On Jul 9, 10:31*pm, Arthur Figgis wrote:

Willms wrote:

Am Thu, 9 Jul 2009 20:39:37 UTC, *schrieb Mizter T
*auf uk.railway :

If someone offered you an extra 2 hours (approx?) every day to spend
with your kids or playing 5-a-side or lying in bed in the morning (or
whatever the hell you do with your spare time....), and all it cost
you was £8 (approx?) a day, you'd do it, right? Who wouldn't?

Just £4.40 for an extra hour in bed every day? Priceless.
Agreed - but it's worth bearing in mind that the HS1 line cost
something like £5 billion, which was basically covered by government
loan guarantees to the company that built it, L&CR

I don't quite think the market is prepared to pay the true costs of
such a development

* hey, man! Do you really suggest that 2 hours extra time for a family
man should be subject to "market forces"?

Depends how many hours extra work the workers-n-peasants have to put in
to subsidise the railway which gives the capitalist extra time with his
family.

* And what, if the "market forces" decide that the re-introduction of
slavery would help to increase the profits of the big banks, what
then?

There is a theory that abolition was about perceived inefficiencies and
redeploying the ships on more profitable ventures.

* Should "the market" prevail over human beings?

* Is this the dragon which ruled over the town and who asked a virgin
sacrified to it every year in order not to destroy town and castle?

But the Virgin was replaced by a bus at weekends.

Arthur... sorry - hey,man!... why can't I just construct a high-speed
pithy response like you!