One recently revealed aspect of the European debt crisis is the role European passenger trains played in running up national debts. The Greek rail system, for example, has debts of $13 billion, or about 5 percent of Greece’s gross national product. Rail workers get paid so well that it would be cheaper to hire taxis to move passengers, at least if the taxis carried two or more passengers at a time.
Greece spends $1.20 per passenger mile on passenger trains. That’s twice what the U.K. spends, but even the U.K. trains are hardly a model of efficiency considering that driving in the U.S. costs only about 35 cents a vehicle mile, including subsidies to highway. Divide that by however many passengers you think are in the cars to get an average cost per passenger mile.
Spain, meanwhile, went so far overboard in building high-speed rail lines that it recently shut one down because it was attracting only nine passengers a day. That’s what happens when you let politicians decide where the trains should go.
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Many transit agencies in the United States are close to if not in the midst of similar financial crises. Portland’s TriMet agreed to allow transit workers to retire at age 55 after as little as ten years on the job and gave them and their families free medical care (with a $5 co-pay, no deductible) for life (plus 16 years after the retiree’s death for their families). As a result, health-care costs have grown from $18 million in 2000 to $68 million next year and projected to rise to $153 million–40 percent of the agency’s 2010 operating budget–by 2020.
The story behind this agreement demonstrates why Franklin Roosevelt opposed collective bargaining with public employees and why Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has tried to end such rights: you can’t have a fair bargaining process when politicians fear the effects of a strike on their careers and the unions donate heavily to political campaigns.
Such collective bargaining has made public transportation particularly inefficient in both Europe and the United States. Building expensive rail lines when buses cars would work as well at a far lower cost only exacerbates the problem. While some have argued that the trains would be affordable if we fixed the union contracts, while others claim the contracts would be affordable if we got rid of the trains, the truth is we can’t afford to lavishly spend on transportation or anything else.
Gosh, where to begin?
First, the HSR service shut down in Spain was a single direct train, not a route or line. The routes to Toledo and Alcete still have many trains, but they all go to Madrid. The ending of the direct train doesn’t have any bearing on the Spanish network and its success or failure.
Second, the cost to own and operate a car is more like 50 cents per mile, similar to the IRS/GSA figure, not 35 cents. I understand your desire to coninue to misrepresent this, but until you provide real world evidence of people enjoying such low costs of driving, the figure is simply not believable.
Third, transit employees are not public employees and are generally not part of the Civil Service, agencies like Muni Metro being the exception, not the rule. Their unionization is related to their private sector origin, not to governmental unionization. I have no comment over foolish contracts entered into by Tri-Met. It is obvious that the healthcare cost crisis will eventually be solved by nationalization or nationwide price fixing, as continued 5-8% “growth” in health care expenses is incompatible with 3% GDP growth in the long term.
Using a failed nation like Greece as an example of why the rest of the world shouldn’t do something is pretty preposterous. Greece as it exists today is the ridiculous result of 100’s of years of Ottoman oppression, followed on by the loss of the 1919-1922 war with Turkey, and the subsequent expulsion of Greeks from what is now Turkey and their crowding into slums outside Athens and Thessalonika. Using Greece as an example of anything is rather like using Arab Palestine and saying, “look, it failed on the West Bank! That means it cannot work anywhere!”. I don’t see how Greece holds lessons for anyone but itself.
Lastly, if buses and cars worked just as well, wouldn’t they already be universally used today in place of trains? Its not like riding a train is super cheap, apart from New Mexico Rail Runner.
Andrew said:
Third, transit employees are not public employees
————————-
Are you kidding ?
They are not part of the Civil Service.
Ergo, not public employees.
And you have the nerve to say
————————–
Andrew said
“I understand your desire to coninue to misrepresent this”
Yeah, lets blame the Ottomans for the failures of Greek socialism. I can see how the war of 1922 led directly to $136,000/year train operators. Second, cars and buses (and planes) are used universally in place of rail passenger transport, at least in developed countries (or places where they don’t charge $9 per gallon of gas). Even in the far less developed countries surrounding Greece, rail transport is universally unused. The lesson here is the lesson of Euro-socialism: government invests money on political projects without regard to economic utility. This same lesson can be applied to virtually all government-run mass transit services. Not that urban planners will ever learn anything from this, they will only double down.
AIG:
I’m glad you can accept that Greece is a failed state overwhelmed by poorly settled refugees. Refugees do as a whole tend to congregate on government assistance and government employment, as the private economy is unable to accomodate their existence.
Lets think more about Greece. What exactly does the Greek economy do aside from consumption by its population? It supports a large tourist trade, it grows olives, and it controls bulk ships. This is not exactly a formula for success. Major components of Greek industrial production is 10% cement and rebar and another 10% beverages and cigarrettes – in other words, it doesn’t produce anything anyone in particular would want in large quantities. Imports are double the value of exports since Greece has no natural resources to speak of, leading to a need to borrow vast sums overseas – Greece’s external debt is rouhgly twice its annual output – as Greece cannot print Drachmas anymore. Over 20% of Greeks are unemployed – a typical sign of a refugee laden economy. Greece’s largest companies by revenue are banks and couple of utilities – i.e companies involved in securing loans to prop up consumption by an idle population and to make consumption possible.
Andrew, I have no idea how you think what you just said explains the bad decisions by the Greek government to build rail lines to nowhere and pay train operators $136,000 (a country where the average income is about 10 times less), but what you have described is just about every European economy. Secondly, “refugees”? Oh, you must still be on that Turkey thing. About 20% of Greece’s labor force is indeed made up of “refugees”, but these are not Greeks, they are not citizens of Greece, and none of them are on the “public dole” (since they are not citizens). So you got it backwards, the “refugees” (typically these are called immigrants, but whatever) in Greece are the ones that work in the private sector, because the employers can avoid the burdens of the Greek labor market regulations, while the Greeks work in the exceptionally large public sector. Greece suffers from 60 years of socialism. The debt is to support a massive government sector which develops to support a very unproductive and un-competitive economy. A country that has debt the size of 5% of its GDP just on rail, is truly astounding. No amount of My Big Fat Greek Wedding style “It’s the Turk’s fault!” arguments are going to make up for that.
