"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."
That piece still uses "real prices", not "as a percentage of GDP".
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.
Why GDP? Why, if the economy has gone great guns since 1990, is it acceptable for the subsidy to increase in real (CPI) terms.
CPI reflects the cost of goods and the 'value' of the pound in your pocket, or the 'value' of each pound in HMT's account. It seems a better measure to me. You could, I suppose, look at the real (CPI) cost of the rail subsidy on a per capita basis, which would seem a reasonable thing to do. Would the difference between that and a GDP deflation be linked to productivity? If so why should increasing productivity mean that it's ok for rail subsidies to rise.
Hmm. I need to think some more about this - but I'm not yet convinced by the "GDP only" approach.
The vote share of assorted minor parties in today's poll is 7%, comprising 2% each for the Scottish and Welsh nationalists, and 3% for the Green party.
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.
Let us not forget that Marx himself to an extent considered the enterprise he was engaged in to be scientific, and his expositors and disciples from Engels on were convinced that they were proceedings according to nothing less than the dictates of "science". Let us also not forget that when structural Marxism was in the ascendancy in Paris from the late 1960s on, Louis Althusser and the charlatans in his circle considered "scientific Marxism" to be a pleonasm.
"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."
That piece still uses "real prices", not "as a percentage of GDP".
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.
Why GDP? Why, if the economy has gone great guns since 1990, is it acceptable for the subsidy to increase in real (CPI) terms.
CPI reflects the cost of goods and the 'value' of the pound in your pocket, or the 'value' of each pound in HMT's account. It seems a better measure to me. You could, I suppose, look at the real (CPI) cost of the rail subsidy on a per capita basis, which would seem a reasonable thing to do. Would the difference between that and a GDP deflation be linked to productivity? If so why should increasing productivity mean that it's ok for rail subsidies to rise.
Hmm. I need to think some more about this - but I'm not yet convinced by the "GDP only" approach.
IANA Economist and my head hurts.
I actually agree with you, but even then, the subsidy should be done on the basis of the GDP deflator - economy wide prices - rather than on CPI, which should only be used to judge living costs for individuals. In fact, only an economic illiterate should use CPI on this.
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.
Have you got anywhere with a publisher? Are you trying, even, or happy with this self-publishing malarky.
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.
Well, actually, the way to deal with it is whatever causes the change in behaviour in the most effective way. I suspect in this situation a subsidy for rail transport is more likely to achieve a switch to rail than taxing cars through the roof.
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.
Let us not forget that Marx himself to an extent considered the enterprise he was engaged in to be scientific, and his expositors and disciples from Engels on were convinced that they were proceedings according to nothing less than the dictates of "science". Let us also not forget that when structural Marxism was in the ascendancy in Paris from the late 1960s on, Louis Althusser and the charlatans in his circle considered "scientific Marxism" to be a pleonasm.
They certainly did - or at least they said they did. Whether they had a poor understanding of what "scientific" meant (as their 1970s apologists argued) or whether they were simply lying as part of a political programme I don't know. I lean to the latter view, but that's simply an aesthetic judgment!
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.
Then you have to give a rubric for determining t'other from which. Otherwise it's just an expression of personal taste.
Well, actually, the way to deal with it is whatever causes the change in behaviour in the most effective way. I suspect in this situation a subsidy for rail transport is more likely to achieve a switch to rail than taxing cars through the roof.
Not at all. There is no point in "changing behaviour" for the sake of it. If a tax on pollution is levied fairly, there is no problem at all. Let us not forget that trains pollute as well, and that deliberately increasing passenger numbers increases rail "congestion" for passenger and freight services. The fundamental problem with subsidising trains is that it introduces a whole new set of distortions into the market for transportation.
A short story of mine entitled Saxon & Khan is to be included in an anthology hopefully out later this year. I've also submitted a sci-fi short story and will soon do likewise with a steampunk story (all 4,000-5,000 words).
I'm considering submitting the second Sir Edric story [when it's done, I've barely started so that'll be months away] to someone.
The problem with submitting stuff, rejection aside, is that it takes time. Waiting weeks is normal, waiting months is not unusual. And sometimes you don't get any reply. That's why Bane of Souls (first book I released) was self-published. Rejection's fine, waiting months for an agent not to get back to you is really grating.
On the plus side, the reviews I've gotten, particularly for the latter two books, have tended to be positive. Got another 5 star review for Journey to Altmortis yesterday, actually: http://www.amazon.com/review/R3IMZ03H5XWB0Y/
Labours vote percentage over the last year has been very resolute. Even the Tory percentage across the polls on average has been between a 1% variance wince last August. Polldrums.
Rail privatisation has reduced government subsidies as a percentage of GDP and increased usage.
Everything else is bullshit.
