大象传媒

Oil keeps going up, energy keeps getting more expensive, food prices keep going up, services get more expensive etc etc

And yet the Government says that inflation is about 3%, for it excludes food and energy.

How about a figure that includes these figures - that's today's reality. There is lies, damned lies and statistics..

The last couple of oil shocks - in the 1970's, I think - had profound effects on the British and global economy. What I find interesting this time around is that the lights haven't gone out, there's hasn't been massive industrial unrest, no long queues outside filling stations. Even the political consequences of the current problems haven't played out in the same way. Why is that ?

HAM-ARTIST STRUNG

So much we could attend to if management of Britain was not in the hands of party hams. While governance continues to be mostly about party protection, advantage and re-election with associated chicanery and secrecy, nothing of the magnitude of energy ond climate will be tackled skilfully and effectively. These damnable politicians are bad actors not good managers. Let's have an election and refuse to vote for rosettes. Vote only for local worthies, independent of party hypocrisy. SPOIL PARTY GAMES.

We moved house a couple of years ago, expecting to see oil prices rise and house prices fall - so we moved to a smaller house in a town within walking distance of most main amenities. We're replacing our 4x4 with another 4x4 - but won't be driving as often.

I also own quite a few shares in oil producers and thereby it is very clear to me that the the problem of high oil prices is the result of systematic under-investment in exploration and development by the world鈥檚 largest oil companies over the last 10 years? This has come about by the oil companies themselves, in cahoots with City analysts and institutional investors, group-thinking that oil prices will fall. When oil was $20 they assured us the long-term price would fall to $14, when it was $60 the long-term price was asserted to be $40 and now it is $120 there is barely any 鈥減rofessional鈥� who is working off long-term prices higher than $70-75!
Long-term oil futures (for 2016 in the US market) are trading right now at over $128. Why do those who control most of the investment in the oil business pretend that the 鈥渞ight鈥� long term price is 40% lower?

Mr Brown cannot escape some blame either, having opportunistically raised taxes on North Sea oil production in both 2003 and 2005, See

So the high oil price problem was entirely predictable and partially avoidable - but only if those in positions of responsibility had the foresight to invest in and encourage more oil exploration.

I have decided to change to a very small car as a result of increasing fuel prices and co2 emissions efficiency.

So maybe this is the silver lining available to many!

It would be really useful if Newsnight could give us a table giving the comparison between pump prices in various countries (at least UK, France, Spain, Italy and USA, showing product price and, more importantly, the tax element. Bev

Isn't the English form "met", not "met with"?

Alibhai is completely wrong. The CPI includes both food and energy


The problem with using the year on year change as a measure of annual inflation is it is as much about 12 months agoas it is about now; it responds slowly to changes. It systematically underestimates rising inflation for a year. It does the same in reverse when price rise slow down. We shouldn't blame the statistics; it is misuse/misinterpretation of them that leads to confusion. The worst offender is 大象传媒 24 News that ALWAYS misleads. (Such as "the cpi stood at 3.2%--nonsense, that might be the year on year change. Tne index started at 100 and has kept on growing). Year on year changes are much the same as moving averages; designed to smooth random fluctuations in series of data. As such they are poor indicators when changes are systematic/non-random, like now. Please 大象传媒, try to get it right.

Its simple stupid!
The housing problem is caused by the banks, with overseas help.
The oil problem is caused by the OPEC cartel and the oil companies.
Fuel poverty is caused by the Energy companies.
If any other problems become apparent the Government will find a scapegoat, none of the present problems have anything to do with them.
We will forget about Government borrowing, that is well under control! Much less than it was under the Tories.

Although the price of petrol at the pump is now a horrific 115p per litre, as a family, we have not been affected on a day-to-day basis, we just cough up the extra to do the same stuff.
Instead, the effect is on our holidays - no trip abroad this year for my wife and myself, although daughter has to have her holiday in the sun with her friends, partly funded by us.

People who are disabled and unable to afford a car, unable to use public transport because of their disabiity, and cannot afford taxi fares will be particularly hard hit, and socially isolated.

