{"id":2711,"date":"2022-06-21T10:33:41","date_gmt":"2022-06-21T10:33:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/far-right.co.uk\/?p=2711"},"modified":"2022-06-21T10:33:41","modified_gmt":"2022-06-21T10:33:41","slug":"dont-blame-the-railway-personnel-for-the-economic-mess-we-are-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/far-right.co.uk\/?p=2711","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t Blame the Railway Personnel for the economic mess we are in\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>During the China flu pandemic- we urged the Government to resist their liberal interventionist urges \u2013 and to stop printing money \u2013 and that flooding the economy with new cash and keeping interest rates at an unsustainable low level was a recipe for disaster.<\/p>\n<p><strong>And now after 2-years of uncontrolled monetary spending<\/strong> of our money we now have rampant inflation \u2013 heading to a two-digit number.<\/p>\n<p>And none of that was the fault of the Railway men and women \u2013 regardless of the ridiculous utterings of our PM and Transport Minister.<\/p>\n<p><strong>As Milton Friedman \u2013 the great economist said &#8211; Inflation is a monetary phenomenon. It is made by or stopped by the central bank. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Therefore, for the Tories to try and blame \u2013 the railway union for needing salary increases to enable them to maintain their living standards due to Government inflation \u2013 is laughable.<\/p>\n<p>Just as laughable \u2013 the fact that the Socialists can not make a logical argument how to counter inflation \u2013 as then they would have to look at reducing Government spending\u2026. which would be akin to the Islington luvvies saying that Karl Marx was wrong.<\/p>\n<p><strong>And so, we have amoral politicians \u2013 spending our money \u2013 on hotels for illegal immigrants, a few billion here to Ukraine, a few billion here on any other PM \u201cpet project\u201d \u2013 probably a few billion more to be promised at the joke Commonwealth meeting this week\u2026but none for the railways!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Prior to the China virus<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>2019\/20 was the second highest passenger journeys on record<\/li>\n<li>By 2019 rail use had increased the fastest out of all modes of transport this century<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>BUT <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Government subsidies were \u00a311 billion per annum<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And since the final end of Big Brother restrictions<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Rail travel has doubled comparing Apr 2021\/March 2022 over Apr 2020\/March 2021<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For us the significant questions are <strong>NOT <\/strong>how can we control inflation? That answer is known, cut off government printing money and over spending but <strong>how can we make rail \u2013 a winner in the 21<sup>st<\/sup> century?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>And it is not by sacking hard working people or asking them to accept a lower standard of living.<\/p>\n<p>The objective is known \u2013 only how to get there should be for debate\u2026<\/p>\n<p>How can we motivate the growth of freight use on the rail network? \u00a0\u00a0Movement of goods must be rail led and not truck led.<\/p>\n<p>How can rail assist our environmental \/ pollution promises? Surely some of the green levies should be openly and transparently placed in the railway\u2019s budgets and not into windfarms which not only blight our countryside but provide derisory energy returns.<\/p>\n<p>With the return-to-work directive that desperately needs to be issued \u2013 passenger numbers would soon return to 2019 figures \u2013 and the challenge here is to address the fact that that morning peak standing levels were at 19.3% passengers standing in autumn 2019 \u2013 that is just not acceptable.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>So, the question is not how to slash and burn but how to grow a sustainable business model\u2026<\/p>\n<p>And the unions who have every right to defend the livelihoods and working conditions of their members \u2013 need to be part of the solution \u2013 but a solution based on the long-term vision for rail in the 21<sup>st<\/sup> century.<\/p>\n<p>Their members \u2013 who are also \u201cour people\u201d deserve nothing less<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>During the China flu pandemic- we urged the Government to resist their liberal interventionist urges \u2013 and to stop printing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2712,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13,11,1,8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/far-right.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2711"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/far-right.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/far-right.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/far-right.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/far-right.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2711"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/far-right.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2713,"href":"https:\/\/far-right.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2711\/revisions\/2713"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/far-right.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/far-right.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/far-right.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/far-right.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}