I think so, upstream taxation: The UK Continental Shelf Tax Regime

• Ring Fence Corporation Tax
  With some important modifications (e.g. relating to capital allowances and losses), this is the standard corporation tax applicable to all companies, with the addition of a "ring fence" and 100% first year allowances for almost all capital expenditure. The ring fence prevents taxable profits from oil and gas extraction in the UK and UKCS being reduced by losses from other activities or by excessive interest payments by treating ring fenced activities as a separate trade. The current rate of corporation tax is 30%.
• Supplementary Charge
  This is an additional charge of 20% (10% prior to 1 January 2006) on a company's ring fence profits excluding finance costs. The supplementary charge was introduced from 17 April 2002.
• Petroleum Revenue Tax (PRT)
  This is a special tax on oil and gas production from the UK and UKCS. It is a field based tax charged on profits arising from individual oil fields. The current rate of PRT is 50%. PRT was abolished for all fields given development consent on or after on 16 March 1993. PRT is deductible as an expense against corporation tax and the supplementary charge.

I posted my first article on net oil exports in January, 2006, and my opinion has not really changed since then. IMO, the very lifeblood of the world economy is draining away in front of our very eyes, and the key point is that net export decline rates tend to accelerate with time.

More:

PeakUKCS Oil – false alarm, according to Auntie, we can stop worrying our pretty little heads and go back to sleep.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7435016.stm

>>The North Sea has almost as much oil left as has already been extracted, a BBC Scotland investigation has been told.
Experts believe between 25 and 30 billion barrels could still be recovered over the next 40 years.
Calculating oil reserves is not an exact science and this fact has made it difficult over the years to weigh up the true wealth of oil beneath the North Sea. <<

Shame it doesn’t fit with the production profile.

Maybe I will have to stop believing my lying eyes.

And that other canary in the coal mine:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1024082/Nurses-need-higher-milea...

Nurses.... two years ago, I thought they would be one of the first obvious hits.

If memory serves, the HL plot I did suggests about 18 Gb of remaining recoverable reserves for the total North Sea (C+C).

But post-peak denial is a widespread phenomenon. I frequently quote the Texas State Geologist, who, in 2005, stated that while Texas may not be able to match its 1972 peak production rate, it could, with the use of improved technology (presumably aided by magic fairy dust) significantly increase its production.

It's strange that we define middle class as we do today. According to the wiki article, the middle class was once the "intermediate social class between the nobility and the peasantry of Europe", and thus often part of "the wealthiest stratum of society"

A different definition might consider the 1% of the population that is rich but non-ruling (ie hedge fund managers, but not politicians) to be the middle class. And the 99% of us that actually need to work for a living are the lower class. It could be a logarithmic thing: 99% peasants, 0.99% middle class, 0.01% rulers. Or whatever the actual ratio is.

In this sense, I think the "middle class" will do just fine. Us "lower class" workers are the ones who need to worry, and maybe band together.

Surely if a country's debts are denominated in its own currency then inflation will get rid of them very easily.

No. You misunderstand where money comes from and why we all have so much debt.

When a loan is taken out, brand new money is created at the point of the loan. As well as the money, an equal amount of new debt is created at the same time. The difference between the money and debt is that debt carries interest payments, money does not. There will always and forever be more debt than money, at least until the monetary system is replaced.

You might want to read up generally on "Fractional Reserve Banking". It explains large amounts about our societies, industries and political systems.

Some generation must be the last to use a resource and there is no reason why that could not be us. We are using what prior generations left to us.

But I'm not sure that Iraq is a peak oil play - I cannot see any scenario where it helps, even temporarily, Cheney and his ilk, more effectively than other options that could have been pursued.

If America manage to maintain significant presence and influence in the long term (big if), the Iraq war could look like a smart play. By 2020 Iraq could be pumping 5-7mbpd, given investment and a relatively benign political situation. This could in turn make Iraq the largest oil producer in the world by then. Having such a stake in such a resource some 10 years post peak is worth fighting for today?

The other thing about Iraq is that Cheney and his ilk probably figured on it going far better than it actually did! If they had forecast reality they may well not have bothered.

Let's look at the map of the region this way -

The U.S. and the House of Saud are conjoined in ways which may not be exactly understood, but are clearly apparent. Though with some of the reasons much more transparent, Kuwait can also be considered in the same position. And notice how well America's Kuwaiti protectorate worked out - and we were clever enough to avoid any democracy rhetoric that could have offended the emir.

Add in Oman, UAE, etc. - the U.S., and the West more generally, has basically owned one side of the Persian Gulf since the dawn of major oil production in the region.

