9 ms·

Spain launches free train tickets for short and medium journeys from Sept to Dec

148 points by vanilla-almond 4y ago

adabaed 4y ago
- reocha 4y ago
  To be at that level you have to be making €300,000 a year, that level of taxation seems fair to me.
  - miki_tyler 4y ago
    Tax rate for income > 60K Euro is 45%. On top of that VAT (IVA) current standard rate is 21% in Spain. Add on some other taxes (property tax, municipal taxes, IVTM, etc) and seems pretty high to me.
    - mkl95 4y ago
      It's worse when you consider basic foundations of the system such as healthcare have been declining for a while. What are they even doing with all that money?
      - alex7734 4y ago
        The same thing every government does: pocketing it or spending it in whatever they think will give them the most votes or influence.
    - reocha 4y ago
      Earning 60k a year still leaves you with net 41k. To get close to loosing 50% of your income to taxes you have to earn over 1mil (disregarding VAT). Furthermore one must take into account the average salary in Spain is lower than most other European countries.
      - oceanplexian 4y ago
        It's not 50%, it's actually far higher. Governments hide taxes from workers by taxing the employer. Individuals might think their taxes are low, but that money comes from somewhere, and it manifests in lower wages, less competition, and offshoring. The true tax is called the "Tax Wedge". That's one of the reasons someone in Spain who makes 60k a year would be making 100k in the USA.
        manuelabeledo 4y ago
        Companies don't pay taxes for their employees, that's some bs. They pay part of their social security cost, which absolutely happens in the US as well.
        Am4TIfIsER0ppos 4y ago
        To whom do they pay that "social security"?
        manuelabeledo 4y ago
        Let me rephrase: there are no taxes paid for mere employment; instead, taxation for social security is shared between employer and employee. Saying that governments “hide taxes from workers by taxing the employer” is inaccurate at best. Taxation is shared, and there aren’t dedicated taxes for employers.
        jokethrowaway 4y ago
        The net effect is that the average Joe reads his payslip and just see his share of social insurance contribution - and then complains that his employer his paying him too little, without knowing how much social insurance his employer is paying. Hiding seems appropriate.
        Am4TIfIsER0ppos 4y ago
        If it costs an employer 100k to employ a person then that person should receive 100k.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
GekkePrutser 4y ago
It's kinda useless if you're not already on the train at least once a week making the same trip. Great for commuters to save some money but it doesn't happen open up any options for cool day trips to explore the country like the German offer.
- littlecranky67 4y ago
  I think they learned from the German 9€ ticket - people made more trips due to the ticket. With the spanish system, only people that really have to commute long-term (job, uni, etc.) will benefit, without setting an incentive to take "recreational trips".
  - GekkePrutser 4y ago
    But I thought the whole point of the German thing was to give everyone a little something? This seems very targeted at one specific group (those commuting regularly) that is only a small part of the population affected by the cost increases. In fact train tickets have not increased anyway. It seems a bit strange giving one group so much and the rest nothing.
    - pooper 4y ago
      > It seems a bit strange giving one group so much and the rest nothing. I think it makes sense if we can encourage people who would have otherwise traveled by car to try out the train. I mean that's the whole point, right? If we want to "give everyone a little something", we should increase capacity as well.
    - mtmail 4y ago
      > It seems a bit strange giving one group so much and the rest nothing. In parallel there was a 0.30 Euro subsidy on petrol ("Tankrabatt") and a 300 Euro one-off payment for employees (in September I think). Plus subsidy on gas for heating is being discussed. Taken together a lot was given, not only to one group.
      - 4y ago
TekMol 4y ago
You can't make this up. We currently have two problems: 1: Inflation is rampant because the governments spent so much on fighting Covid. 2: Covid variants are still spreading. What shall we do? Let's spend more government money! On what? A free ticket, so people will cram into buses and trains together!
- nerdponx 4y ago
  Somehow I doubt that temporarily subsidizing transit is going to have a big effect on inflation, nor is it going to have a noticeable crowding-out effect. Also this particular spending is subsidized with a tax. This is income redistribution, not printing money.
- jkukul 4y ago