PS: Really, no one in particular wants large quantities of cement, beverages and cigarettes?
There was other stuff mentioned in that article too, other travel modes are taking a hit in Spain as well.
“Castellon Airport, built at a cost of 150 million euros (£134 million) and inaugurated in March, has yet to receive its first scheduled flight. Mile upon mile of empty toll roads are running at a loss.”
O’Toole didn’t mention this, but we also all know that O’Toole is a charlatan.
$150 million euro? That’s dirt cheap.
It was also built by a private company under a 50 year lease. FWIW.
There is plenty of private sub contracting with rail too.
Andrew said:
Third, transit employees are not public employees and are generally not part of the Civil Service, agencies like Muni Metro being the exception, not the rule.
****************
Who are you trying to kid?
If the governing board consists of political appointies and the agency was created by public law (Chartered by a Federal, State or Local Law), it’s employees are public employees (aka Civil Service). That is the norm, not the exception.
Transit employees are generally employees of governmentally chartered corporations, not part of the civil service. They do not have civil service rights and are not covered by civil service exams and laws. Their employers act independently of the government and hire and fire under their own rules.
They are no more public employees than were the workers of the East India Tea Company or the employees of Amtrak or a CIA owned front company.
I can understand the confusion some here labor under, but this shouldn’t be a difficult point to grasp.
You’re the one having a difficult time grasping things, and as it be confused.
1. You said Transit employees are not “public employees” which if they work for a Federal, State or Local government agency (chartered or otherwise) they are in fact “public employees”. If an agency receives tax dollars for any component of its existence, it is a public agency and it’s employees are government (public) employees working in the “Civil Service” and subject to public law in how their business is confined (as a function) and how they conduct their business (within the confines of the law of charter that created them).
2. You said Transit employees are not part of the Civil Service, when in fact they are. You are confusing the term “Civil Service” that describes “government/public employees” as a definition, with the Federal Governments description of “civil service” (not capitalized) as a position with the Federal Government.
They are no more public employees than were the workers of the East India Tea Company or the employees of Amtrak or a CIA owned front company.
That’s too fine a distinction. If their wages are paid largely through government [i.e., taxpayer] subsidies, then it’s fair to call them “public” employees. Civil service handbooks may state something different, but it doesn’t matter for this discussion.
Craigh:
Okay. So are the employes of defense contractors and hospitals public employees? After all, their wages are paid for 100% (defense contactors), or 50% (hospitals) by government subsidy.
Its not like General Dyanamics and Lockheed Martin have a huge private market for nuclear submarines and aircraft.
What about the Postal Service? Not much public subsidy there, but they seem to be pretty clearly public servants and are in the civil service system.
I don’t think your distinctions work.
Defense contractors are working for a private company who is under contract of the Federal Government, the person who oversees the contract is a public employee. There is no law or public charter that created them. The same applies to most hopitals, but there are some hospital districts that have been created by State Law or Charter that as a result of their creation by the government to service the public good are public agencies and therefore have Civil Service or Public Employees.
These districts when created (especially transit districts and airport authorities) have broad governmental powers, the ability to issue government bonds, have the ability to impose a general tax on a region (transit) or charge user fees (airports) for capital expenses, and typically include authority over land use like eminent domain. Their employees, unless a contracted subgroup like a janitorial service, are Civil Service (aka – government/public) employees. The only way a transit bus driver is not a public employee is if the agency created by charter doesn’t actually operate the service and is simply a board that oversees a bus service contract, that saad the people managing that contract are public employees working for a public transit agency. Airports are a better example to understand this. An airport is typically owned and operated by a government agency. It’s operations are generally managed by public employees with three key functions – safety and operations, property management and airport development/expansion. Everything else on the airport – the airlines, concessions, parking etc… – are private companies with private employees who pay a fee to the airport to use it.
” you can’t have a fair bargaining process when politicians fear the effects of a strike on their careers and the unions donate heavily to political campaigns.”
You can’t have a fair labor market when politicians fear the effect of lobbyist ads on their careers and the private sector donates heavily to political campaigns.
I can’t think of a single politician who “fears” the effects of a strike on their careers but I bet you can’t name one who doesn’t fear losing campaign funds from private donors.
On May 15th, 2012, Andrew said:
Transit employees are generally employees of governmentally chartered corporations, not part of the civil service. They do not have civil service rights and are not covered by civil service exams and laws. Their employers act independently of the government and hire and fire under their own rules.
They are no more public employees than were the workers of the East India Tea Company or the employees of Amtrak or a CIA owned front company.
I can understand the confusion some here labor under, but this shouldn’t be a difficult point to grasp.
*****************
You are the one confused Andrew. “Civil Service” is any government employee not of the military. You are refering to the “civil service” (Small c and small s) as a component of the Federal Government. Anyone working for a government chartered agency is part of the Civil Service and is a “government employee” – aka Public Employee.
PNT:
Amtrak employees are not government employees in the Civil Service.
The same goes for public transit employees on a state/municipal level.
False.
Not directly.
Excellent retort, sir. Well played. Anyone who thinks that transit employees aren’t government workers is either being intentionally obtuse or smoking something of extraordinary potency.
Sometimes people are just stupid.
They’re quasi public employees.
Though military contractors are also quasi public employees too.