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Not Enough Oil? (Politics)
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Mick Harper
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By a terrible irony of timing, just as the plants are losing their claim to the oil, they are gaining their claim to the rain. (Yes, our Desert DVD has just gone for pressing.)
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Mick Harper
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Exposing the myth of the free market

Strange things are afoot in the world of economic policy these days. Liz Truss is, by her own account, Margaret Thatcher’s biggest admirer and a fanatical devotee of economic liberalisation. Yet the first act of the new prime minister was to announce the largest government intervention in UK history: a price cap for retail energy markets expected to cost the Treasury more than the entire NHS budget. Felix Martin Guardian review of Free Market: The History of an Idea by Jacob Soll https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/sep/30/free-market-jacob-soll

Nicely rabble-rousing but profoundly wrong. The problem is that the free market in oil and gas is working only too well. Where's the myth?

It is not an isolated case. The flagship fiscal policy of Truss’s predecessor – “levelling up” – was essentially an admission that free markets cannot be left to their own devices in allocating investment across regions.

Free markets, left to their own devices, have ordained that certain regions are not worth investing in. The government, not as far as I know a free market institution, has ordained differently. Where's the myth?

In the world of money and finance, the era of quantitative easing has effectively nationalised large parts of the world’s major bond markets.

As I say, governments are not free market institutions.

Internationally, the US has morphed into the world’s leading protectionist power

Did I mention governments are not free market institutions?

– while communist China is toasted in Davos as the last great champion of free trade.

The communist government has been toasted by its own people for applying free market principles to various parts of its hitherto non-free market economy.
.
Forget strange things – it’s more like Stranger Things, and global economic policy seems to have stumbled into the Upside Down.

Let's see whether it has or it hasn't...
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Mick Harper
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Yet how surprised should we really be by these flagrant U-turns and blatant inconsistencies?

Sorry, I missed them but don't let me stop you

Free Market – a sprightly new history of economic liberalism by the leading intellectual historian Jacob Soll – argues that if we understood our own economic tradition a little better, the answer would be: not very.

Difficult to say so far, Felix, but your tone suggests that Jacob is a man after your own heart. If so, I wouldn't call him either an intellectual or a historian, more a polemicist, but I'm open to persuasion (I like to think)

That is because, as he explains in a breakneck canter through more than 20 centuries of economic thought, the whole concept of a completely free market is an extremely recent invention.

Well, this is poppycock for a start. As I am always trying to persuade the world, the 'free market' is not a concept, it is not recent and it is not an invention. It is the default situation and has been around ever since Ug offered Og a surplus bit of mammoth hide in exchange for one of his nicely fashioned hand axes.

The idea that such an arrangement might single-handedly deliver stability, growth and social justice is even more of a historical blip.

It pretty much got us to where we are today, is the way I'd put it but, please, do go on...
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Mick Harper wrote:

Nicely rabble-rousing but profoundly wrong. The problem is that the free market in oil and gas is working only too well. Where's the myth?


Is there a free market in gas and oil? Maybe in the US thanks to Obama who allowed fracking everywhere, including on tribal lands. For the rest of the world it is a question of making do with a price set by OPEC, who restricts world supply to keep the price up. Renewables are surely the free market.
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Mick Harper
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You are right of course on the... ahem... supply side. I was referring to the fact that there is a world price and there's not much the British government can do about it. It is not exactly a denial of free market principles for people to exploit their own position

"Nice bit of schmutter, Ug, but my lot control the flint mines so let's throw in a side of mammoth on the side, shall we?"
"No can do, Og, my lot know how to kill mammoths, does yours?"
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Mick Harper
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It is time for the Guardian liberal reviewer to show how the great liberal thinker has pulled all the historical threads together so they can both bash the neo-cons

Yet Soll sets out how a much older liberalising tradition of economic thought holds almost the opposite view: that markets only produce good results when built atop a robust ethical framework.