  Isn't inflation only caused by governments spending money only if money is printed in the process? Otherwise, it's just a re-allocation of money within a fixed budget. E.g. instead of money being allocated to building a new road it is allocated to subsidising train rides. The supply of money doesn't increase.
  - pclmulqdq 4y ago
    Increasing subsidies that are used by poor and middle-class households seems to have a stronger effect than subsidizing rich people. Their money tends to have higher velocity (instead of throwing it into the stock market and waiting, they will use it to buy necessities), which leads to more total dollars spent per year from $1 of subsidies.
    - jkukul 4y ago
      You're right. The point I was trying to make is that subsidising poor and middle-class by re-allocating resources is better than printing money to give stimulus checks.
    - oceanplexian 4y ago
      Maybe people in poverty are different where you live. Where I am it's a lifestyle, where every spare dollar is spent on drugs, alcohol, and gambling at the nearby casino. I guess it helps the economy, but probably not the parts of the economy society should be investing in.
zxspectrum1982 4y ago
Net result is there's not enough trains for everybody so 3-hour delays are not rare. RENFE warned Government free tickets for everybody on short notice was simply not doable. They didn't listen. News will not report this, of course, they would lose their subsidies. https://twitter.com/acomajuncosas78/status/1565405822120763392 https://twitter.com/acomajuncosas78/status/15654058221207633...
- switch007 4y ago
  They could just do what everyone else has been doing for 2 years: blame “staff shortages” for any delay
  - ipaddr 4y ago
    After firing those who wouldn't take a vaccine.
    - Oletros 4y ago
      No one has been fired in Spain for not taking vaccines
      - ipaddr 4y ago
        Different story in Canada. People working from home not in health care lost there job if they were working for the government.
        unmole 4y ago
        Then why bring it up in a story about Spain?
- Mordisquitos 4y ago
  I'm not saying you're wrong, but RENFE's Rodalies service around Barcelona has been disastrous long before free train tickets.
k__ 4y ago
We had this in Germany and it was pretty nice. Would have been better with a few more trains, but whelp, that's what the years of pushing for cars give you. I still hope it will lead to a change.
- germandiago 4y ago
  who pays the bill? It seems noone seems to care about these things. They just care about free things.:(
  - k__ 4y ago
    Well, it saved 1.8M ton of CO2. That is some kind of payment.
markvdb 4y ago
These free train trips might be nice, but they don't really reply to the issue at hand. The source of inflation in Europe is the godfather in Moscow shutting the valves on natural gas pipelines. Barring war with a nuclear arms power, the remedies are diversifying natural gas supply and lowering its consumption. I see far too little too late action on this front. I've been waiting for half a year now for a simple and effective EU wide coordinated effort. It's just not happening. Our political class seems to show very little sense of urgency. One example out of many. Heat pumps are still in stock in most of the EU, with installers available to install them. We're speaking of systems that easily cut domestic energy consumption in three. Still available, after over six months of emergency!
- fy20 4y ago
  Although I'm a big proponent of heat pumps, they are not the solution here. I ran the numbers for my country and it still works out cheaper to heat with gas than a heat pump. Natural gas works out to be 13c/kWh and an electric heat pump 16c/kWh of heat. Why would someone pay close to €10k to switch to a heat pump, if the end result is going to be bills will not change? The only case a heat pump would be cheaper today is if you have solar, as then you can produce heat and hot water without any grid usage for half the year (the warmer part though), and you probably have net billing for the other half. In my country (and most of the EU) the elephant in the room is a lot of the electricity comes from natural gas, so switching to heat pumps alone will not drastically reduce natural gas demand. The market rates say it's better to burn directly than convert to electricity and then back to heat. I hope this is finally the thing that forces the EU to decarbonise electricity generation and switch to green energy (inc. nuclear), but given how slow things have changed over the last decade I somewhat doubt that. We already have the technology but Russian energy has been too cheap, now though...
  - kazen44 4y ago
    to add to this, a ton of houses are not build for heatpump based systems. Most radiator style heating (aka, anything build prior to the 2000's) will not work with a heat pump because the water temperature cannot get high enough to get proper cooling coefficiency. Replacing your entire radiator based system in many houses is not possible without an extreme renovation of the home.

