Current crisis is US' fault

Comment on "China key to easing global recession" (China Daily, Jan 17)

China should diversify its economic engines and no longer heavily depend on exports. The Untied States has been living beyond its means for decades. It was just a matter of time when the bubble burst. It borrowed too much, enjoying wealthy life with other countries' money. The US should be blamed for the current financial crisis.

Hoaquiao

on China Daily website

Helpful staff on trains

There is some debate about the quality of services provided to the traveling public by employees of the railways in the Chinese mainland.

I have often been a passenger on the trains, on journeys both short and long.

The station and train staff have been unfailingly punctual and pleasant, indeed keen to help their passengers in every way they can.

Furthermore, they often have a smile and a joke ready, to cheer up the fatigued travelers.

All credit to them, for providing such outstanding services to millions of passengers each month.

Paul Surtees in Hong Kong

via e-mail

Be rational on ticket difficulty

As the Spring Festival travel season starts, the difficulty in buying a ticket has once again become a great concern for the people. We should be rational facing the difficulty.

In fact, the country faced the same problem since the times of planned economy. Despite enhanced traffic capacity, the number of passengers grows considerably.

Frankly, the traffic pressure can be effectively alleviated if more lines are opened, more trains put into use and more tickets sold, but it'll be a huge waste of money as these temporarily-added facilities will be useless during the rest of the year after the Spring Festival travel season ends.

Meanwhile, it's also impracticable to introduce a price lever to adjust the marked imbalance between the demand and supply of tickets.

For example, raising prices proved unsuccessful, because homesick people would still choose to pay more for a family reunion during Spring Festival.

In the times of planned economy, people had to get some materials "behind the door" because these materials were in short supply.

Now, "the behind-the-door" deals for many goods have disappeared as the economic boom boosted their supply, but the "behind-the-door" means to get a railway ticket stayed in another form - ticket scalpers' business. The fundamental reason is railway tickets are scarce as always.

Therefore the problem will remain until regional economic gaps narrow to alleviating the flow of workers.

Zhang Yiwu

on blog.sina.com.cn

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(China Daily 01/21/2009 page9)