Gas Prices

[drfchound]

Agreed RD.  Things will have to happen quickly to avoid that.
Maybe everyone should lobby Putin to see if he will call the war off

Was Putin to blame for the rise in prices in 2021 too? When £90pm was taken off me and my energy bill first went up by £40pm?

See above post by RD. 

So the government have been on notice since at least then...and yet nothing. And they're still making excuses to sit on their hands until Autumn because they'll 'have a better idea what the problem is' by then. I thought we elected governments who were supposed to be competent enough to be on top of things and not go missing when they're needed.

……like Labour did in 2008 you mean.

[BillyStubbsTears]

DD

You guessed wrong. The Tories came to power in month 30 on that graph. By that time, we'd been emerging from recession for about a year. How? By the Economics101 method. The mechanism that every economist in the world is taut as a standard. Government borrows money and uses it to get the economy firing on all cylinders. Only then should Govt spending be reined in. If you cut too soon, you throttle the recovery. Government borrowing doesn't matter at all when the economy is on its knees. You sort out the debt naturally when business is booming again.

That was all known for 80 years.

Cameron knew better. Clegg was too f**king useless to stop him when he could have done. And that graph shows the result.

You ask what happened after that graph finished? This:

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRytlL6j4jBoRbjIRr4PxWXkfuFltgS9cESbw&usqp=CAU

We went onto a permanently lower growth trajectory. Again, you can see the link at 2010.

And the REAL irony? Cameron and Osborne said that Austerity was necessary to get the deficit down to zero by 2015.

But they didn't. Because they flatlined the economy through Austerity for 3 years. Which meant tax receipts never rose much and they had to keep paying more than they received. Which was EXACTLY what was forecast by this who understood the economics. You never, ever reduce Govt debt by cutting Govt spending in a slump. You actually reduce debt in the long run by borrowing and spending more in the short term. The cardinal sin of Austerity was getting that wrong. And every one of us have paid for it by living in a country that  is maybe £1trn poorer than it should have been.

[BillyStubbsTears]

PS.

I agree that some other countries also went down the Austerity rabbit hole, in particular in Europe. That doesn't excuse our f**k up.

The shining example of not making that mistake was Obama's USA. They never went for Austerity. Go have a look how their GDP went after the Great Recession.

[Glyn_Wigley]

Agreed RD.  Things will have to happen quickly to avoid that.
Maybe everyone should lobby Putin to see if he will call the war off

Was Putin to blame for the rise in prices in 2021 too? When £90pm was taken off me and my energy bill first went up by £40pm?

See above post by RD. 

So the government have been on notice since at least then...and yet nothing. And they're still making excuses to sit on their hands until Autumn because they'll 'have a better idea what the problem is' by then. I thought we elected governments who were supposed to be competent enough to be on top of things and not go missing when they're needed.

……like Labour did in 2008 you mean.

That Government was very active in the wake of the global crash. What did you think they didn't do?

[drfchound]

Not enough to win in 2010.
Who was at fault for the crash by the way.

[DonnyOsmond]

Not enough to win in 2010.
Who was at fault for the crash by the way.

In 2008? United States banks due to giving dodgy mortgages.

[BillyStubbsTears]

The 2008 crash was principally caused by essentially no-one understanding the extent to which the unregulated shadow banking system had grown, and the risk it posed to global financial stability if (as it did) it collapsed.

basically, the reason for the Great Depression in the 1930s was that the banks had made too many dangerously risky loans and were al exposed to the consequences. When the economy slowed down, some debtors started to default on their loans. But because banks had borrowed so much themselves to make those loans, the defaults started to make banks nonviable. And then, that transferred the problem to other banks which had made the loans to the riskiest banks. Domino effect. A small initial problem became a massive systemic crash.

Countries like the USA and UK responded to that after WWII by bringing in stringent rules on how much banks could borrow to lend. And as a result, we have rarely seen high street banks fail. But by the early 2000s, the big banks were getting round this by running a lot of their dealings in ways that circumvented the regulations, in what became known as the "shadow banking system". Problem was that this shadow system was assumed to be so small that it wasn't a systemic risk. But it wasn't. It was stupendously huge. And when it collapsed, it had a similar effect to the Great Depression.

Actually, that's all b*llocks. everyone knows the real problem was that Gordon Brown pissed every penny we had up against a wall.