reocha 4y ago
To be at that level you have to be making €300,000 a year, that level of taxation seems fair to me.
- miki_tyler 4y ago
  Tax rate for income > 60K Euro is 45%. On top of that VAT (IVA) current standard rate is 21% in Spain. Add on some other taxes (property tax, municipal taxes, IVTM, etc) and seems pretty high to me.
  - mkl95 4y ago
    It's worse when you consider basic foundations of the system such as healthcare have been declining for a while. What are they even doing with all that money?
    - alex7734 4y ago
      The same thing every government does: pocketing it or spending it in whatever they think will give them the most votes or influence.
  - reocha 4y ago
    Earning 60k a year still leaves you with net 41k. To get close to loosing 50% of your income to taxes you have to earn over 1mil (disregarding VAT). Furthermore one must take into account the average salary in Spain is lower than most other European countries.
    - oceanplexian 4y ago
      It's not 50%, it's actually far higher. Governments hide taxes from workers by taxing the employer. Individuals might think their taxes are low, but that money comes from somewhere, and it manifests in lower wages, less competition, and offshoring. The true tax is called the "Tax Wedge". That's one of the reasons someone in Spain who makes 60k a year would be making 100k in the USA.
      - manuelabeledo 4y ago
        Companies don't pay taxes for their employees, that's some bs. They pay part of their social security cost, which absolutely happens in the US as well.
        Am4TIfIsER0ppos 4y ago
        To whom do they pay that "social security"?
        manuelabeledo 4y ago
        Let me rephrase: there are no taxes paid for mere employment; instead, taxation for social security is shared between employer and employee. Saying that governments “hide taxes from workers by taxing the employer” is inaccurate at best. Taxation is shared, and there aren’t dedicated taxes for employers.
        jokethrowaway 4y ago
        The net effect is that the average Joe reads his payslip and just see his share of social insurance contribution - and then complains that his employer his paying him too little, without knowing how much social insurance his employer is paying. Hiding seems appropriate.
        Am4TIfIsER0ppos 4y ago
        If it costs an employer 100k to employ a person then that person should receive 100k.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

It's kinda useless if you're not already on the train at least once a week making the same trip. Great for commuters to save some money but it doesn't happen open up any options for cool day trips to explore the country like the German offer.

littlecranky67 4y ago
I think they learned from the German 9€ ticket - people made more trips due to the ticket. With the spanish system, only people that really have to commute long-term (job, uni, etc.) will benefit, without setting an incentive to take "recreational trips".
- GekkePrutser 4y ago
  But I thought the whole point of the German thing was to give everyone a little something? This seems very targeted at one specific group (those commuting regularly) that is only a small part of the population affected by the cost increases. In fact train tickets have not increased anyway. It seems a bit strange giving one group so much and the rest nothing.
  - pooper 4y ago
    > It seems a bit strange giving one group so much and the rest nothing. I think it makes sense if we can encourage people who would have otherwise traveled by car to try out the train. I mean that's the whole point, right? If we want to "give everyone a little something", we should increase capacity as well.
  - mtmail 4y ago
    > It seems a bit strange giving one group so much and the rest nothing. In parallel there was a 0.30 Euro subsidy on petrol ("Tankrabatt") and a 300 Euro one-off payment for employees (in September I think). Plus subsidy on gas for heating is being discussed. Taken together a lot was given, not only to one group.
    - 4y ago

TekMol 4y ago

You can't make this up. We currently have two problems: 1: Inflation is rampant because the governments spent so much on fighting Covid. 2: Covid variants are still spreading. What shall we do? Let's spend more government money! On what? A free ticket, so people will cram into buses and trains together!