Then we have those wacky mullahs in Iran, thumbing their noses at everybody for the last couple of decades - when for the 25 years before that, Iran also belonged to the U.S. And for the two decades before that, the British.

And then there was Iraq, a reliable member of the world wide communist conspiracy (just a bit of Dr. Strangelove humor) starting in the later 1950s, and a well regarded purchaser of Soviet military equipment. And a place which just happened to have not been very well integrated into the British Empire, even after an invasion in 1941.

If you just happened to be an American Secretary of Defense, who just happened to have a certain interest in oil (maybe even enough of an interest to be later employed by an oil services company), looking at that regional map in 1989, it would be hard to imagine the level of disinterest required to ignore how it could be rearranged for the benefit of all - or at least of those that matter when the spoils are being divvied up.

The only reason we care so much about that region is oil - pilgrimmages to Mecca and Medina might be a stable source of revenue, but not for infidels.

Odd as this might sound, looking at America over the last couple of decades, just accept that the nation is being run by a bunch of incompetent idiots for what those idiots consider to be their own best interests. As proof of this in action, just look at General Motors and how it has managed its business in that time frame. Then look at Ford, to see it isn't exactly a trait of a single company.

It is difficult for an European to understand how the U.S. has become as distanced from reality as any opulent European court of the 1700s or 1800s, courts whose actions would lead to their overthrow, dissolution, or destruction.

To put it another way - those running America for the last couple of decades have become decadent enough that quite honestly, talking about those in power caring about the future is silly. They just wanted to grab as much as they could, the opportunity presented itself (after a bit of preparation by many of the people currently in charge of such decisions now), and we will pay for it the way that peasants paid for those courts - by being impoverished for no reason that makes sense to us.

We don't need to guess what Cheney what say if he was asked to consider any judgment on his decisions on our part - it would be a pithy two word response, just like in the Senate.

Hmmm. I think one can see numerous scenarios that might seem probable to an oil company executive and member of the US national security political cadre.

Owning Iraq oil helps in the medium term to long term. In fact you'd not want to repair the Iraq oil infrastructure very quickly, because the oil is more useful in out years. And you'd want an oil revenues law in place so that US and other companies could play a role in the production and export. And you'd want permanent bases to enable a long term presence into the years when supply shortages really bite...5, 10, 20 or 30 years from now.

Whether that view is right or wrong is less the issue than whether Cheney could have believed it. Why not? He believes that the exercise of imperial power through the U.S. military is the primary tool through which the US relates to the world. And he believes that the energy industry is the most important industry in the U.S.

Why not use the best tool to support the most important industry? I do believe that is how he and many around him think.

Thanks for those quotes. They reinforce my sense that the 2000 meetings between Cheney and oil company executives were a "peak oil conference" in which the US oil industry and the government sat down and devised a (largely military) response to the approach of peak oil.

Everything that followed was just a cover to justify putting our army on top of our oil, inconveniently located beneath their sand.

I think we would have gone into Iraq even without 9/11, but 9/11 was a godsend, a gift too good to believe, and just 9 months or so after the executives and Cheney defined the strategy. Imagine the difficulty of cooking up a Causa Bella without 9/11.

I don't think they actually cooked up the attack. I just think they lucked out to an incredible degree. It isn't hard to understand those who say that kind of luck doesn't just happen... it is made. But sometimes luck happens, even to oil company executives.

The corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standard forbids the sale of large numbers of low fuel economy vehicles but it does not ban them altogether. I think the penalty is a fine that can be spread across the price of all vehicles. http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/CARS/rules/CAFE/overview.htm

Perhaps an added gas guzzler tax would help though I'd hate to see a vehicle that is used with high occupancy penalized for just being big. A 15 mpg vehicle that is carrying 7 passengers is doing a better job than a 50 mpg vehicle that is carrying one.

Chris

The Conservatives under John Major started the privatization of British Rail, but by most accounts, new labor not only didn't fulfill their promise to renationalize the system, but they finished the job of privatization by selling off the remaining unprivatized bits after taking power in 1997. The London Underground privatization is entirely his work.

Thanks for the recommendation of Christian Wolmar's book; I noticed he has another book on the 2002-3 privatization of London Underground: "Down The Tube: The Battle for London's Underground" (http://www.christianwolmar.co.uk/books/tube.shtml); would you recommend it?

Metronet, one of the two private companies formed to take over sections of tube, went bankrupt last year, and defaulted on its promised delivery of capacity and reliability improvements which London desperately needs.

When Labour were in opposition they absolutely refused to confirm they would cancel the privatisation. If they had simply said they would do this then the privatisation would not have taken place. By refusing to say this in effect they gave it the green light.