This is not a temporary situation that would be aliviated with interim-remedial policies. Hence, the elimination of any minor taxes on oil consumption will not help at all, since the gain derived from it would perahps be stripped in less than ... a month?

We are on the verge of a human catastrophy of global proportions. The poorest of the poor accross the globe are going to be the first to feel the full impact of it, because they live on a survival's edge and cannot absorb the increase in oil prices. Simply put they have no other item to sacrifice than their own lives.

Instead, all countries should show the same resolve than OPEC members have maintained in recent years, and recognize that we can not keep consuming oil as we have been doing it until now. This is particularly true about us in the United States.

A great deal of the pressure is coming not only from actual compsumption but rather from long-term pricing speculation.

Therefore, countries accross the globe should immediately begin to take measures to restrict circulation of passanger cars and tax windfall profits on the entire oil industry to be offset only if those profits are reinvested in alternative fuel development and production.

In 1994, I presented a paper to the National Senate of Argentina highliting the importance of preventing unwanted pregnancies around the world by providing education to women as a top priority in social development. At the time, the world's population increase amounted to adding "one entire Argentina" from year to year. I further argued that if we were to provide, a basic unit of electricity, food, education, clothing, health care and mobility to each person in the world who did not have it, a crisis of epic proportion would take place.

Well, no surprise for me that the expansion of China and India's economy have pushed matters to the critical point that we face today. Imagine if we were to really suceed in eliminating sub-human poverty?

The environment will benefit from this crisis as we are at a point of no return in terms of frivoulous energy consumption.

We can't go around the world invading oil producing countries and hanging leaders of governments without any repercussions.

If the developed countries can;t maintain the price and taxes of oil then what will happen to the developing countries.

I started to moderate my car usage some time ago and I suspect I now spend less on petrol per month now than I did a year ago.

The problem is that people in general are protesting so they can carry on doing what they are doing and they can't.

We must find a way of getting off the oil dependency we have been on for fifty years or else the consequences for us as a society will not be that dissimilar to someone with a drug dependence.

At the moment the current protests are all to with price. What happens if someone turns the taps off and there is no oil to be had?

DaveDB

So the oil problem is caused by the oil companies - so the fact that the majority of the pump price is tax has NOTHING to do with the government.

Banks are partly responsible for the housing bubble - however a government in power for the whole bubble had ample time to try and reduce it - it did not for short term "beneficial measures"

Glad to see everything is big business's fault.

Government borrowing is "not under control" = even if you ignore Northern Rock, public sector pensions and PFI exposure, borrowing is on par then when labour to power and more importantly the trend is opposite (down in 1997 up now). and this is after the "nice" decade -

BTW - I've got iPhone poverty - will someone in government please buy me one - my motorola brick is socially embarrassing and causing me distress.

I've come up with my own solution to the heating crisis. I live on my own as I'm a pensioner so I just don't use my central heating.

I sit huddled in the corner of one room hunched over an electric fan heater. It may seem daft but it's quite cosy. Why heat the whole of the house if I'm not using it ?

Wilf Boden
North Wales

The major problem with the Oil price, as it is with other commodities both mineral and food, is that it is driven by the speculators as much, if not more, than by demand. We have to find a way of ripping off (deterring) the speculators (gamblers) by way of some form of taxation that bites.

Meanwhile, as far as energy related fuel is concerned, the sooner we make the decision to go Nuclear and in a big way, the better. That will knock the oil speculators in the long term. There is no way that wind/wave/solar etc will fill the vacuum left by dwindling oil stocks.

I've now tried to make sure that on major roads, dual carriageways etc., I try to stick to 55mph which does seem to have slowed down the amount of fuel consumption.

That's OK for the time being but with the price of fuel continuing to go up virtually on a daily basis, I can see more drastic measures being the order of the day before too much longer...

The Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform鈥檚 Energy White Paper (page 4) published in February 2008 reveals the government鈥檚 extraordinary assessment of possible future oil prices:

鈥淭he low prices scenario assumes a level oil price of 25$ per bbl throughout the projection period (2010 鈥� 2020), a central scenario assumes $57/bbl in 2010, $50/bbl in 2015 and $52.5/bbl in 2020 and in the high price scenario where oil is $70/bbl in 2010 increasing to $80/bbl by 2020.鈥�

Recently Norman Baker MP asked whether these projections had been updated. He received the following answer:

Jim Fitzpatrick [holding answer 9 May 2008]: The Department for Transport uses oil price projections from the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) in its transport modelling. On 2 May 2008, BERR published revised oil price assumptions to (a) $65; (b) $68; and (c) $70 for the years requested. These are in 2007 prices and refer to their central scenario. We are in the process of using these updated projections to make new road traffic and congestion forecasts. The new oil price projections will also be incorporated into the latest versions of Department guidance and software used in developing business cases for funding by promoters."

I can only think that the idea of using such an unfeasibly low estimates was considered prudent for maintaining confidence in the market.

But it also means that much of government policy making and forward planning has been entirely inappropriate and that rather than planning for a foreseeable and widely predictable crisis we have entered a new historical period without any rational game plan.

There are many policy levers that could still be picked up by a government who was prepared to face up to facts and forge a more sane path than the trajectory of resource wars, climate chaos and economic collapse that we are currently on. Here are four widely-discussed suggestions that are on the table:

Close the loopholes in the Climate Change Bill (include aviation and shipping and outlaw the CDM get-out clause)

Implement Tradeable Energy Quotas 鈥� to fairly allocate the declining carbon budget

Move from GDP and the growth economy (about to collapse) to a focus on Well Being

Consider Contraction and Convergence or Oliver Tickell鈥檚 Kyoto 2 proposal as a scientifically appropriate response to climate change at the UNFCCC talks.

I keep on hearing 大象传媒 editors talk about the reasons for high oil prices - mostly about the market mechanisms - but this is just dancing around the real issue, which is political - the Iraq war.

One economist has said that two thirds of the price of a barrel of oil is down to the Iraq conflict:

Why don't we discuss the Iraq oil laws? What are the contentious points holding back the Iraqi parliament? I'd love to see a thorough investigation of this matter.

I was fortunate enough to be given free central heating by the Scottish Executive.

Because I live in the country the only choice available was oil fired.

When the heating system was installed it cost 拢78.00 for 500 litres of central heating oil. Now it cost 拢300.00 for 500 litres.
This means that I can no longer afford to use the system.

On a pension of approx 拢400.00 per month it is now uneconomic and the only alternative is an electric fire in one room and an electric blanket on the bed.

Since we now live in a captialist society perhaps we should remember that demand pushes up prices as well as speculation.

If we used less oil the price would have to come down.

Maybe we should not have all joined in to New Labours love-in with market speculators and financiers.

How has it affected me? This week I have had my gas Direct debit altered from 拢65/month to 拢105/month. managed to knock them down to 拢94.
Expect EON to do the same with my electric.

I am on a pension.

The cost of petrol or diesel has very little to do with the price of oil. The main culprit is the excessive tax the government imposes each time we fill our tanks.

A few years ago, when people were also complaining about the cost of fuel, the government was "intimidating" anyone that complained, by saying that the money was needed for improving the NHS and the Schools. After all these years of wasting the money, I wonder where this excessive tax goes now. May be to fund the war in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Running the country is no different to running a large multinational company. Yet, these companies have to produce yearly, fully audited, detailed accounts. When the government introduces such accountability for the country's finances, then I might start believing that such a heavy taxation is necessary. Till then, I just do not believe a word they are saying.

Inflation. The figures I always remember are from when I started driving a car in 1960, I used to get 4 gallons of petrol and 4 shots of redex for one pound, (拢1). That's 18.2 Litres of petrol the plus Redex for 拢1, that's inflation.

As for heating, we used to live in an old terrace house with fireplaces and could burn coal or wood, but only the one room was heated. Now there are no fireplaces, gas combi boiler and central heating, the whole house is warm and the gas is cheaper than if I had to buy coal for the one room.

the rise in oil prices is one of the best things which could happen to the planet and the country. The sooner it hits $200 the better. It will result in less traffic, better home insulation, more use of buses and railways for passengers and freight, less CO2, faster switch to renewables and all in all everything that is good. And if the Spanish fishermen are whining about not being able to afford the diesel to come here and take our increasingly rare fish then that is another plus.
If Brown gives in to the cheaper fuel lobby he will be viewed like Chamberlain by history.