[danumdon]

Actually, that's all b*llocks. everyone knows the real problem was that Gordon Brown pissed every penny we had up against a wall.

This for you BST is surprisingly actually not far from the truth, after he'd fleeced the country by broadcasting his objective to sell 400tons of gold on the open market.

He virtually gave the stuff away ($275 an ounce) after this whatever he did was always going to be catch up.

He never caught up. Thanks Mr Broon.

[BillyStubbsTears]

DD.
The gold sale was a very complex issue.

But let's take o your approach that it was a total and unforgivable misjudgement.

Let's assume that Brown should have held onto the gold and sold it precisely at the top of the market, 13 years later.

We'd have gained about $16bn. That would be $1.22bn per year that we held onto the gold. Or, roughly 0.05% of GDP.

Not a trifling amount, but it pales into insignificance against what we lost from Austerity. Estimated at perhaps £200bn just over the first three years of the Tory Govt.

Which raises a fascinating point about you. You claim to be a politically neutral, balanced sort. Yet you give it to Labour with both barrels on economic issues, but rarely ever have a pop at the Tories for  mistakes on a different scale altogether. Odd, that...

[danumdon]

Write it up as a complex issue but the facts remain the same, This was a Labour Chancellor who was having a decent stab with the economy at that time, he wasn't in dire straits that he needed to sell the gold so why did he? could it have been anything to do with the old saying, it was burning a hole in his pocket, this along with his botched pension provisions has cost the nation much more than it could ever receive back in payments, if you add this to his other very clever economic machinations it means our grand kids and theirs will have Johnson's botched dealings to add to Broon's to pay for the foreseeable.

From my recall this was around the time that Boon's "soft touch regulation" of the financial markets was in full swing, as a Labour Chancellor he was quite happy to allow the markets more leeway then currently exists, the coffers where full and everyone was doing ok, i was making hay along with a very large part of the nation. They always say if its too good to be true then it always follows it's because its not.

As regards your estimates, your throwing them around like confetti, but that should not surprise me as its always been Labours way to handle the nations cash this way, so much so they even made a joke about it after the 2010 general election but like all the best jokes, this one had legs.

Nice whist the ride lasted.

[BillyStubbsTears]

DD.
I think you've had your account hacked by a bot.

[danumdon]

DD.
I think you've had your account hacked by a bot.

Fair enough BST, we all understand.

Can you answer me one question that's bugged me for years,

Why do all Labour Chancellors always leave office having spent the nations money?

[River Don]

Write it up as a complex issue but the facts remain the same, This was a Labour Chancellor who was having a decent stab with the economy at that time, he wasn't in dire straits that he needed to sell the gold so why did he? could it have been anything to do with the old saying, it was burning a hole in his pocket, this along with his botched pension provisions has cost the nation much more than it could ever receive back in payments, if you add this to his other very clever economic machinations it means our grand kids and theirs will have Johnson's botched dealings to add to Broon's to pay for the foreseeable.

From my recall this was around the time that Boon's "soft touch regulation" of the financial markets was in full swing, as a Labour Chancellor he was quite happy to allow the markets more leeway then currently exists, the coffers where full and everyone was doing ok, i was making hay along with a very large part of the nation. They always say if its too good to be true then it always follows it's because its not.

As regards your estimates, your throwing them around like confetti, but that should not surprise me as its always been Labours way to handle the nations cash this way, so much so they even made a joke about it after the 2010 general election but like all the best jokes, this one had legs.

Nice whist the ride lasted.

'Broons' soft touch regulation was in full swing and he'd been warned about it by Vince Cable.

However, at the time the tories were pushing him strongly to go beyond and  liberalise regulation further.

[River Don]

It's often overlooked but back in 2007 as now fuel prices went nuts.

Back then it was crude oil, with a run up in prices as high demand was meeting stagnating world oil production. It was probably this weighing on the world economy that broke the camels back.

Since then we've had a decade where fracking gave America the muscle to keep energy prices lower. However that's started falling away, energy is so tight now that it gives a reasonably large player like Russia the potential to manipulate the market.

Until they find a way to get cheap energy back, the global economy will struggle.

[drfchound]

Didn’t fuel (gas and oil) prices soar too just before the 2008 crash.

[River Don]

Didn’t fuel (gas and oil) prices soar too just before the 2008 crash.

Yep.

