Fury as striking Tube drivers demand FREE Legoland tickets as London grinds to halt - "the union's shameless list of demands includes access to a travel card which also gives its holders cut-price ticket deals at Legoland, Thorpe Park and Chessington World of Adventures. Also included are guided tours of Buckingham Palace and a drag-themed night out in Soho. The report emerges as Sadiq Khan ‘goes missing’ as strike action brings London to a standstill... RMT members striking this week are demanding, among other things, that Tube bosses grant them access to the so-called Priv staff travel discount card. Formally known as the Rail Staff Leisure Card, the Priv card gives a whopping 75 per cent off all mainline train tickets outside London. It also grants holders two-for-one entry to a substantial list of tourist attractions around the country... The RMT's main demands include a reduction in working time to a four-day, 32-hour working week and for alterations to shift patterns to help reduce fatigue caused by "extreme shift rotations". Taxpayers subsidised mainline passenger trains by a staggering £12.5 billion last year, or roughly £57,000 for each of the 220,000 people estimated to work in the wider rail sector. This means every one of the country's 28.6 million households paid £437 towards mainline railways and perks for staff working on them... Transport for London (TfL) stopped publishing regular Tube punctuality data in 2020 during the Covid pandemic and has not restarted doing so. Annual data shows that 90.9 per cent of planned Tube services operated last year, meaning 9.1 per cent of scheduled trains did not run. This is down from 92.7 per cent of services operating in the 2019-20 financial year."
Tube strikes: Unions are destroying Britain and Labour is allowing it - "Sadiq Khan and this Government have done their best to make it harder to get to work, or school, or anywhere. This week the RMT Union completed the unholy triad and took their efforts to a whole new level. “Well, this strike must be important,” you might reasonably think. “The Unions wouldn’t bring the city to a standstill unless they had a good reason for doing so.” You would be wrong. In the last five years, Tube driver salaries have risen by 25 per cent. Their basic pay is now roughly £70k. That’s almost double the £37k a nurse or a bus driver gets. Even a teacher’s £40k looks measly by comparison. “So,” you think, “they must be working unacceptably long hours?” Again, no. That’s for 35 hours a week and more than 7 weeks of holiday. Not forgetting the pension worth almost three quarters of their salary. So what more are they asking for? A four-day-week for the same pay. Just to be clear – the RMT Union is draining the nation’s blood banks, delaying schools and costing businesses so they can work three hours a week less – even though they’re already putting in two fewer hours than the average employee for double the salary. How can they do it? Because Labour lets them. When the Conservatives were in charge we introduced minimum service legislation that enables the government to stop a small group of people holding the rest of us hostage. We made it clear that we would not bow to union bullying. Labour changed all that... This Government has shown that it never wanted to govern for the country, just for its Union paymasters. That’s costing us all. The demands the RMT have set out would be around £200 million a year, not including the ridiculous 75 per cent discount on rail fares it thinks it’s owed. That’s absurd. As Mayor Khan said, in his own words, strikes are a sign of failure. He’s right. And he holds the record for the most number of days on strike out of any mayor of London... It’s even more maddening when you consider that in addition to higher fees, stranded commuters are propping up the Tube with their taxes. Last year Transport for London was awarded £2.7 billion in government grants. Given the massive cost to the economy and disruption to people’s lives, you might expect the government and the Mayor of London to be working around the clock to solve the issue. You would be wrong. Our Transport Secretary, who earlier this year vowed to take on the Unions over rail strikes, has so far been silent. The Mayor of London, who has now presided over a grand total of 149 strikes, spent Monday tweeting about planting trees. Even Cabinet this week had only one item on the agenda: growth. But without Europe’s largest urban economy generating it, there’s no hope our country will. They’re making sure we grind to a halt, causing massive losses to businesses in the process. Who do they think will generate that growth – it’s the businesses they are destroying... Under the new Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act, the Mayor of London has the power to intervene