They say Millennials are rejecting capitalism and are drawn to socialism. It’s hard to imagine why, as nearly all the problems they face are caused by bad government policies, not selfish entrepreneurs.
This is most obvious in the field of transportation, where the public takeover of mass transit led to a 50 percent decline in productivity even as per capita transit ridership continued to fall. Yet proponents of socialized transportation argued that Europe was subsidizing their urban transit and intercity trains, so we should too. This took on special urgency as France and other countries built high-speed rail lines, creating an impression that the United States was somehow eating their technological dust.
Now, the New York Times admits the truth, which is that the French government-owned railroad, SNCF, is “heavily subsidized and deeply indebted.” Although such subsidies and debt are not supposed to exist under European Union rules, and the EU has even ordered member states to open up their railways to competition, SNCF has been particularly resistant to that policy. Continue reading
