Pelican

Excellent post.

Col Stern, if you are unable to comprehend anything of Pelican's reasonable comments, at the very least, note that she did not stoop to insults of anyone at any stage.

You have every right to express your opinion, however, by peppering your responses with the verbal excrement of disparagement results in alienation of people you are trying to convince.

Balance is required in communication just as much as it is in governance and business. There is no single, fixed 'right' way unless you are promoting totalitarianism. As species we have been successful by adapting and cooperating; competition is fantastic for innovation but it does not ensure that all people are given equality of opportunity.

Thanks for the clarification, Stern.

>>Pericles I was wrong, I will correct myself… My weekly return ticket, Chesham to Baker St / Marylebone in the metropolitan line in 1983 was UKP35 and replaced by private coach service PND12/week<<

But in the interests of that accuracy and specificity that you prize so much, we need to adjust your initial assertion, don't we.

Let me remind you of your starting position:

>>My commuting costs fell to 30% of what they were previous (a drop of 70%) when Margaret Thatcher broke the UK rail monopoly on commuter travel into London<<

But Thatcher's attention to British Rail had absolutely no impact on the price structure of the London Underground system.

So your claim that your price reduction was the result of her policies falls down on two counts:

1. You compared bus travel with train travel. That would be an uncomfortable hour, A40/M40/Westway. But I guess the tube trip wasn't that great either, was it.

2. You used the London Underground to get from Chesham to the City, so any changes to the National Rail system would not have impacted you anyway.

It would appear that you should have said :

"My commuting costs fell to 30% of what they were previous (a drop of 70%) when I decided to take the bus instead of the London Underground"

That's just a little different.

Which goes to place your attack on my dear old mum (who, incidentally idolized Thatcher, and remains active in the service of the Conservative Party) into some perspective.

>>Pericles, I remember your old mum... It was the likes of me who were being financially violated to pay for your mums cheap bus fares.<<

"Financially violated", eh?

Since she did not live in leafy Buckinghamshire, I fail to see how her travel plans were subsidised by you. Let alone how you became "financially violated" by them.

So it was all just über-capitalist posturing, wasn't it.

Gilbert.. you still don’t get it do you?

“As well as being individuals, we are also a community.”

A “community” is merely a collective noun for a group of individuals

Its like suggesting something be denied an individual for the sake of the common good (a favoured excuse of the assorted collectivists by any name)

I can shake an individual by the hand, I can like or dislike him...

But

I have never met a “common good” and every time I try to ask who benefits from the rewards we heap upon it, the throngs of the “common good” can never be found.

To the words of a famous politician

“there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It's our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour.”
“Communities” do nothing,

individuals combining together do everything

And I did not take your comment re bean counters as referring to me... but I do hold a brace of accounting credentials and was putting my own hand up as qualifying under that general definition :-)

Pelican...” black and white perspective”
my views are founded on strong beliefs, experiences and values.
If they were not, they would like be of a “greyer” hue.
“risks inherent in capitalism”
Looking at the disparity between communist party members and non-communist party members in USSR, like access to shops with produce in them.... it would seem ”disparity” is not something which gets eliminated by abandoning capitalism, indeed, quite the opposite

Pericles.. my starting position “My commuting costs fell to 30% of what they were previous (a drop of 70%)”

Was the PND12 a week versus PND35 – roughly 70% saving
As to policy.. the bus travel was barred by the monopoly operated by the rail network prior to Thatchers action
The last time I looked, the “London underground” was a system of railway conveyance and enjoyed the same / similar monopoly protections as British Rail.

Nope.

Does not compute, Stern.

>>the bus travel was barred by the monopoly operated by the rail network prior to Thatchers action<<

British Rail did not have a monopoly over bus travel.

Buses were organized under the National Bus Company umbrella. Some NBC companies did operate monopolistically over some routes, but these were invariably local. Chesham to Marylebone would not be considered local, by any definition.

Alder Valley did run some coach services into London, but these were from Reading, and didn't go past Chesham.

So, what are we left with? Not much, I'm afraid.

When the buses were finally fully deregulated with the Transport Act of 1985, the main complaint was that fares went up, not down. The result of withdrawal of local council subsidies, mainly.

All of which begs a couple of questions.

Whatever it was that caused you to shift your allegiance from the London Underground to a bus company, it was not the result of anything that Margaret Thatcher did. So what is it that persuades you otherwise?

And whatever your memory tells you, after all these years, British Rail never, at any time, had a "monopoly" on bus travel, of any kind.

So this was either a teensy little fib, or the product of an exceptionally unreliable memory.

>>the bus travel was barred by the monopoly operated by the rail network prior to Thatchers action<<

Which is it, I wonder.

"Looking at the disparity between communist party members and non-communist party members in USSR, like access to shops with produce in them.... it would seem ”disparity” is not something which gets eliminated by abandoning capitalism, indeed, quite the opposite"

I agree with you regarding disparity, but we are not talking about Communism nor would many I suspect aspire to a Communist state.

Capitalism is not perfect. This is borne out by your continual references to extreme forms of government instead of social democracies and ways we can improve on capitalism and ensure less disparity and as much as you don't like it, regulation is the only way.

The point comes down to who makes the decisions about regulation, enforcement and the balance between the individual and the collective.

Pushing forward the view that this means Communism avoids the elephant in the room and that is the free market under-regulated version of Capitalism is just as imperfect as Communism.

Pericles “Does not compute, Stern.’

What you think computes does not concern me

travel costs in about 1979/80 did….

Before Margaret Thatcher: there was a rail monopoly on commuter services into London… after she became prime minister…. She broke the monopoly, allowing private bus lines to compete with a previous “monopoly protected” nationalized industry

Pelican “I agree with you regarding disparity, but we are not talking about Communism nor would many I suspect aspire to a Communist state.”

The disparity was an undeniable fact of communist life. The worst sort of hypocrisy.

But your view that “this time it will be different”

Is always the excuse for every new version of collectivism, pelican

The maggot eventually turns into a fly

The same way a socialist state eventually progress and turns into a communist state

Like Lenin said

“The Goal of socialism is communism”

Maybe the same reason Britain returned to a “royalist” system, after experiencing the “joys” of Cromwell and his levelers.

No system is ever perfect…

capitalism has imperfections, hence my concerns to protect against abuses derived from an imbalance between a few large and well organized sellers and a lot of disorganized individual consumers

but those sorts of monopoly abuse is not the result of capitalism.

It happens in "socialist" systems too

The “two airline agreement” was a complete “con” on Australia’s air-flying consumers, instigated, promoted and protected by government.

So too the Australian telecomm system was protected for the benefit of its union backed employees, at the expense of its consumers.

And monopoly is "the system" of communist societies

Further, the method of “devolution of power”, into the hands of lots of smaller, interested individuals produces better outcomes than a “concentration of power”, administered by disinterested bureaucrats.

Capitalism presents fewer opportunities for “concentrated power” to be used and abused -

Capitalism, not perfect but the exact opposite to the “catastrophic imperfections”, which collectivist systems have repeatedly shown themselves to offer, as an irresistible opportunity, for the egocentric narcissists among us.

Severin.. you make alot of noise for someone who never says anything worth listening to..... boring