GeofCox

Almost 50 cities in France have already done away with paid tickets... "Nearly three million people in France can now use urban public transport without paying a fare. That number is likely to grow after the municipal elections... given the proliferation of proposals to make urban transport at least partially free."

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2026/03/12/french-cities-steady-march-toward-free-public-transport_6751388_19.html

This article - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/mar/06/uk-death-healthy-life-expectancy-decline-state - makes 2 points about the current decline of health, well-being and lifespans in the West. One, arguably, is obvious: it's worse in less equal societies like the US and UK, while in the most egalitarian societies, in Scandinavia for example, healthy lifespans are still increasing. Obvious because the larger the percentage of the population you exclude from access to health services, good diet, clean air, etc, the more they bring down all the health outcome averages. The second point is more obscure, but much more revealing... Epidemiologist Michael Marmot: “If our health and life expectancy is in decline, it’s about as clear a sign as you can get that our society is in decline.” "In the 1980s, Marmot studied the Soviet bloc and saw illness increase. That’s one way you could tell those societies were on the verge of collapse. Now it’s starting to happen in hypercapitalist countries."

RE: @alberto_cottica@mastodon.green

Link to an excellent article - the UN joining up the dots between "the interwoven crises of rising inequality, ecological collapse and resurgent far-right politics" and preparing "proposals to be outlined in April ... backed by leading economists and academics, UN bodies, trade unions and NGOs."

It used to be said that the British are only good at the Olympic events you can do sitting down (rowing, horse-riding, etc...). But it's getting really relaxed now - two gold medals in skeleton, which you actually have to lie down for.

Somebody asked yesterday if advertising really works in these days of ad-blockers etc... My answer was that if it wasn't working on most people, big business wouldn't be spending 1.4 trillion dollars on it every year.

But I was reminded of a friend of mine, a student of Russian, that went to study in Moscow in the early 80s. He got what he called an 'eerie' feeling walking around the city, in the metro, etc. At first he thought it was the stories about foreigners being watched - but eventually he worked out what it really was: the absence of advertising - no bill-boards, posters, vehicle liveries, shop window displays, etc...

We swim in an ambient sea of advertising - and its effects go way beyond its immediate purpose of extracting our hard-earned money so that we keep working hard for more, surrounded by mountains of stuff we could easily do without.

The most pernicious effects of advertising are, precisely, ambient...
1. It makes us unhappy. That's the whole point. It is fundamentally based on making us feel we'd be better, more attractive, popular, successful, etc, if only we buy this or that latest cosmetic, car, whatever; and
2. It shapes social expectations - it makes having new, more expensive things, holidays, etc, look and feel desirable, it associates happiness with wasteful consumerism, so we come to really believe that striving for a 'luxury lifestyle' - big house, fancy car, swimming pool, jet-setting, etc - is the meaning of our lives, is better than living simply, contentedly in caring families, communities and the natural world.

I was interested in this story that the enormous French multinational Capgemini immediately decided to sell off a US subsidiary when it discovered it was contracting with ICE - https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2026/02/01/french-it-giant-capgemini-to-sell-us-subsidiary-after-row-over-ice-links_6750021_7.html Is the US becoming a toxic investment environment even to multinational corporations ?

I'm tired of analyses of the housing crisis locked inside housing policy - https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2026/01/30/europe-s-housing-crisis-is-a-democratic-time-bomb_6749946_23.html

Yes, yes - the decline of public housing provision, the growth of airbnbs... But the bigger - much bigger - issue is not housing: it's inequality.

The fact is that while living standards have stagnated for most people for 20 years or so - 50 in the US - the wealthy and privileged have continued to get much wealthier. About half of all house purchases in the UK now are for 'additional dwellings' - second homes, buy-to-lets, etc - because 10% of the population can outbid everybody else, drive up asset prices, and when it's something people can't live without, like a home, force them to pay unreasonable rents - further increasing inequality, both directly and indirectly, by sucking money out of local economies into elite enclaves.