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More Stuff And Nonsense


caldrail

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"There's going to be a hundred thousand new jobs in London to assist the Olympics" Said Mr G, our ever helpful and jovial assistant at the job club. I had to laugh. Unemployment down in London? Can you imagine how difficult it's going to be to claim benefits there this summer? You won't stand a chance.

 

Mr G found that equally amusing. I imagine though that the prospect of less unemployment in the capital, even temporarily, might well be another bone of contention in the Houses of Parliament. David Cameron will be pleased to announce that jobless figures are down. Ed Milliband will respond that Labour started this olympic opportunity to begin with. David Cameron wil brush Milliband aside with dismissive amusement. Ed Milliband will scowl and mouth silent objections while Cameron moves onto another subject.

 

Talking about Ed Milliband, he made an attempt to persuade us that his government will be different. That the Brown/Blair years are behind them, and that only his party can deliver a fairer Britain with less money available. Aside from the fact that their policies were one reason for less money being available, it's hard to believe that the financial instincts of Labour have actually changed. I mean, neither Brown or Blair really achieved any lasting sense of change from the idea that you can spend your way out of trouble. That was why Thatcher got voted in. It's simply what Labour does.

 

"We must accept the new reality of austerity" Ed Milliband claims. The last Labour government were keen to claim historical achievements. Looks like they intend to claim another one.

 

Is Our Future Fast?

Around the world nations are investing huge sums of money in extremely fast railway systems. Here in Britain we're not used to these mass transit missiles and to be honest, I don't think people here in Blighty comprehend just how fast these trains are. We're used to trains that require several announcements on the tannoy before they even rumble into sight.

 

So now our glorious government wants Britain to have a high speed railway. London to Birmingham at more than two hundred miles an hour. Quite why you need or want to go to Birmingham so quickly is a bit hard to understand. On the plus side, you'd escape from there quicker too.

 

For those who are horrified that their sunday afernoons in the garden are going to be interrupted by intercontinental ballistic armchairs, I do sympathise. I wouldn't want my summer days spoiled by that either. That's when they've finished it. Imagine the fun of having forty thousand modern day navvies working across the fence at the bottom of your garden. Especially since I doubt they'll finish the route quite as quickly as they intend to run it. Come on. This is Britain, however much Ed Milliband believes in it.

 

Cheap Eating

Proving how badly the cost of living has risen, I see a television superstar chef has been caught shoplifting from a supermarket. Mate - you and the others of your genre have spent years telling us how easy it is to feed the family on several pence a week. Clearly it isn't as rewarding as you thought, is it?

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On the topic of high-speed rail, California was set to introduce a system that would take you between Sacramento, San Francisco and Los Angeles (and all spaces in between) quickly and efficiently. In 2008 we citizens even approved bond money to pay for it, with the studies saying that it would only cost around $45 billion--the bond money would go to the first sections being built in the Central Valley, about $3B being funded by bonds, another $3.5B from the feds, and the rest of the monies being collected from elsewhere.

 

Since then, there's nothing but delays and expenditure increases. So much so that a peer review recommended that the system not be built. Essentially, the total costs for the system have ballooned to over twice the amount (to over $100B), and the federal subsidies are not expected to come in. Additionally, the federal money is contingent on projects being completed by certain deadlines, and the peer review suggested that those deadlines could not be met due to lack of planning. Since the state legislature tends to follow what the peer review suggests, it's expected that high-speed rail could be axed. Especially since we're still under financial crisis in this state, it'll be interesting to see if it'll happen.

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I've seen some these issues discussed in the train magazines (we even get american ones too). Some of these issues apply to Britain as well, but in our case a major obstruction is ownership of land and the enviroment in our crowded island.

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