in strike action and ensure that at least 40 per cent of services run normally. Similar powers exist in France, Italy and Spain. Not only has Sadiq Khan refused to use these services, the Government has promised to abolish them. In other words, shuttered Tube stations aren’t inevitable – they’re a political choice. But there is an answer. The first self-driving London Underground train was trialled on the District Line – in 1963. The driverless DLR has operated safely for four decades. Paris, Tokyo and Barcelona have already embraced similar technology. The promise of more frequent and reliable services – powering economic growth across the capital – is within reach. And yet the unions will never let this happen. When plans to introduce driverless trains were floated in 2014, they vowed to “go to war” to prevent it. They stayed true to their promise. It doesn’t matter what the mayor offers them, the strikes won’t stop until the politicians charged with helping our capital remember whose side they’re on, grow a spine, and do what’s necessary"
The solution to the Tube strike? Do away with drivers altogether - "Another London Tube strike, and another £250m lost to the economy. This not only means huge disruption for Londoners but also more costs for the taxpayer as commuters avoid the capital and the railways need yet more subsidy. When HM The Queen opened the driverless Docklands Light Railway in 1987 its was rightly assumed the technology which underpinned this safe and efficient railway could and should be rolled out across London’s Tube network. But despite various political promises over the years, progress to modernise the Tube and end the union’s ability to cause maximum disruption remains stuck... Former Transport Secretary Grant Shapps echoed that sentiment when he made driverless trains a condition for bailing out Transport for London (TfL) during the pandemic. Shapps told TfL it would have to look into the feasibility of driverless trains a priority if it wanted the £200m bailout. London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who chairs the TfL Board, just took the money and smiled without any commitment to move to any automation. Indeed, TfL has accepted that driverless trains could be introduced, but they claim it would cost over £7bn to do so. The authors of a TfL report added that introducing them presented “no additional benefits for the level of investment.” But how can this be so when one considers the damaging costs of this week’s five-day strike to TfL’s budget?... Driverless operations would deliver a more consistent and reliable service, more value for money tickets, increased capacity, reduced delays, minimise congestion, ensure better performance for high-density urban areas, reduce labour and operational costs, reduce energy consumption and deliver faster journey times... Automation would also allow for the popular Night Tube to run more frequently providing a huge boost to London’s struggling nighttime economy. This has suffered hugely under Sadiq Khan and his failed so-called night czar, Amy Lamé who pocketed £132,000 annually until she left last year. The unions have fought tooth and nail against their members working more night hours. They demanded more money on top of the then average £49,000 annual salary for drivers, fewer hours and a four-day week when the Night Tube was introduced on some lines... World leading cities like Paris, Tokyo, Barcelona and Dubai have already embraced driverless trains. Why can’t London follow suit? The answer is that it can, but that it needs political will and leadership. This won’t be forthcoming from Sadiq Khan and in the meantime Londoners will continue to pay the price."
Time to put in a clause in the agreement banning further automation, and to force even more people to use public transport to increase unions' power
Sadiq Khan under pressure to rethink robot trains as Tube strikes cause commuter chaos - "Sir Sadiq Khan is under pressure to rethink robot Tube trains after the Tories and Reform pledged to roll out the technology to prevent future strike misery for commuters. On Tuesday, senior figures from Labour’s rival parties hit out at the Mayor of London for stalling on the initiative and promised to pursue the introduction of driverless trains on the London Underground if either wins the next general election. They said estimates from Sir Sadiq that put the cost of automation at £10bn were grossly inflated and that the trains would boost efficiency and safety while robbing unions of the ability to disrupt travel for millions of commuters. A major walkout this week on the London Underground is poised to cost the economy £270m based on the loss of 700,000 working days, according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research – not including the