The massive increase in rail usage over the past 20 years has very little to do with privatisation and would have occurred if BR still exisited. The real causes are:
-The massively increased cost of motoring combined with a virtual moratorium on major new roads since the 1990s. Car ownership among the under 30s is about 30% less than it was 10 years ago. - Employment being increasingly concentrated in cities with the rebalancing of the economy into the service sector -Technological change allowing working on the train - Increased urbanisation
Improvements to areas such as rolling stock have of course helped, but these have been funded by the government, not train companies.
A short story of mine entitled Saxon & Khan is to be included in an anthology hopefully out later this year. I've also submitted a sci-fi short story and will soon do likewise with a steampunk story (all 4,000-5,000 words).
I'm considering submitting the second Sir Edric story [when it's done, I've barely started so that'll be months away] to someone.
The problem with submitting stuff, rejection aside, is that it takes time. Waiting weeks is normal, waiting months is not unusual. And sometimes you don't get any reply. That's why Bane of Souls (first book I released) was self-published. Rejection's fine, waiting months for an agent not to get back to you is really grating.
On the plus side, the reviews I've gotten, particularly for the latter two books, have tended to be positive. Got another 5 star review for Journey to Altmortis yesterday, actually: http://www.amazon.com/review/R3IMZ03H5XWB0Y/
Interesting. Best of luck for the future - 5 years ago you'd have been stuffed without a publisher.
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.
How on earth did each side control over 100,000 men, even if they were in ships?
There's still more kudos for being traditionally published, and because of the way the models work it's the only way to really make anything with more print books. Anyway, when Malevolence (the anthology) is published it'll be my first traditionally published story.
Mr. Jessop, 'control' is perhaps an excessively generous term. Naval warfare then was a bit of a lottery. For example, the Romans lost more men and ships to bad weather in the First Punic War than the Carthaginians.
Well, actually, the way to deal with it is whatever causes the change in behaviour in the most effective way. I suspect in this situation a subsidy for rail transport is more likely to achieve a switch to rail than taxing cars through the roof.
Not at all. There is no point in "changing behaviour" for the sake of it. If a tax on pollution is levied fairly, there is no problem at all. Let us not forget that trains pollute as well, and that deliberately increasing passenger numbers increases rail "congestion" for passenger and freight services. The fundamental problem with subsidising trains is that it introduces a whole new set of distortions into the market for transportation.
I think you are using a fairly simple economics 101 mindset to think about this, without considering the practicalities. The "change behaviour" needed If you have the scenario where you just announce the subsidy for a train company up front, then companies have the knowledge of the economic return to get there and immediately build the line as necessary. If you have the scenario where you don't have the subsidy, so you are depending on making driving prohibitively high so that people move across, then companies would have to do some sort of complex behavioural analysis to predict what likely consumer behaviour would be at some later point. Given that such analyses have a lot more uncertainty to them, you would likely need to induce a consumer shift much larger, for the companies to feel it was likely that the minimum shift needed for viability would happen. Then of course you have the situation that you would like dramatically increase illegal driving if the required cost was too high.
What a pleasant thread by the usual pleasant right-wingers.
It's certainly not proof of their hate filled bile at all.
There are not that many right wingers on here who are not filled with hate and bile. It is why I come on, it re-enforces the stereotypes about them for me.
Rail privatisation has reduced government subsidies as a percentage of GDP and increased usage.
Everything else is bullshit.
The massive increase in rail usage over the past 20 years has very little to do with privatisation and would have occurred if BR still exisited. The real causes are:
-The massively increased cost of motoring combined with a virtual moratorium on major new roads since the 1990s. Car ownership among the under 30s is about 30% less than it was 10 years ago. - Employment being increasingly concentrated in cities with the rebalancing of the economy into the service sector -Technological change allowing working on the train - Increased urbanisation
Improvements to areas such as rolling stock have of course helped, but these have been funded by the government, not train companies.
"The massive increase in rail usage over the past 20 years has very little to do with privatisation and would have occurred if BR still exisited."
Urrrm, possibly. But I doubt it.
The elephant in the room is funding. Governments of all stripes starved BR of funding for decades; the company managed well with that limited funding, all things considered. I see nothing to persuade me that if railway operation had remained in government hands, it would have received the funding needed to grow the network to allow doubled passenger numbers and more freight tonnage. Instead, it would have gone on more immediate political items such as health or education.
Like them or loathe them, but the privatised railway companies and NR to a lesser extent have been mightily powerful lobbyists for the railways.
An example is rolling stock: afaicr, a government minister had to sign off for the purchase of the APT-S (the squadron APT), but BR did not feel it had the political capital to buy them. BR ordered just 50 of the excellent Class 58's when more were really needed. When EWS got the initial freight contracts (and that's a whole other story), they ordered 250 brand new locomotives.
What a pleasant thread by the usual pleasant right-wingers.
It's certainly not proof of their hate filled bile at all.
Nice to see you back. Was your most recent banishment for spreading excessive amounts of sweetness and light?
