Rant set off by another greed-headed rail fare rise... ;-)

Rail fares 'to rise by 4.1%' in England as unions protest
[...again...]
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23677173

Rant set off by another greed-headed rail fare rise... ;-)

so, how do we discourage [non-local] car use, with alternatives too expensive?

i've been in hastings 14 years. when i came it was £3000 to get an annual commuter pass to the Smoke on the railways. Now it's more like £6000. hmmm.... yes, most of us are here to stay. fuel is around £1.20/1.40 a litre - we had a petrol strike a decade ago when it had quickly escalated to half that.

the govt are heading for a static population, with no-one able to afford to commute / travel, etc...

not all bad if local economies are thriving. but they generally are not, anywhere [through  a toxic mix of 'recession' and 'austerity', both creations not natural processes]....

so, a static, large, unemployed workforce... who are, apparently, to be blamed for a fate bequeathed them with a vengeance by the very same tory and tory-controlled-media scum that libel them/us.

i do not suggest 'cheap fuel' with the associated rise in CO2 emissions etc as the way out of this mess (a 'solution' offered by fracking, if the european market is able to negotiate lower gas prices from Gazcom, as the US frakking boom impacts the Russian export boom - though, I expect, 'cheaper' natural gas will inflate profits for energy corporations with little reduction for the consumer, especially in England).

As you may read between the lines above, I'd advocate strong local economies with cheap and in-depth public transport schemes, which would include, for example:

scrapping vat on commercial rents, lowering business rates, discouraging 'out-of-town' mega-shopping complexes, pushing local product and skills over non-local...

enforcing (internationally) higher taxes and the payment of higher taxes by top earners (fair's fair: i'm not suggesting 1970s tax rates),

enforcing a living wage (somewhat above 'minimum' wage, and regionally sensitive, not age-related) including for those forced out of the job market,

enforcing rent caps and at the same time forcing local councils to cap housing benefit no lower than the average rent for a given type of property (for example, here in Hastings, the rent cap is about £40 a month, on average, _below_ the average rent for a one-bed; i'd note, too, that bedsits are not a reasonable alternative, though, in the short term, with under-25s getting littler or no support, a positive move would be full HB for 18-25s, nqa, in bedsits, with rent and HB capped [at same level] proportionately lower than one-bed average [half, perhaps]).

working with environmental scientists, internationally, on viable self-sustaining bio-regions (if only to ensure a firm understanding of exactly how far past capacity much of the UK has become - cf: even early 90s 'ghost acres' were scary for the UK [with London's ecofootprint, alone, equal to territory the size Spain], never mind 20+ years on with higher population and lower agricultural output), etc

a charter88 style constitution / bill of rights, with not only the (absolutely non-radical but so blackened in the press no-one takes it seriously except as 'dangerous') 'number of seats in parliament to be proportionate to the number of votes cast' system of voting, but also local public assemblies to decide policy, through direct democracy, with regional, 'national' and supra-national assemblies for non-local decisions that are comprised of fully returnable locally chosen reps with no power to decide beyond explicit local remit and who have to refer back to their local assembly for any decisions outside those previously agreed, etc (it's a form of 'anarchism' [another 'threat' neutered by media lies], guys, cf: Prytr Kropotkin)...


and etc ;-)

http://www.amazon.com/The-Breakdown-Nations-Leopold-Kohr/dp/0710208898http://www.amazon.com/The-Breakdown-Nations-Leopold-Kohr/dp/0710208898


http://www.amazon.com/Global-Technopolitics-International-Technology-Resources/dp/0534099122/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376391307&sr=1-1&keywords=pirages+global


http://www.amazon.com/Mutual-Aid-Evolution-Peter-Kropotkin/dp/0988668556/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376391329&sr=1-6&keywords=kropotkin+mutual+aid


http://www.amazon.com/Our-Ecological-Footprint-Bioregional-Paperback/dp/086571312X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376391364&sr=1-2&keywords=ecological+foot


http://www.amazon.com/People-Case-Participatory-Economy/dp/0983059764/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376391390&sr=1-2&keywords=participatory+economics


http://www.amazon.com/Politics-Social-Ecology-Libertarian-Municipalism/dp/B007K5CJ98/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376391413&sr=1-1&keywords=bookchin+murray+municipalism