impact on retail and tourist spending. The backing for automated trains rekindles plans announced in 2012 by Boris Johnson, the former mayor, and dropped by Sir Sadiq last year under pressure from trade unions. Richard Holden, the shadow transport secretary, said Sir Sadiq had been “spineless” in the face of “Labour’s bully-boy union paymasters”. He said: “The London Mayor took driverless trains off the table despite the network being designed decades ago for their rollout... by striking for a four-day week with a maximum of 32 hours, Tube workers had eroded any sympathy people might have for their position by provoking “fury and rage” among the travelling public... Unmanned trains have become relatively commonplace in major cities worldwide with fully automated metro lines around the world now reaching a combined distance of 620 miles, according to the International Association of Public Transport. Singapore and Shanghai lead the way with more than 100 miles of driverless track. In Europe, Barcelona has the biggest network while five French cities boast automated trains. In Britain, the Docklands Light Railway is the only unmanned network, having operated with driverless trains since it opened in 1987. However, nine Tube lines and parts of the Thameslink and the Elizabeth line across London are equipped for so-called grade two automation, with the signalling system effectively controlling trains and a driver required only to open and close doors. Sir Sadiq nevertheless said in December that he had told TfL that work towards grade three automation – which removes the driver but adds an on-board attendant – and grade four, where trains are completely unmanned, “shouldn’t be progressed any further”. The Mayor cited a feasibility study carried out by TfL as a condition of a £200m government bailout of the Tube, which he said had concluded that the introduction of the trains “would cost billions of pounds on each line”. The study, published in 2023, said that in order to dispense with drivers entirely, signalling would need a further upgrade while stations would require glass barriers and doors on the platform edge like those installed on the Jubilee line in order to guarantee passenger safety. It said that some platforms would also need to be reinforced to take the extra weight, taking the bill to £10bn. However, the study also concluded that automation would cut delays and journey times, luring more passengers and boosting revenue. Mr Holden said the Mayor had “hidden behind baseless figures to pretend it’s too costly,” and that driverless trains could be introduced for far less. Full automation of the second-busiest line on the Paris Metro was completed for £15m per station. suggesting a bill of under £4bn for the whole of the London Underground. Mr Tice said Reform would also seek to address wider problems around the ability of unions to halt transport networks with the RMT’s station staff still able to lock down stations even if all trains were driverless. He said: “It’s all on the table. We’ve got a country that’s going bust, productivity is collapsing and the hard-Left socialists think the answer is to work less for more money. It’s the most economically illiterate thing you could think of.” Aslef said driverless trains “are the stuff of science fiction” and would not work on Britain’s ageing infrastructure."
Clearly, if you don't support union strikes, you're deluded into thinking you're a temporarily embarrassed billionaire
Europeans are going viral on TikTok for mocking the "American Dream". : r/TikTokCringe
IMF chief: European lifestyle is at risk if productivity isn’t boosted - "Europe needs to boost its growth in the face of global headwinds or risk losing its way of life, said the head of the International Monetary Fund Kristalina Georgieva"
Time for more regulation, taxing the 'rich' and degrowth
How ignorant. Doesn't she know that the European Dream is paradise?
History Defined on X - "Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge, 1934"
YIMBYLAND on X - "Reminder that we built the Golden Gate Bridge in 4.5 years. Today, we wouldn’t even be able to finish the environmental review in 4.5 years."
Only In Boston on X - "West Station will open in 2045 on the MBTA Commuter Rail Framingham/Worcester Line at the former Beacon Park Yard, costing $100 million to build. Harvard University has pledged $50 million to fund the station."
Mark Ashworth on X - "It’s going to take 20 years for Boston to build a train station. Twenty. Years."
Rosalind Janney on X - "How long did the Big Dig take?"
Mark Ashworth on X - "Only took 15 years, lol. We built the Golden Gate Bridge in 4 years using slide rules."
Rosalind Janney on X - "And the Pentagon took 16 months. Under budget I believe."
Damn automobile lobby sabotaging public transit!