You can have capitalism raw in tooth and claw but only when you have a liberal intelligentsia to oversee it

His intellectual history therefore begins not in 18th century England, but nearly two millennia earlier, in late Republican Rome. For Soll, it is On Duties – the great orator Cicero’s attempt to articulate the Stoic moral code he saw as underpinning prosperity – that is the foundational text of market economics.

We need not point out that On Duties was written closer to 18th century England than late Republican Rome because the two of them have thrown off the shackles of history and are now nearer 21st century Anglo-America

Then there is the practical question most directly relevant to the stunning policy reversals of the past few years: what kind of government intervention is required to promote healthy economic development? Here too Soll demonstrates that the tradition of free market thought is far more nuanced than typically allowed.

Ug: Yeah, and who's going to make me?
Og: This hand axe for starters.
Eg: Quieten down, lads, you're disturbing the neighbourhood. I'll give you both a clip round the ear if you don't behave properly.
Ag: Promoting healthy economic development is s a lot more nuanced than is typically allowed, eh, Eg?
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Boreades


In: finity and beyond
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Re this topic's title : Not Enough Oil?

M'Lady recently came home with glad tidings of great joy. The price of diesel at the local garage has gone down 10p a litre. I didn't get where I am today without grabbing any excuse to celebrate by opening another bottle of Château Boreades Vintage Single Malt Cider. Anyways, while the cider was mulling, I was mulling too. How come, with all the Sanctions To Help Ukraine, and us (officially) not getting oil & gas from Russia, can the price be coming down?

One part of the EU (and Britain) openly boasts of the “sanctions” as reported in the mainstream media, as part of the “we are all helping the Ukraine” meme. Another part of the EU (and Britain) is less openly arranging “business as usual” – the main argument in the EU at the moment is how to limit the windfall profits the Russians are now making – after we so spectacularly shot ourselves in our feet i.e. the sanctions are now hurting us more than they hurt Russia.

Bloomberg reports EU Talks Stall Over Price Level for Proposed Russian Oil Cap – The EU’s executive arm proposed a level of $65 a barrel, which Poland and the Baltic nations rejected as being too generous to Moscow, the people said. But several countries with major shipping industries, including Greece, don’t want to go below $70, the upper end of the range put forward by the EU earlier Wednesday. ”

Ref: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-23/eu-talks-stall-over-price-level-for-proposed-russian-oil-cap

“EU diplomats said most EU countries, with G7 members France and Germany taking the lead, were supportive of the price cap, worried only about the ability to enforce it.”


The ability to enforce it is rather small.

“The G7 proposals appear to replace the complete ban on insuring Russian oil shipments that was due to come into force on December 3 as part of the EU’s sixth sanctions package. Now it would be permitted to insure Russian oil shipments so long as the oil price does not exceed the cap. ”

Ref : https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/87873

Thanks to Al Beeb and the MSM, most people have the vague idea we’re not buying Russian oil & gas now. Or from other countries with sanctions. It’s all a bit of a pantomime. (oh no we’re not). We just happen (cough) to be buying a lot more oil from intermediaries like India and Malaysia. Don’t look too closely where that oil comes from (oh yes we are).

“Malaysia’s oil exports to China have exceeded the country’s actual oil production by one-third. Malaysia also cooperates with Iran and Venezuela in contravention of sanctions regimes. ” 

Nothing to see here, move along please!
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Mick Harper
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According to the latest figures, as reported by Al-Jazeera yesterday, Russia exported slightly more oil in 2022, i.e. after sanctions, than she did in 2021, i.e. before sanctions,. Since that oil was, even qua Mme Borry (my regards and sympathy to the belle dame, by the way), at substantially higher prices, Russia did rather well out of sanctions.

"More of the same, please," as the war planners in the Kremlin are saying. "Coming right up," as the NATO wargamers are saying. "We are extending it to 'oil products' in February."
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Boreades


In: finity and beyond
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A German colleague asked me if I'd like to read a funny German story.

https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/annalena-baerbocks-pannenflug-die-welt-spottet-ueber-deutschland-a-0d971415-daac-49f7-b478-b6c1d08c3e27

As my German language skills have got no further than "Vier Bier und zwei Hamburger bitte", I found a translation.

