Worthy of a Bike Statue

This is just crazy. Won't their country crumble with this kind of socialist behavior? This is shocking and wrong we should invade the dutch and bring them liberty and freedom.
From NY Times

My Dutch co-author and I biked to his office this morning, with very nice new bikes he owns. I remarked on them, and he said his university gives him the right to buy a bike out of pre-tax income every three years.

Every Dutch employer can offer this triennial subsidy of $750. I thought that was quite interesting, and asked why.

The answer is that earlier the government gave employees a subsidy on commuting costs, but only if they lived at least 10 kilometers from work. He says the government realized that this was unfair to short-distance commuters and, worse still, increased incentives to live far from work and to use gasoline that generated air pollution.

The bicycle subsidy is designed to counter those effects; and it is also consistent with the national image as devoted to bike-riding. (The Netherlands is the only place I have seen a public statue/monument consisting of a 10-meter-tall bicycle!)