Water supply: Public or private? - "Most theories on private sector participation in water infrastructure are based on the sole supposed difference of efficiency between the public and the private sector. The review of 22 empirical tests and 51 case studies shows that private sector participation per se in water supply does not systematically have a significant positive effect on efficiency. Thus, the choice between public and private water delivery is probably not only a question of efficiency. We developed a complete theory of the choice between public and private water supply based on four components: difference of cost of funds, transaction costs of outsourcing, difference of efficiency and potential political cost of privatizing. Since determinants of the theory fluctuate over the time and depend on the local context, this theory can explain both privatization and municipalization movements as well as why some local governments outsource water supply, while others opt for direct provision. The tests on 459 US counties in charge of water supply in 45 states provide substantial support for the theory. Significant determinants of the choice of public versus private water delivery include the cost of funds, especially the social cost of taxes, transaction costs, the difference of efficiency and the potential political cost of privatizing. Moreover, we tested other literature's theories, which suggest employment as a motive of public provision and cost of public wages as a cause of privatization. These two arguments seem to be irrelevant. We additionally tested the influence of ownership on the number of drinking water environmental violations and found no significance."
This won't stop left wingers screeching about how privatisation is evil and will poison everyone
Meme - Will Tanner: "We stopped going to the moon because NASA was defunded so that endless resources could be poured into the gaping maw of the "Great Society" welfare scheme"
"Billion $ for space. Pennies for the hungry *fat black woman with girl in wheelchair*"
"With sign "billions for space, pennies for the hungry, Mrs. Mattie Gray, lame daughter Jackie, 8, demonstrate at NASA site."
Nate Fischer @NateAFischer: "10yo: "Isn't it crazy that we haven't been back to the moon since 1972, when we have so much more advanced technology today?""
Magatte Wade on X - "I tried to manufacture products in Africa. The optimist in me said “let’s create jobs at home!” Here’s what I learned: Getting cardboard boxes requires 1,000 minimum order, 50% upfront, and 4-8 weeks wait. In the US? Order online, next day delivery, no minimum order. Now multiply that struggle across EVERYTHING you need to run a business. That’s why Africa stays poor. Not colonialism. Not racism. The regulations make legal business nearly impossible. And yet we keep adding more regulations, wondering why nothing changes."
nicolas on X - "And then a European NGO comes and give old stuff for free, basically killing all demands from your potential customers."
Ain't we got fun. Long live the billionaires! - "The global ideological crusade against the rich and super-rich dates back to who knows when? One recent paper claimed evidence of inequality back to 1320, when monarchs ruled. Today, the claim is that billionaires rule, leaving most of the population struggling. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. That’s a theme in a 1921 hit song, Ain’t We Got Fun, written by two of America’s greatest pop-song lyricists, Raymond B. Egan and Gus Kahn... Alexander Graham Bell... initially owned a third of Bell Telephone shares, making him an early American member of the super-rich. The reason: He brought phones to millions of people so they could have fun... Today few are ready to openly appreciate the benefits created by the entrepreneurial rich. Book after book and politician after politician routinely trash the “oligarchy.” That’s the word Democratic leftist Bernie Sanders used in his instant bestseller, Fight Oligarchy. Sanders recently toured the U.S., including an appearance before an audience of thousands in Brooklyn with New York’s now-elected socialist billionaire-bashing Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Behind the Mamdanis and Sanders of America is a line of academics and intellectual activists spreading the idea that billionaire oligarchs — successors to dictatorial monarchs — have seized control of the U.S. and other economies. In their view, the billionaire class should not exist. The ideological push reaches across the border to Canada... There are manybooks that contradict their oligarch theories. In The Myth of the Robber Barons, libertarian historian Burton Folsom documents the major distortions that have been trotted out to create the myth of the oligarchs."