I wasn't banned chum. Sorry to disappoint you. Nor did I make death threats on anyone, reveal personal details of anyone's wife and children on here, or flounce off in the huff vowing to never return. You must be thinking of someone else. But who?
The staggering levels of 'competence' on display here has been boring of late as has the tediously predictable right wing shrieking.
"... Clegg only thinks about politics – and starts every meeting saying ‘I haven’t been able to read the policy papers but let’s talk about the politics’ "
With this level of support for renationalisation, it's no wonder that Labour voices are urging Miliband to make this party policy. But to improve on the status quo, which it would certainly have the potential to do, a nationalised rail industry would have to avoid the pitfalls of the bad old days. I set out more about what Miliband needs to take into account in my article on rail renationalisation for Here Is The City: http://hereisthecity.com/en-gb/2014/07/07/trainwreck-fixing-britains-railways/
Comments
CPI reflects the cost of goods and the 'value' of the pound in your pocket, or the 'value' of each pound in HMT's account. It seems a better measure to me. You could, I suppose, look at the real (CPI) cost of the rail subsidy on a per capita basis, which would seem a reasonable thing to do. Would the difference between that and a GDP deflation be linked to productivity? If so why should increasing productivity mean that it's ok for rail subsidies to rise.
Hmm. I need to think some more about this - but I'm not yet convinced by the "GDP only" approach.
IANA Economist and my head hurts.
http://www.theartnewspaper.com/imgart/ab-es-taxidermy1.jpg
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/252807/rail-trends-factsheet-2012-13.pdf
It's certainly not proof of their hate filled bile at all.
A short story of mine entitled Saxon & Khan is to be included in an anthology hopefully out later this year. I've also submitted a sci-fi short story and will soon do likewise with a steampunk story (all 4,000-5,000 words).
I'm considering submitting the second Sir Edric story [when it's done, I've barely started so that'll be months away] to someone.
The problem with submitting stuff, rejection aside, is that it takes time. Waiting weeks is normal, waiting months is not unusual. And sometimes you don't get any reply. That's why Bane of Souls (first book I released) was self-published. Rejection's fine, waiting months for an agent not to get back to you is really grating.
On the plus side, the reviews I've gotten, particularly for the latter two books, have tended to be positive. Got another 5 star review for Journey to Altmortis yesterday, actually:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R3IMZ03H5XWB0Y/
GDP pegged measures are enthusiastically embraced in times of growth, and quietly forgotten in times of recession. Just ask Avery.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/UK_opinion_polling_2010-2015.png
-The massively increased cost of motoring combined with a virtual moratorium on major new roads since the 1990s. Car ownership among the under 30s is about 30% less than it was 10 years ago.
- Employment being increasingly concentrated in cities with the rebalancing of the economy into the service sector
-Technological change allowing working on the train
- Increased urbanisation
Improvements to areas such as rolling stock have of course helped, but these have been funded by the government, not train companies.
http://redrag1.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/red-rag-moving-goalpost-on-gdp.html
The actual question was
"That they went to Eton and don't understand how normal people live"
so the second part of the question distorts the first.
There's still more kudos for being traditionally published, and because of the way the models work it's the only way to really make anything with more print books. Anyway, when Malevolence (the anthology) is published it'll be my first traditionally published story.
SIr Edric's Temple is less than £2 as an ebook, but I still make more on them than I do on a physical version (just under £5): http://www.lulu.com/shop/thaddeus-white/sir-edrics-temple/paperback/product-21306938.html#
That's why independent/self-published books cost so much. To make even a small amount you need a vaguely ridiculous price.
On that note, this book was pretty interesting: http://thaddeusthesixth.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/review-hellenistic-and-roman-naval.html
It put a very different spin on Alexander the Great, who didn't really do naval warfare much.
Urrrm, possibly. But I doubt it.
The elephant in the room is funding. Governments of all stripes starved BR of funding for decades; the company managed well with that limited funding, all things considered. I see nothing to persuade me that if railway operation had remained in government hands, it would have received the funding needed to grow the network to allow doubled passenger numbers and more freight tonnage. Instead, it would have gone on more immediate political items such as health or education.
Like them or loathe them, but the privatised railway companies and NR to a lesser extent have been mightily powerful lobbyists for the railways.
An example is rolling stock: afaicr, a government minister had to sign off for the purchase of the APT-S (the squadron APT), but BR did not feel it had the political capital to buy them. BR ordered just 50 of the excellent Class 58's when more were really needed. When EWS got the initial freight contracts (and that's a whole other story), they ordered 250 brand new locomotives.
Just like that.
The staggering levels of 'competence' on display here has been boring of late as has the tediously predictable right wing shrieking.
So try again petal.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/03/revealed-how-nick-clegg-made-up-the-free-school-meals-pledge/
I don't think pro-EU supporters should be expecting too much of Mr Clegg in his EU debate.