nerdponx 4y ago
Somehow I doubt that temporarily subsidizing transit is going to have a big effect on inflation, nor is it going to have a noticeable crowding-out effect. Also this particular spending is subsidized with a tax. This is income redistribution, not printing money.
jkukul 4y ago
Isn't inflation only caused by governments spending money only if money is printed in the process? Otherwise, it's just a re-allocation of money within a fixed budget. E.g. instead of money being allocated to building a new road it is allocated to subsidising train rides. The supply of money doesn't increase.
- pclmulqdq 4y ago
  Increasing subsidies that are used by poor and middle-class households seems to have a stronger effect than subsidizing rich people. Their money tends to have higher velocity (instead of throwing it into the stock market and waiting, they will use it to buy necessities), which leads to more total dollars spent per year from $1 of subsidies.
  - jkukul 4y ago
    You're right. The point I was trying to make is that subsidising poor and middle-class by re-allocating resources is better than printing money to give stimulus checks.
  - oceanplexian 4y ago
    Maybe people in poverty are different where you live. Where I am it's a lifestyle, where every spare dollar is spent on drugs, alcohol, and gambling at the nearby casino. I guess it helps the economy, but probably not the parts of the economy society should be investing in.

zxspectrum1982 4y ago

Net result is there's not enough trains for everybody so 3-hour delays are not rare. RENFE warned Government free tickets for everybody on short notice was simply not doable. They didn't listen. News will not report this, of course, they would lose their subsidies. https://twitter.com/acomajuncosas78/status/1565405822120763392 https://twitter.com/acomajuncosas78/status/15654058221207633...

switch007 4y ago
They could just do what everyone else has been doing for 2 years: blame “staff shortages” for any delay
- ipaddr 4y ago
  After firing those who wouldn't take a vaccine.
  - Oletros 4y ago
    No one has been fired in Spain for not taking vaccines
    - ipaddr 4y ago
      Different story in Canada. People working from home not in health care lost there job if they were working for the government.
      - unmole 4y ago
        Then why bring it up in a story about Spain?
Mordisquitos 4y ago
I'm not saying you're wrong, but RENFE's Rodalies service around Barcelona has been disastrous long before free train tickets.

k__ 4y ago

We had this in Germany and it was pretty nice. Would have been better with a few more trains, but whelp, that's what the years of pushing for cars give you. I still hope it will lead to a change.

germandiago 4y ago
who pays the bill? It seems noone seems to care about these things. They just care about free things.:(
- k__ 4y ago
  Well, it saved 1.8M ton of CO2. That is some kind of payment.

markvdb 4y ago

These free train trips might be nice, but they don't really reply to the issue at hand. The source of inflation in Europe is the godfather in Moscow shutting the valves on natural gas pipelines. Barring war with a nuclear arms power, the remedies are diversifying natural gas supply and lowering its consumption. I see far too little too late action on this front. I've been waiting for half a year now for a simple and effective EU wide coordinated effort. It's just not happening. Our political class seems to show very little sense of urgency. One example out of many. Heat pumps are still in stock in most of the EU, with installers available to install them. We're speaking of systems that easily cut domestic energy consumption in three. Still available, after over six months of emergency!

fy20 4y ago
Although I'm a big proponent of heat pumps, they are not the solution here. I ran the numbers for my country and it still works out cheaper to heat with gas than a heat pump. Natural gas works out to be 13c/kWh and an electric heat pump 16c/kWh of heat. Why would someone pay close to €10k to switch to a heat pump, if the end result is going to be bills will not change? The only case a heat pump would be cheaper today is if you have solar, as then you can produce heat and hot water without any grid usage for half the year (the warmer part though), and you probably have net billing for the other half. In my country (and most of the EU) the elephant in the room is a lot of the electricity comes from natural gas, so switching to heat pumps alone will not drastically reduce natural gas demand. The market rates say it's better to burn directly than convert to electricity and then back to heat. I hope this is finally the thing that forces the EU to decarbonise electricity generation and switch to green energy (inc. nuclear), but given how slow things have changed over the last decade I somewhat doubt that. We already have the technology but Russian energy has been too cheap, now though...
- kazen44 4y ago
  to add to this, a ton of houses are not build for heatpump based systems. Most radiator style heating (aka, anything build prior to the 2000's) will not work with a heat pump because the water temperature cannot get high enough to get proper cooling coefficiency. Replacing your entire radiator based system in many houses is not possible without an extreme renovation of the home.