Analysis-Norway's wealth tax trades millionaires for equality - ""The political climate in Norway has become increasingly hostile to business owners," Borgenhaug, who left in 2022, told Reuters. With a wealth tax dating back to 1892 and a culture of openness that allows citizens to view the tax returns of others, Norway has more experience than most in squeezing the rich. Its model offers lessons for countries debating similar moves, from Britain to France and Italy, or even a city like New York. The takeaway: a wealth tax will scare off some millionaires, but if set broadly enough, revenues can still be worth it. The tax was a defining issue in Norway’s election in September, which returned the Labour Party to power. The party had raised the levy and tightened exit rules during its previous term... The changes turned a trickle into a stream. Data from conservative think-tank Civita shows 261 residents with assets above 10 million crowns ($973,000) left in 2022 and 254 in 2023 - more than double the typical rate before the hike. Business magazine Kapital's ranking of Norway's 400 richest people shows 105 now live abroad or have transferred wealth to relatives who do. Some of their pictures hang on a "wall of shame" in the offices of the small, opposition Socialist Left party... Around 40% of emigrants are business owners, according to Princeton researcher Christine Blandhol, who estimates the latest tax changes will cut Norway’s output by 1.3% over the long run. Others find the tax hampers firms' performance. A wealth levy is especially painful for startup founders, who pay on capital long before profits arrive. Are Traasdahl left Norway in 2000 to market Europe’s mobile technology in the U.S., later founding and selling several tech firms including the app now known as iHeartRadio. "There’s no chance I would have been able to build in Norway what I built in the United States," he said. Norway has one of Europe’s lowest levels of venture capital as a share of GDP – at half that of Sweden's and far behind the U.S., OECD data shows. Heirs often leave before taking control of shares. Laurence Odfjell, now in Singapore, says staying may have cost him control of his shipping group during the downturn that followed the global financial crisis of 2008. "I was not going to let our company sink on my watch due to not having the capital," he said. So far, no new country is going down the Norwegian route... Meanwhile, millionaires are still voting with their feet. Norway is on track to shed another 150 this year – a sizeable outflow for a country of just 5.6 million – according to Henley & Partners, which advises wealthy clients on relocation, and New World Wealth, which draws on public sources including LinkedIn. Britain tops the global list with 16,500 expected departures after scrapping tax breaks for foreign residents. The UAE, U.S. and Italy are among the biggest gainers. Norway's social cohesion and oil wealth may make its model hard to copy. But economists say it shows that any such levy involves a trade-off with economic and political dimensions."
Left wingers mock those against new taxes like wealth taxes as ignorant, claiming that only billionaires will be hit and anyway no one will leave. Meanwhile, in reality...
The article claims that the revenues can still be worth it, but never ever mentions how much the tax raises. And you'd imagine that how much money a wealth tax raises is a very basic and important question for an article on it
Millennials are richer than their boomer parents. Here's why they love to complain anyway. - "When Gen Xers and millennials hit their late 30s they had a median household real (aka inflation-adjusted) income 16% and 18% higher, respectively, compared to the generation before them at the same age, whereas the Silent Generation and baby boomers had increases of 34% and 27%, respectively... thinking your parents had it easier isn't particularly unique to the avocado toast cohort. "Almost every generation is like this," says Matt Darling, a senior research associate at MEF Associates, a social policy research firm. People tend to downplay the tribulations that plagued previous generations — after all, they weren't around for them. Millennials frustrated by post-pandemic inflation could probably stand to talk to boomers about how they dealt with it in the 1970s and '80s. "Every generation has its own unique challenges, and every generation forgets about what happened previously," Darling says. As big-ticket items have become increasingly expensive — housing, healthcare, childcare, education — it's become easy to overlook the smaller-ticket items that have gotten cheaper. Yes, sending your kid to preschool is going to hit you where it hurts, but at least the toys you buy them and the clothes you put them in nowadays are super inexpensive. The same goes for that iPad you let them play with more than you should. "They feel so vulnerable because they're looking at what the ultra-elite rich are doing and can afford to do, and, in comparison, they feel poor."... As workers at the bottom earn more, it can also push up prices for the better-off. Part of the reason people are annoyed by the high cost of their DoorDash orders is that delivery drivers may have a minimum amount they need to earn. That tip you're angry at at the coffee counter is supplementing the barista's pay, whose wages have gone up anyway in recent years and are making your fancy coffee pricier. Most people would agree it's good for home health aides to be paid more — until they try to hire one to take care of their parents."
Time to increase the minimum wage, because greedy companies will be forced to reduce their profits to pay workers more without raising prices
