By size, you are referring more specifically to area. Area while neglecting population is inversely proportional to population density¹. But even apart from that – how does that support the claim that it’s sensible to disregard cities and just look per capita nationwide? NYC should be compared as a single whole city against other cities of comparable population density. Area does not matter as an independent variable on its own. What would the point be to blur NYC into a nationwide track per capita?
BTW, NYC has a subway system. I’ve used it a few times and it was not even close to being overcrowded but maybe I had lucky timing. Are you saying more track is needed there?
¹ population density: heads per m²
Subways are pretty much exclusively built in the cities
Not just any city. Dense cities. Cities that are so densely populated that it would be /impossible/ for every person to move around in a car. Countless US cities are not even close to crossing that threshold. It just makes no sense to look at nationwide per capita on this. Only a city by city comparison of like with like population density is sensible.
(edit)
There is a baby elephant in the room that needs mention: US cities are designed with shitty zoning plans. They are designed so that each person on avg needs to travel more distance per commute to accomplish the same tasks (work and groceries). This heightens the congestion per capita. So ideally we would calculate daily net commute distance needed per capita plotted against subway track per capita for cities of comparable people per m². Which would embarrass US city mayors even more.
From the article:
See the U.S. flatlining in transit miles per capita
A devil’s advocate would rightfully argue that that’s expected given the much lower average population density of the US – the same factor that made it a struggle to get broadband Internet to everyone in the US. Bizarre to use a nationwide per capita as a basis for mass transit comparisons. It should be a city-by-city comparison that groups cities by comparable population density. US cities would likely still come out behind and embarrassed, but more accurately so.
Consider the marketing angle – instead of saying “the US is losing” (which diffuses responsibility and makes plenty of room for finger-pointing), instead say “@conditional_soup@lemm.ee’s city lost its ass in the bi-annual city infra competency competition”. Then that mayor has some direct embarrassment to pressure action.
I get rid of them pretty quickly by saying I have no bank account. I might start adding to that “take cryptocurrency?” so they leave with the idea that maybe they should be open to cryptocurrency.
@youmaynotknow is spot on. But consider this a very basic primer on just a small fraction of privacy abuse by banks:
So there’s 22 privacy abuses by banks to get you started. And that just barely scratches the surface.
You can somewhat ignore paragraphs 15 and 23 in terms of privacy. OTOH privacy is hand-in-hand with control and paragraphs 15 & 23 reflect control being in the wrong hands.
Banks abuse our privacy in countless ways. This could fill a book. This policy amounts to forced banking. I boycott banks. Banks have us by the balls and they abuse that power. A bank recently told me (in effect) to fuck off if I don’t have a mobile phone number to give them.
It’s impossible to define the amount in relative terms such as “average EU monthly salary +25%”,
It’s not impossible. Indexes are published. This is what they do with rent in places where rent is controlled. Landlords cannot increase rent more than an index. So they have to do the math. And in this case it’s not even a variable baseline like rent, it’s fixed, so the calculation can also be published so people need not do any math.
That’s net (take-home pay), not gross. Tax is high enough that you need to double that figure (€4,400) to get the gross pay. And just wait till you account for inflation, which the EU cash limits apparently fail to account for.
this poll shows it’s non-partisan:
https://layer8.space/@hyakinthos/112554837920009346
The left respects privacy far more than the right. But the left also has that high-taxation tendency. The outcome of that tug-of-war within left-leaning people results in ~73% embracing cash – just like the conservatives who don’t give a shit about privacy but have contempt for tax.
Beware on your next trip to Netherlands, where some bars refuse cash and conceal their contempt for cash (reference)
I just linked your post from that one because it fits well with the story.
(edit) BTW, I would like to see your workmate’s story published in a blog that serves better as a reference. It needs more exposure in a venue that’s not quasi temporary. I would even print hardcopies of it to distribute to cashless bar owners. So a nicely typeset PDF would be useful.
What country was that? I heard about a Belgian who tried to withdraw €10k from her bank account. They refused and also called the police who interrogated her and made a report. Belgian banks have cash withdrawal limits written in the contract. Even pulling out €3k raises eyebrows in Belgium. So withdrawing €30k trouble-free would probably require withdrawing €2.5k once per week over the span of 12 weeks. Is the car seller willing to hold the car for a buyer that long?
That’s not because of the cash. Even white collar workers getting paid electronically get audited because Belgium has a very high audit rate. I heard the probability of getting audited in Belgium is around 50%. Belgian auditors are extremely ambitious and highly motivated. They are employed in high numbers. The only way to avoid being audited in Belgium is to not work in Belgium.
This depends on the industry. Domestic workers and builders are often paid in cash in Europe. Belgium even writes it in law that cash wages are prohibited if you work in an industry where that is uncommon. Strange (and discriminatory) law, but indeed white collar workers are legally blocked from cash payment while other industries are grandfathered.
Indeed national laws don’t generally limit p2p cash, but the EU law encroaches on that AFAICT.
Enforceability varies depending on the scenario. Some countries have law that holds employers accountable for tax evaded by workers. Employers obviously won’t gamble, so they refuse to pay cash and cryptocurrency wages because they are scared shitless of being accountable for an employee’s evasion.
I demanded cryptocurrency payment and my employer refused on that basis. I intended to continue declaring it properly and just wanted a bit of freedom from bank dependency, but nothing could overcome the employer’s fears.
Cashier’s checks existed in Belgium a few years ago but I heard they are under fire and will be discontinued at some point.
Personal checks seem to be non-existent but I heard they can be requested but the banks give some resistance and try to steer people away from it. They only work domestically. I think if you gave a Belgian personal check to a Belgian, they would not generally know what to do with it.
Impulsive donations have been relatively killed off because cash donations are banned (I think because scammers impersonate charities). So that leaves check and electronic payment. Oxfam does not (AFAIK) carry payment terminals. Checks would make sense, but they are taboo. So they have to ask for a bank transfer, which gives donors a chance to be lazy and forget about it.
Enshitification warning: #Arstechnica manages to push bandwidth-wasting autoplay video in a way that bypasses Firefox’s setting to disable autoplay.
If that’s a lossy compression, then yeah that would surely blow the fax over voice GSM option. Although in principle a well-designed system would detect the fax/modem handshake and disable compression.
The nationwide fuckup in the US is zoning rules that block commercial venues from residential regions, which means people cannot step outside their front door and get groceries in a 1 block walk. People are forced to travel unwalkable distances to reach anything, like food and employment. Which puts everyone in a car. Which means huge amounts of space is needed for wide roads and extensive car parking, generally big asphalt lots, which exacerbates the problem because even more space is wasted which requires everything to be spread out even more, putting resources out of the reach of cyclists. Making the city mostly concrete and asphalt also means water draining problems where less of it makes it into the soil and groundwater, and it means the city temp is higher because of less evaporative cooling from the land mass (Arizona in particular).
This foolishness is all done for pleasant window views, so everyone can have a view of neighbors gardens instead of a shop front.
Europe demonstrates smarter zoning, where you often have a shop on the ground level and housing above it. You don’t need a car because everything is in walking or cycling distance. But you more likely have an unpleasant view.