 | A Vision Splendid or Selective Myopia: Exploiting the Australia 2020 Summit | The Oil Drum | DrumBeat: February 8, 2008 |  |
39 comments on Winchester Lets Brown Have Both Barrels
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
User login
Personnel
Editors
Contributors
Peak Oil Primers
Archives
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
Vital Trivia
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
GAIA Host Collective
Euan, sorry about the rant, but you have touched a raw nerve ending with this one!
Nothing new here, I am too an industrialist and believe that wealth can only be primarily generated from hard work, which includes labour (agriculture and manufacturing) and inherited wealth from mineral resources (fuel and raw materials). The UK now has practically neither of these any longer. In fact it was recently suggested on Radio 4 (either Today programme or Farming Today) that ministers had discussed whether the UK needs a farming industry any longer, as food can be more economically produced elsewhere. Now if that doesn't worry you nothing will! Economics can solve every thing from food to peak oil, if necessary we can borrow food from the bank. Lord Haskins talks a lot of sense, the government should listen to him.
Another idea I think about is the phase shift between accrude wealth and ability to generate wealth. By this I mean that the UK appears rich because of our industrial past, but we may have lost our ability to remain rich in the long term. China and India on the other hand are not as wealthy (so we keep being told) as the uk, but have the work ethic that is creating weath very rapidly in the form of infrastructure and saleable goods. So while we are relying on an aging infrastructure, they are creating a new one (according to you Gordon is helping them, when we need all the resource ourselves). The uk government will prop up banks but not industry. If you take MG Rover, it employed 6000 directly, with a typical wage in the industry that is £20,000 per year * 6,000 wages plus the other 18,000 or so wages indirectly hit by the closure. All the engineering resources become dispersed and so the R&D goes with it. In 1990 Rolls Royce did practically all their R&D in the UK, now it 50% and falling. Gorden Brown has said so many time now (every time it makes my blood boil)that the uk will become a knowledge driven economy. It does not take a genius to see whats happening; R&D follows the manufacturing process, though usually some time later. Chinese and Indians will not need our skills or financial services much longer, if they do now. SAIC/Nanging have MG Rover's interlectual property and manufacturing plant for about 120 millon, Tata now own Corus. UK govwernment wake up to reality
Like energy supply, our infrastructure decay will not become apparent until a crisis is upon us. This is human nature. People who smoke know it is likely to kill them, but not tomorrow or the next day and so on. the lights will be on tomorrow, the next day and so on; no problem then.
PP - what you're forgetting is that the economy is fundamentally strong;-)
I agree with everything you say here. No way we could compete with consumer goods manufacturing with other countries but the capital goods industries - like building nuclear power plants or windmills - really needs a shot in the arm.
As I see things the £ will down - parity with with € ? - and perhaps 8 to 9 NOK - as the gas import bills with Norway mount up. So all our imports will get more expensive and we have inflation that the bank cannot tackle for fear of ruining "the economy" and inflation will rise - erasing the debts and pensions that folks believe they earned making unsolicited phone calls from call centers that add negative value to the economy.
The current mess we are in is 100% down to Gordon Brown. I don't know when he did it, but changing the BOE inflation measure from the RPI (all inclusive) to the CPI (excludes property) was the license for the current boom in property and consumer spending that has provided a mirage of prosperity. The RPI has been running at over 4% due to hyper inflation in the property market that is about to unwind - I would guess values will fall by 50%. Did you see the Panorama (BBC) earlier this week highlighting fraud within the property market - there is a story there with teeth that will run and send folks to prison.
Thanks to Rune for the cartoon.
"our economy is fundamentally strong" is Alistair Darling's favourite catch phrase (that too makes my blood boil!). Applying Westexas' "assume the opposite theorem filter" this becomes "our economy is built on quicksand".
I don't know how house prices will play out, but using the house boom as a substitute for real wealth creating activity seams dubious at best to me, but I'm no economist only a lowly engineer. I think the pension system will turn out to be one of the greatest delusions of our time. My last employer doubled our contributions, and at the same time reduced the scheme from final salary to career average earnings. This was a massive downgrade. The pesion system is floating on melting ice.
I think the RPI is what affects most people including pensioners and is the higher value. The CPI is what the goverment uses to make things look rosy. (correct me if I'm wrong). This means pensioners real income is falling, but the government is able to claim pensions are rising at the rate of inflation.
As for the governments constant upbeat energy rhetoric, I too wonder how the uk intends to pay for our energy from Norway and Russia or in liquid form from the ME. I was 14 whem M Thatcher came to power and the country was in financial ruin, she sold off the countries assets and had the North Sea as a saviour. Current economic activity has come from borrowing against house price inflation. Eureka Perpetual motion!
We have a new unit of currency, it is called a 'Northern Rock' :-)
Nothing is expensive unless it costs at least one of these!
1 Rock = 100 giga £
1 Rock = 0.1 tera £
Are they still sponsoring Neuk United - success spreads eh?
I think people are only just beginning to understand what he has done over the past 10 years.
Today, I got a leaflet with my weekly printed MoneyWeek.com that described the contents of a book called Gordon is a Moron by Vernon Coleman. Seriously hard hitting book.
His previous book was "Oil Apocalypse" so he knows the score!