On Tue, 19 Jun 2007 11:31:59 GMT, Mojo
wrote:

ricardo wrote:
No! Kids should learn at a very early age to contribute and give of
themselves we live in a take and thankless world and I think ,Ken
livingstone (The Mayor) has made a BIG MISTAKE that will haunt him or
his childrens, children in years to come, I beleive that anybody over
the age of 50 should travel free because they are more likely to have
made a contribution to society than some snotty 15 year old kid.

Yes, all full-time students should be entitled to free travel as:
a) they *have* to go out to school, college, etc.
b) Uni students are already racking up huge debts
c) Students generally have less money than OAPs


But they can still afford to buy the latest mobile phone and mp3
players!

Dave wrote:
On Tue, 19 Jun 2007 11:31:59 GMT, Mojo
wrote:

ricardo wrote:
No! Kids should learn at a very early age to contribute and give of
themselves we live in a take and thankless world and I think ,Ken
livingstone (The Mayor) has made a BIG MISTAKE that will haunt him or
his childrens, children in years to come, I beleive that anybody over
the age of 50 should travel free because they are more likely to have
made a contribution to society than some snotty 15 year old kid.
Yes, all full-time students should be entitled to free travel as:
a) they *have* to go out to school, college, etc.
b) Uni students are already racking up huge debts
c) Students generally have less money than OAPs


But they can still afford to buy the latest mobile phone and mp3
players!

Not all of them. But I think a better idea would be to offer
means-tested free public transport. There's no reason that rich OAPs
should get it free either.
--
Michael Hoffman

In article , lid
(Michael Hoffman) wrote:

There's no reason that rich OAPs should get it free either.

Actually there is a reason. Filling otherwise empty seats on off-peak
buses is far cheaper than handing out proper pensions to everyone.

That was before the Government decided to use concessionary fares to
provide a blanket subsidy to bus companies.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On Fri, 22 Jun 2007 01:21 +0100 (BST), (Colin
Rosenstiel) wrote:

In article , lid
(Michael Hoffman) wrote:

There's no reason that rich OAPs should get it free either.

Actually there is a reason. Filling otherwise empty seats on off-peak
buses is far cheaper than handing out proper pensions to everyone.

And the cost of means-testing can exceed a blanket system. The really
better off self opt out and use the Rolls.
--
Old anti-spam address cmylod at despammed dot com appears broke
So back to cmylod at bigfoot dot com

Colum Mylod wrote:
On Fri, 22 Jun 2007 01:21 +0100 (BST), (Colin
Rosenstiel) wrote:

In article , lid
(Michael Hoffman) wrote:

There's no reason that rich OAPs should get it free either.
Actually there is a reason. Filling otherwise empty seats on off-peak
buses is far cheaper than handing out proper pensions to everyone.

And the cost of means-testing can exceed a blanket system. The really
better off self opt out and use the Rolls.

Yes, but you can get it for free by, say, giving free/reduced travel to
people already on some other kind of benefit.
--
Michael Hoffman