If governments had the courage to put a road tax escalator on large inefficient vehicles, the public would have been protected from the current oil shock.

Although it's often stated that the US pays less in fuel tax, they also drive dreadfully inefficient cars and at longer distances than here in the UK. In that sense, financially they're no better off by simply paying 'less tax' on fuel. Likewise, without public transport, they have less choice than us.

That could have been the situation here too, but even with high fuel tax people haven't been dissuaded into buying large vehicles (usually purely as a social statement). Where I live where there was front gardens are now 2 or 3 BMWs or Mercs (that's 'aspirational suburbia' I suppose).

It's time to stop complaining about it and change your behaviour. The market's price message is saying exactly that. Get used to it.

PERHAPS WORTH SAYING AGAIN (In light of current crises.)

Westminster is a Palace of Anomaly. It attracts and holds a strange type of individual; one who does not stand up for us and denounce Westminster stupidity, nihilism and vacuous ritual, but joins in. When election time arrives, each party offers us one of these aberrants, such that we may choose a red weirdo, a yellow weirdo or a blue weirdo. Should some normal person, of competence and integrity, known in their community as honourable and of substance, stand as an independent, the gullible, childlike voters, motivated by comfort and fear, will vote for a pretty coloured rosette (unless some local crisis has popular appeal). Each party grouping of oddballs, elevates one of their number on 鈥榤erit鈥� 鈥� that is, of course, oddball merit. Whichever party wins the election, their oddest-ball goes to the palace to become endowed with a level of power even a saint should not have. May Tony鈥檚 god help us all.

It's time for our nation to show real leadership in investing considerably on other sources of energy other than oil. It may get event worst in the future than what are experiencing now.

Governments of both colours have spent the last 50 odd years getting us into our cars and travelling further afield for work and pleasure. Now suddenly they want to change all that overnight? The greens should stop living in their hippy hallucinated utopia, dreaming that we are all going to go back to living like 1000 years ago in small close villages that one lives and dies in and no one leaves, and everything we need is home grown, or shipped in by horse and cart. Regress is not progress, so sober up and snap out of it.

I was disapointed with the newsnight oil story on Friday. There is a interesting media story here. Namely how oil commentators with extreme theories has crawled out of the woodwork and been given free rein by the media recently, thereby contributing to the overreaction in the oil markets. It was sad to see newsnight normally so intelligent, join the bandwagon.
While there are clearly causes for concern, there are also reasons to be optimistic on the oil front. For instance in the next couple of years a technology that may solve the issue will start appearing namely the plug-in hybrid. And on the supply front things are not so bad as the extremists are making out.

sjpopham,
your point is one that many have made over the weeks and years, wondering why, in this day when we can land a spacecraft on Mars plus all the othere weird and wonderful inventions, nobody has invented an oil free form of energy for heating and the movement of vehicles?

Now I am entering the conspiracy theory-land!! We live in hope as your blog indicates.

OTHER ENERGY

Hi Bill, because science is as dishonest as government, the apparent options in energy are not the whole truth. A poke round the web will be quite revealing. As many have said on these threads: the high price of oil will give impetus to alternatives. We live in interesting times, but it is really hard to get anyone interested. The big problem, as I see it, is that those heavily schooled in science only believe orthodoxy and those outside science accept what media and government say (contaminated by vested interests). It takes the half-educated barmy (thanks Grumpy) like me to keep poking in dark scientific corners. If I am teaching my granny, all I can say is "Hi Gran!"

There is a vast difference between what appars on the reputable NEWSHOUR or NEWSNIGHT and the WHYS blog.

One should be fuly aware that the same standards of journalistic ethics do not apply to the "colleagues" on WHYS.

Thus, considerable caution is advised, for the comments allowed reflect the bias and censorship of the WHYS management

I am saddend that the truck drivers had to go on strike to make a point.

@ 33

8.33pm on 5/31/2008

Xie_Ming

What is your problem with WORLD HAVE YOUR SAY management?

If you don't mind telling us?

Thanks