Don't like Auckland's trains? Pay more!

Well it's hardly surprising. You get what you pay for.

You see the fares only recover around a third of the operating costs, and not a dollar of fare revenue has been used to pay for the trains themselves, the track upgrades or the station upgrades. They have been paid for by ratepayers, motorists (through petrol tax) and the proceeds of the privatisation of the Yellow Bus Company.

So when Peter Lyons in the NZ Herald moans about services being late, moans about standing room only, moans about the services being inferior to his expectations he shouldn't be surprised. Taxpayers have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the system. He starves the system by paying fares that are a fraction of the operating costs, it's a con that deludes Aucklanders into thinking that you can have a first class urban passenger railway without either paying fares to sustain it (as in Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan) or paying a fortune in rates or taxes (as in Paris, Vienna, Montreal).

So the debate is really this. Are those who want Auckland to have a passenger railway willing to use it and pay the fares necessary to sustain it? If not, why should Aucklanders who don't want to use it be forced to pay taxes for those who do?

Meanwhile, if you think it is the solution to congestion in Auckland, consider that 88% of commuters in Auckland do NOT work in downtown Auckland, where the railway goes. Consider that the railway itself only serves three out of the five main corridors in Auckland radiating from the central city, then you can see that at best 7% of Auckland commuters might use it.

It would be nice if a journalist would put in a LGOIMA (official information) request to the ARC to ask the difference its rail plan would make to traffic speeds in Auckland if fully implemented (according to peer reviewed consultants' reports).

World's biggest nationalisation?

According to the Times, The Bush Administration has injected US$200 Billion of US taxpayers' money into the Federal National Mortgage Administration (Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac), at the same time as it has taken over the companies, replaced the chief executives and suspended dividends to the private shareholders.

Both companies finance more than 80% of the US housing market, what this means is a massive subsidy for US homeowners. Future taxpayers (as the US is in budget deficit) will pay to prop up the property market now.

Reuters reports Barack Obama supports it as being necessary, but welcomingly said "In our market system, investors must not be allowed to believe that they can invest in a "heads they win, tails they don't lose" situation." Which of course, is what has happened.

It also reports John McCain also supports it, but also this:

""The long-term reforms are to scale down Fannie and Freddie so their size is no longer a threat. And then privatize them. Get them off the taxpayer's books entirely," said McCain's chief economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin.".

Meanwhile, according to Bloomberg former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan criticises the bailout saying the companies should have been nationalised, given the shareholders nothing and privatised the two companies into many smaller firms.

These two firms were government creations, as part of the New Deal. It's about time the US economy was no longer dependent on them both. As Not PC said, they should have been allowed to fail. Bailing them out is taking money from those who didn't take those risks, it delays and reduces future tax cuts. The money for the bailout does not come from trees, it comes from people.

As Paul Gigot in the Wall Street Journal writes:

"Even now, after all of their dishonesty and failure, Fannie and Freddie could emerge from this taxpayer rescue more powerful than ever. Campaigning to spare taxpayers from that result would represent genuine "change," not that either presidential candidate seems interested."

As it is a fait accompli, the best that can hoped for is to take Greenspan's solution, fully nationalise the institutions, split them and sell them. Ensure these creations of government are returned to the dustbin of history.

Turkey tries to improve relations with Armenia , sort of

According to the Sunday Telegraph, Turkish President Abdullah Gul has visited Armenia. The first ever visit by a Turkish leader to independent Armenia, which given the history between the two nations is important. However, sadly, Turkey seems still unwilling to accept its past.

President Gul said of Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian "He did not mention... the so-called genocide claims"

According to Wikipedia:

"The date of the onset of the genocide is conventionally held to be April 24, 1915, the day that Ottoman authorities arrested some 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople. Thereafter, the Ottoman military uprooted Armenians from their homes and forced them to march for hundreds of miles, depriving them of food and water, to the desert of what is now Syria. Massacres were indiscriminate of age or gender, with rape and other sexual abuse commonplace."

Between 300,000 and 1.5 million Armenians died during this period. However arguing over numbers is beside the point. It is also beside the point to consider that many Turks also died in the ensuing conflict. There is little evidence that there was a deliberate effort to wipe out Turks by Armenians.

Modern day Turks have little to fear from admitting that the Ottoman Empire discriminated against Armenians, that Armenians sought independence, and the corrupt brutal Ottoman regime co-opted many Turks to expel and execute Armenians. Germans have had to face their role in the most well known genocide of all. Turkey needs to engage internally about this dark period of history, resist nationalist pride, and acknowledge the evil of the past. Precious few alive today are likely to have had any responsibility for it, and it would be a fitting first step before seriously considering secular Turkey's membership in the European Union.

UN says eat less meat to save the planet

The Observer reports that Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has called for people to have one meat free day a week (something I do regularly if you regard meat excluding fish), because of "the huge greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental problems - including habitat destruction - associated with rearing cattle and other animals".

Now setting aside the harm this causes economies with a high proportion of meat rearing agriculture, setting aside that the UN produces nothing other than exhorbitantly highly paid and underworked bureaucrats, this call blunders in so many ways. It doesn't distinguish between efficient producers and inefficient producers. How much good would be done environmentally and economically if subsidies and protectionism for meat production was ended worldwide? Oh and at the same time, do it for all other food production, so that other foods are over or underpriced? Sadly British restauranteur John Torode makes the common mistake in thinking that buy local would do it, when NZ lamb has a far lower carbon footprint than British lamb, even after transporting it.

I've noticed how little success the Green Party in NZ has had in fighting the foodmiles myth in the UK - or perhaps how little effort it has taken.

There are reasons to moderate meat intact, mainly health ones. The evidence that a high meat diet may be strongly linked to heart disease and cancers of the digestive tract is quite overwhelming. However, there are also countervailing factors, such as high fibre consumption, fish oil consumption and red wine!

Joanna Blythman in the Observer reflects:

"Try telling the Masai tribesmen who have reared livestock for millennia that they should plough up scrubby Kenyan savannah and plant millet"

and points out the value of cattle grazing in some parts of Britain:

"Heather left untamed grows out of control - stringy and lanky - and strangles the growth of other plant species. Without sheep and cattle to graze on them, heather landscapes would eventually become barren and would start to pose fire risks."

As usual, the central planner has a simple solution that does not have universal application (and may be highly damaging).

For all that, it's still some highly paid bureaucrat telling people of all nationalities, what to do, whilst living an affluent lifestyle paid for compulsorily by them. If he talked about agricultural trade liberalisation as well, I might listen, because you see that offers enormous benefits for the world economics and environment.

Polly Toynbee was wrong about Gordon Brown

but she wont admit it. Her latest column in the Guardian calls for Gordon Brown, who she once saw as being the true Labour leader (she went off Blair), to be replaced.

However, pass on the article. It's the usual bunch of leftwing Keynesian tripe about increased taxes and spending more money on those who haven't earned it. Go to the comments section. There is true magic there. My favourite is this from "Cloutman":

Another great article Polly. Marvelous to see such an eloquent demonstration of the old saw - 'the convert is the greatest zealot'. You're really starting to hit the nail on the head - your ex-hero Gordon Brown is indeed as much use as a third buttock. As you have now come to recognise, you absolutely were 100% wrong with all that guff you used to write about how wonderful he was.

And I'll let you into a secret. You know all that other stuff you write about poverty and inequality? That's all bloody tripe as well.