failure of GNER's £1.3bn for a 10 year contract!). Penalties were looked at but were ultimately impossible. Essentially the small pool of private operators hold the government over a barrel - they have to let the franchise to someone (as the rules do not allow an award to a UK public sector operator!) so its the same people who insist on the same we win you lose structure.
Crossrail is nationalised AIUI (I may be wrong about this)?
Woo-hoo!
The services will be run, I think by (yes, you've guessed it) concession!
Classical economics was known in its own time as "political economy" and certainly Smith and Ricardo (let alone Marx) understood themselves to be engaging in political debate. It was only with the arrival of the "neo-classical" theory of marginal value that political polemic started to try to pass itself off as somehow scientific, and possessed of a superior rationality to other world-views. I have a name for this form of behaviour. Fraud.
Back Windies/Lay England
England Cricket @ECB_cricket 6s
Eng: Hales, Lumb, Ali, Morgan (c), Buttler, Bopara, Wright, Bresnan, Tredwell, Parry, Dernbach #WIvEng
Let's try to understand this by considering the two nurses I have seen to-day and yesterday. How much should they be paid? The market can't tell us because the market in health care provision is distorted by the NHS. This is a political decision - to distort the market to ensure that people don't go without health care for lack of money. Anyone who believes that market forces should allocate resources across all forms of human activity also believes, by implication, that it is morally good for people (including children) to die because they cannot access health care. Hence the last sentence of my previous post...
Classical economics was known in its own time as "political economy" and certainly Smith and Ricardo (let alone Marx) understood themselves to be engaging in political debate. It was only with the arrival of the "neo-classical" theory of marginal value that political polemic started to try to pass itself off as somehow scientific, and possessed of a superior rationality to other world-views. I have a name for this form of behaviour. Fraud.
That is unfair I think . Socrates is arguing for market forces in a labour market not in a provision market . The NHS can still be state funded to provide universal health care and still look to use market forces for its employees (In the NHS case I would think that nurse and medical staff would do rather well if we paid what we needed to gain adequate staff levels) as clearly there is a shortage of medical staff at the moment
The argument is that by driving up his members wages so far and being inflexible in working approach (e.g. the strikes over shifting people from ticket offices to platform duties) he was making it more and more attractive to move to an automated service.
Tube drivers are paid close to £50,000 per year - a decent wage by anyone's standard for something that is a semi skilled role. I'd rather see firemen paid more for what is a dangerous and difficult job (and by its nature difficult to do for a full career) and tube drivers paid less.
Dont listen to the haters, Jade.
Well £30k isn't much. How much did you expect a frontline staffer in an essential service to earn?
Classical economics was known in its own time as "political economy" and certainly Smith and Ricardo (let alone Marx) understood themselves to be engaging in political debate. It was only with the arrival of the "neo-classical" theory of marginal value that political polemic started to try to pass itself off as somehow scientific, and possessed of a superior rationality to other world-views. I have a name for this form of behaviour. Fraud.
That is unfair I think . Socrates is arguing for market forces in a labour market not in a provision market . The NHS can still be state funded to provide universal health care and still look to use market forces for its employees (In the NHS case I would think that nurse and medical staff would do rather well if we paid what we needed to gain adequate staff levels) as clearly there is a shortage of medical staff at the moment
Isn't that a description of the French health-care system? I've never heard of its being advanced as a model of market-based efficiency.
Whether that's so or not, what you're offering is a political proposal. My quarrel is with those who think that there is some a-political alternative. The discussion on the railways illustrates this nicely: there is no consensus as to whether the railways constitute a market or form part of a larger transport market. (It seems obvious to me that the latter is the case. but I would fully accept that what I am doing in saying that is advancing a political proposal, not engaging in some form of scientific description.)
As for £30,000 not being much, I think that's a matter of perspective. Of course, if your wallet is nice and heavy, you can always lighten it by buying some excellent books from Thaddeus White, such as Sir Edric's Temple, Bane of Souls and Journey to Altmortis.
Out of interest, Mr Dancer, should check out link 19 from last night's nighthawks (both links in it)
As for nurses, it's perfectly possible to get a market system with a state-run NHS. You simply decentralise decision making after attaching the funds for healthcare to the individual patients.
Ah, the Aegates Islands. Such a shame for the Carthaginians they only had one Hamilcar.
The First Punic War was a bit weird. The Carthaginians (especially latterly under Hamilcar) won, or at least did well, on land [despite being a seapower] whereas the Romans won because of a naval victory.
Fun fact: the Battle of Ecnomus is amongst the largest battles in history. It was a naval encounter involving over a quarter of a million men.
Lab 38 (nc)
Con 35 (+1)
LD 12 (+2)
UKIP 9 (-2)
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/mar/11/lib-dems-recover-third-place-ukip-guardian-icm-poll
http://orr.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/5493/gb-financials-2012.pdf