Sure there is. Money counts for less and family/breeding more
in the EU. Family only much counts here through money.
Sorry but I never saw that among friends, colleagues, relatives etc... all
outside the "upper-crust", where my acquaintance is err, limited.
le metro is excellent, mostly for the density of stations.
Tokyo is hobbled by two competing subsway companies, plus JR.
Even New York amalgamated it's system. I think Paris had
one competing company, but not for long. Tokyo also is a
bit of a ring city around the Imperial Palace grounds and
this topography complicates design.
Paris never had a "competing company" in the >30years I've known it but I
see it as a luxury in terms of the tire/rail system (mind-boggling cost),
convenience, comfort, frequency and especially fare cost. Obviously it
cannot self-sustain through the fares charged, though it *is* helped by its
limitation on distance (basically inside the peripherique) and the compact
habitation of Paris itself.
By comparison, London is girding up to perform the same mischief on the
management/running of the Tube as was done to the national rail system; the
guy who "fixed" the NYC subway system was employed at great expense and
told them how to proceed but his advice was ignored.
Personally I don't think you can run a top class rail system
without taxation subsidies - the historical evidence supports
me there... and it *is* a national resource.
Well, what about other national infrastructure, like phone system?
Pipelines? Airlines? Subsidies are necessary when other competing
alternatives are preferred [cheaper] so pricing makes the venture
non-viable. Much rail passenger traffic falls into this class.
Not freight.
Difficult questions. How much should the govt. subsidize airlines which
are chronically in debt, like e.g. UAL?<shrug>? Where they can
self-sustain that's fine but I see rail as a special case - you have to
look at it long-term wrt things like rights of way and infrastructure
maintenance. The return to trams and inner-city light rail in Europe and
the U.S. is quite a lesson when you consider how short a time since the
infrastructure was ripped out in many cities.
Hmm ... that's an odd way of looking at it. Prosperity in one
place diminishing it in another?
When EU subsidies and tax incentives are biased according to perceived (by
some elite bureaucrat in brussels) needs... yes. There are specific
examples: Siemens had a newish memory fab near Newcastle, England; when the
German reunification happened and E. Germany was nominated as an economic
zone for "stimulation", the Newcastle plant was closed & stripped, Infineon
was created and voila we had new memory fabs with fresh jobs in Dresden...
and fresh unemployment in Newcastle. There are loads of other similar
examples... institutionalized madness.
[Relative prosperity, sure]
But did the growth of America impoverish Europe? England grew
enormously from trade with the US. Does the growth in India and
China impoverish America today? IMHO, cheap imports are a major
factor restraining inflation from the staggering US household,
govt and trade deficits We'll see what happens now that China
has revalued the yuan.
Well the Yuan revaluation is "limited" and AFAICT, looks like a token
gesture for the moment. We'll see. As for cheap imports and inflation vs.
trade deficit.... chicken or egg?
