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A concern not for the poor

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-02-09 07:40

Economists should think more about the practical needs of common people, says an article in Qilu Evening News. The following is an excerpt:

Mao Yushi, the renowned economist, has recently blogged that the railway ticket prices should have been hiked during the Spring Festival traffic rush. In his opinion, the fact that the price didn't get raised during the rush led to a slew of problems like rampant activities of scalpers and the deteriorating service quality of the railway system. If ticket prices had been raised, these problems, he said, would have been resolved according to "economic rules".

Economists may only talk about money, but the government can't do the same for it is obliged to help the people stuck in difficulty and avoid adding unnecessary pressure on the poor.

Mao believes poor people would choose to go home as the prices were low, or might stay away from home during the Spring Festival to save money.

However, price leverage doesn't work when people have the strong desire to go home. Every one of us, poor or rich, still tries his or her best to buy a ticket back home during Spring Festival no matter how slim the hope of buying a ticket is, how expensive the ticket may become, and how poor the train services are.

On top of this, 25 million rural migrant workers had to go home due to lay-offs during this year's Spring Festival traffic season. Has Mr. Mao ever thought about them? To what extent he believes the prices should have been raised so that they would have been forced to abandon their journeys home and stay in strange cities jobless during the biggest festival of a year?

(China Daily 02/09/2009 page4)