On 27/12/2011 07:31, Doctor Drivel wrote:
"Steve Walker" wrote in message
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On 26/12/2011 11:45, Doctor Drivel wrote:
"John Williamson" wrote in message
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Doctor Drivel wrote:
"ARWadsworth" wrote in message
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Doctor Drivel wrote:
And it left the miners able to hold the country to ransom. They
brought down the previous Conservative government,
They never. Heath couldn't handle industry properly. Lack of
investment, poor management, etc, etc. Miners were poorly paid
working in appalling conditions.
Again..
"It was NOT subsidised. Coal created economic growth. Coal provided
the energy to create electricity. The economic growth was cycled
back to get the energy. Understand that."
Coal mining in the UK was not profitable.
Idiot, again...
"It was NOT subsidised. Coal created economic growth. Coal provided
the energy to create electricity. The economic growth was cycled back
to get the energy. Understand that."
It cost more to dig the coal out than it could be sold for.
Not another one. If London Underground was run on ticket sales only half
would be closed down and tickets would be £20 a go. London, economically
would decline rapidly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47Jb-rlXJYg
Harrison's points include:-
* Passengers pay twice
* Trains pay for themselves
* Trains more than covers their costs
* Governments can pay for railways without taxing their citizens
* Investment in railways yields huge profits
* The problem is the way governments pay for the capital they invest in
the tracks and rolling stock
* Payback is like winning the lottery
* The Jubilee line raised productivity in the London economy. Every one
pound invested provided a payback of 4 pounds
* That is what railways do, make the economy more efficient
* Who pocketed the fat profit? Not the shareholders, not the taxpayers,
wages were not raised
* Profits cascaded into the profits of the land owners
* Taxes destroy jobs
.. and he's right, you know.
The same applies to economic growth creating energy - COAL
The comparison is false.
Nonsense!
If I want to travel into London, I must use whatever transport
infrastructure is there and it must either charge the true (even if
expensive) cost or be subsidised at a cost to the UK (or local) taxpayer.
You are confused.
subsidy (definition)
- (Economics) a financial aid supplied by a government, as to industry,
for reasons of public welfare, the balance of payments, etc.
- (Economics) any monetary contribution, grant, or aid
"Reclaiming" economic growth and cycling it back into the mechanism that
assisted in creating it in the first place is not a subsidy.
Energy and power generation creates economic growth in the wider
community. You have difficulty with this.
Energy and power generation happen anyway. The argument is about coal -
subsidies (or recycling growth) as you wish to call it enable coal to be
mined in the UK creating mining and support industry jobs and reaping
some taxes back. In the absence of such subsidies, the coal is mined
abroad, losing those jobs - the coal is however still mined and the
power produced, allowing the rest of society to grow just the same. Only
the mining and support industy jobs are lost, not the growth in the rest
of industry.
Thatcher had the corner shop profit mentality. The idiot said the coal
and rail industries were not making a profit. Few rail networks do on
passenger ticket sales. They are profitable as they create economic
growth in a society. This crystalizes as wealth, which is taxed to run
the mechanism that assists in creating the economic growth completing
the circle. The same with coal used for power generation. Rail was
neglected and the country, and cities with extensive rail lines were
unable to expand urban networks, suffered greatly.
Rail is very good for moving bulk freight and large numbers of rush hour
commuters, but it is a very expensive and slow way of moving people from
widely distributed homes to widely distributed workplaces - roads work
much better for that. Targetted road improvements could produce the same
economic benefits at lower cost (for instance short, low weight
restricted flyovers at major road junctions, allowing the centre lanes
of traffic to flow, while only turning traffic and heavier vehicles need
queue at the junction).
Also the free-market was, and still is, rigged. Thatcher took on board
the view of Milton Freidman of the Chicago School of Economics. this
view still holds in the UK - this school, recommend to Chile that
unemployment be raised to keep wage costs down (rigging the
free-market). Dictator Pinochet did so. They assessed that a 60 million
country like the UK needs approx an unemployment level of 1 million to
keep wage costs down (rigging the free-market). We roughly have had that
since Thatcher, going down to approx 0.5 m under Blair and at one point
zero with Blair.
And if wage costs are not kept down? The manufacturing that has left the
UK has done so because they cannot compete against lower cost production
(low wages) elsewhere. As companies offshore their production,
employment rises, increased unemployment acts as a brake on wages and
the rate of job losses declines - a feedback loop. Artificially
subsidising jobs to reach zero unemployment allows wages to rise,
ensuring that we remain uncompetetive and those subsidies eat up tax
revenues.
The unemployment float is intentional. They see the unemployed as a part
of the solution - a solution based on an rigged so-called free-market.
See above.
Thatcher did not know what the free-market as long as she had a hole in
her bum.
SteveW