Bundeswehr plane dumps 200,000 litres of jet fuel into the atmosphere on two failed and unnecessary attempts to fly Germany's foremost Green politician to Australia


https://www.eugyppius.com/p/bundeswehr-plane-dumps-200000-litres

No wonder there's a shortage of oil. 200,000 litres of kerosene as heating oil would last Chateau Boreades at least 60 years, and at today's prices would be worth £140,000.
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Mick Harper
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I feel sorry for Big Oil. It's got two big markets, transport and plastics. The first is being replaced by renewable electricity and the other is being eased out by pollution fears. Luckily it can now turn to the big one -- feeding us all. Even the vegans admit that vegetables have feelings so we will all soon be mandated to a diet of synthetic made-from-hydrocarbons protein nodules. But never fear, they will be a lot tastier and cheaper than the real thing. And from my point of view it's even better news because they will cook as they come out of the pack together with a disposable plate, knife and fork. Which, here's the bad news, you have to put in the bin yourself.
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Boreades


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Mick Harper wrote:
Even the vegans admit that vegetables have feelings so we will all soon be mandated to a diet of synthetic made-from-hydrocarbons protein nodules. But never fear, they will be a lot tastier and cheaper than the real thing. .


You get all the fun. Where did I hear they've decided on a new brand name? Something like "Soylent Green"?

Mick Harper wrote:
And from my point of view it's even better news because they will cook as they come out of the pack together with a disposable plate, knife and fork. Which, here's the bad news, you have to put in the bin yourself.


Again, you get all the fun.

Out 'ere in the sticks (areas of outstanding natural beauty) we are forced to do it the old-fashioned heritage way. China plates, and we let the dogs lick them clean before we rinse the plates in the stream. Local council has cut back on the disposable/recycling bins ever since they discovered the recycling goes as return-cargo back to landfill in China in containers that would otherwise be empty. The Chinese landfill sites are the massive holes in the ground where they mined the rare-earth metals we need for the batteries for our enviromentally-friendly.electric cars. Such is the balance of trade these days. Now we're being told recycling isn't enviromentally-friendly.

Oh well, at least we can stock-pile it, and come winter we can huddle round the wood-stove. Not burning wood, cos now you need a license for that. Just burning the rubbish.
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Mick Harper
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I cover some of these points here https://medium.com/@mickxharper/my-to-do-list-for-saving-the-world-f1751e2cca54
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Boreades


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Yet another suggestion that the Dastardly Germans have a sense of humour unappreciated in the UK.

German energy giant RWE has begun dismantling a wind farm to make way for a further expansion of an open-pit lignite coal mine in the western region of North Rhine Westphalia.

One wind turbine has already been dismantled, with a further seven scheduled for removal to excavate an additional 15m to 20m tonnes of so-called 'brown' coal,
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Boreades


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Copyright Boris Johnson
"We Are Winning"
and
"Sanctions Are Working!"

Ukraine is certainly winning the race to deplete itself of people suitable and able to be conscripted - and then die.

As for the sanctions?

European Union bought 21.6 million cubic metres (mcm) of Russian LNG between January and July of this year, a small increase compared to the same period in 2022, when imports totalled 21.3 mcm. But when the 2023 figure is measured against the same period in 2021, prior to the Kremlin's decision to wage war on Ukraine, it results in a 39.5% surge, an embarrassing percentage for a bloc that has forcefully condemned the invasion as an illegal, brutal and ruthless attempt to subjugate Ukraine's independence.


Sanctions are certainly having an impact.
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Mick Harper
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So much for the Tories and their woke promises about women candidates being given a chance. After getting rid of popular, go-ahead, have-a-go Nadine Dorries for being uppity, they've gone back to the usual hard-faced figure plucked from the Mid-Bedfordshire gentry, Festus Akinbusoye. Liberals and Labour are equally traditionalist, and have agreed an electoral pact to ensure he gets through on a three-way split.
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