If you look at the very long term the price of a barrel of crude has been fairly stable at no more than $30 (adjusted for inflation). The late 70s was a problem.

Around 2005 the price started to climb until it was hitting $120 or more in 2007/2008.

Since then the price has moved wildly up and down. Today it's hovering just above $100 a barrel, which I think is probably too high to allow the economy to grow steadily.

[Filo]

It's often overlooked but back in 2007 as now fuel prices went nuts.

Back then it was crude oil, with a run up in prices as high demand was meeting stagnating world oil production. It was probably this weighing on the world economy that broke the camels back.

Since then we've had a decade where fracking gave America the muscle to keep energy prices lower. However that's started falling away, energy is so tight now that it gives a reasonably large player like Russia the potential to manipulate the market.

Until they find a way to get cheap energy back, the global economy will struggle.

Thers plenty of cheap energy options, it’s having the will to do it, every new build should be forced to install solar power and heat pumps, wind farms should be high on the agenda as well, getting the house in order with these things would also create employment

[River Don]

It's often overlooked but back in 2007 as now fuel prices went nuts.

Back then it was crude oil, with a run up in prices as high demand was meeting stagnating world oil production. It was probably this weighing on the world economy that broke the camels back.

Since then we've had a decade where fracking gave America the muscle to keep energy prices lower. However that's started falling away, energy is so tight now that it gives a reasonably large player like Russia the potential to manipulate the market.

Until they find a way to get cheap energy back, the global economy will struggle.

Thers plenty of cheap energy options, it’s having the will to do it, every new build should be forced to install solar power and heat pumps, wind farms should be high on the agenda as well, getting the house in order with these things would also create employment

That's all good, just so long as it produces cheap enough energy.  We'll know when it's doing that because the price of crude oil will fall back as clean energy is taken up instead.

[danumdon]

Ethical dilemma for you.

Now that the price of oil and gas is going through the stratosphere its become profitable again to gas frack in North America,

Now should the Americans open up the fracking sites again and extract big time to the point where the West can buy oil and gas from the Americans instead of from the despot in Russia. This would allow the EU as an organisation to stop funding the Ukraine War and allow the Germans amongst others to show their face again.

Is it doable or does Biden's morals only stretch as far as his front gate?

[River Don]

FORMER International Trade Secretary Liam Fox has demanded an investigation into the Bank of England for failing to predict the hike in inflation.


... How is the Bank of England supposed to predict the actions of Vlad Putin???

[drfchound]

FORMER International Trade Secretary Liam Fox has demanded an investigation into the Bank of England for failing to predict the hike in inflation.


... How is the Bank of England supposed to predict the actions of Vlad Putin???

Hindsight ?

[rich1471]

Watching bbc 1 this morning they expect  the price cap to go up in October to  between £2700-£3000 a year ,I think  people will just refuse to pay anymore than they are paying now even if they can afford it and I know many can not afford to pay now

[River Don]

Eon say 20% of their customers are currently in fuel poverty. 20%!

Let that sink in and then understand, they are expecting that figure to go up to 40% in the winter.

[River Don]

This is going to be a crippling recession.

[ravenrover]

Eon say 20% of their customers are currently in fuel poverty. 20%!

Let that sink in and then understand, they are expecting that figure to go up to 40% in the winter.

20% of 8 million customers

[River Don]

Eon say 20% of their customers are currently in fuel poverty. 20%!

Let that sink in and then understand, they are expecting that figure to go up to 40% in the winter.

20% of 8 million customers

Well yes but isn't that likely to be a similar percentage across the board?

[TheDonnyPop]

What are the chances the government will be praising themselves about how they are reducing energy consumtion.

Helping the country go green whilst so many cannot afford to turn in the heating.

[roversdude]

Saw an MP this morning saying that the easiest way out is to forego the green levy on energy

[drfchound]

Saw an MP this morning saying that the easiest way out is to forego the green levy on energy

I saw that being discussed about a month ago dude.
It would be an additional source of help but there still needs to be more.

[rich1471]

They have to do something as in October my bill will have gone 2k in 7 month ,where and how do they expect you to find that sort of extra cash to pay the bills, They come up with some bullshit way of loaning you the money again and paying it back over 5 year ,the Tories are making people poorer ,And labour will just bankrupt the country ,we are in a no win situation who ever we vote for ,Boris lies and I don't trust him and kier has the same  personality as a plank of wood.