Petrol Strike - first tragedy

I agree that this is a tragedy, but you simply cannot blame David Cameron (or anyone else for that matter) for this.

Cheers

Don

Shouldn't really encourage stupid people though should he?

One feels sorry for them, but an unbelievably idiotic thing to do.

As is queuing for petrol unnecessarily, of course.  

The stuff Darwin Awards are made from.

Spot on.

I must admit, blaming Cameron is worth doing regardless.

I sometimes find it really annoying when something happens that I can't blame Thatcher for, and suspect Cameron will join her soon.

There is no strike.

Francis Maude created panic and advised people to store illegal amounts of petrol in their houses.

The unfortunate lady has only herself to blame. Very sad, nontheless.

Working back through "contibutary" events is helpful as a "lessons learned" excercise. But don't stop at some arbitrary point such as Francis Maude (for example). Keep going to the talk of a possible strike and the underlying dispute between workers and employers etc etc

Cheers

Don

Simon Jenkins, on "Any Questions" made it clear that as direct consequence of the government's plea "don't panic buy" he imediately went out to fill up with petol. He made it clear that hearing a government spokesman saying "don't panic buy" he "knew" it meant there was a crisis...............

If he had had a crash going to or from the petrol station, whose fault would that have been ?

Cheers

Don

No. Maude is to blame.

Went to Tesco’s very early this morning at 05:50 - didn’t need fuel, just to do some shopping.

I had trouble getting into the car park to pass a long queue of cars of panickers to buy petrol and diesel.

All this proves is how incompetent and totally out of touch this Toff Tory Titanic Dictatorship really is.

It’s must likely Dick Ed Ca-Moron is deliberately trying to create a fuel shortage crisis to divert attention from all the other capitalist shenanigans of their fascist dogma.

Debs

Maude made an unwise but fairly casual comment that was replayed and inflated in importance by a media delighting in his foolishness. If sharing out blame I'd suggest the media get a chunk. Do we really believe that Francis Maude has the effect of getting people to stockpile fuel on his own?

The publicity surrounding her accident further fans the flames (apols)

Government is damned if it does warn and damned if it does not. We might just also recall it is not actually directly involved in the strike either!

I'm more with the Darwin award version personally.

Of course he isn't

Cheers

Don

Maude's advice was reckless, wrong, and downright stupid. He needs at the very least a gigantic kick up the arse. In his defence it was aimed at people whose garages are far from their kitchens and have their own people to do this sort of dirty work for them. Doesn't everybody?

Could be worse, the Government could be the Unwashed Labia Party led by Sylvester and Tweety Bird - peddling their in touch, for the working man BS to Bradford.

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The incident; she didn't get away with being stupid.

Maude; 'sensible steps', 'seven days notice', 'no need to rush out'...the interviewer mentions the can and is met at the end of the being sensible section with an unsure 'maybe a little bit.'. Of course, this is a directive to stop thinking for yourself, and if something goes wrong, to chant 'It's someone else's fault'.

OW

Common sense, sheep, media

After the Maude comment was exaggerated by the media what did the government do? Nothing. Just went on about filling up if you have half a tank.

Here in the US, drilling for oil is at an all-time high.  Oil refining is also at an all-time high.  And for the first time I can remember in my lifetime, the US is a net exporter of gasoline!

But strangely, we actually have some older oil refineries shutting down!  Too expensive to keep running those facilities that employ union labor, and supply primarily US demand.  With reduced demand, they simply they cannot convert the high price of oil into more high-priced gas!

Consumption is down due to 1) a decrease in people taking long trips due to high pump prices, and 2) more people owning higher mileage vehicles.   You would think that when consumption goes down, the price of gasoline would also go down in order to stimulate that consumption.  But that isn't happening because oil and gasoline are sold on world markets, and producers and refiners are free to sell their goods to the highest bidder (for example, China).  Even the release of strategic reserves into the global market would only have a minimal effect, as again, there is nothing to stop that oil from being sold overseas.

So, the net effect of higher pump prices seems very counter-intuitive.  It isn't oil company greed, as far as I can tell (though they are making absurd profits).  It is simply that very rich countries (for example, China, who until recently, had depended on Iran for 6% of their demand) will pay a premium for oil and gas in order to ensure that their rapid economic growth continues.

I kind of see what we are going through as growing pains.  The US, the UK and European countries continue to be held hostage by oil supplying nations.   We need to accelerate the adoption of alternative energy sources, as it will someday become a matter of national survival IMO.   The alternative, of course, is producers like the US to nationalize oil production and refinement.   The reserves are there to do this.  If the US did this, we could keep pump prices artificially low for another 100 years by some optimistic estimates.   But so long as oil remains a world market, and so long as US oil producers and refiners are free to sell to the highest bidder, it appears that pump prices will remain high, and this will continue to be a drag on the domestic economy.   Given that gasoline takes a larger share of the wallet for middle-class working families, they will have no choice but to continue to cut their budgets in other areas.  They will need to shop more carefully, and buy cheaper products that are poorly made, and don't last as long.  These products will have to be imported from somewhere else (for example, China).   See any pattern emerging here?   Not that I am big on conspiracy theories, but here is one more...

It would be very easy for the US to release strategic reserves.  We could easily print more money to buy back oil later and replenish them.  In fact, I cannot only think of one reason why this hasn't happened (since it would buy the current administration some positive press, as they would appear to be doing more to keep pump prices down).  I have the very uncomfortable feeling that the US is bracing for something big and ugly...like a war with Iran.  I am not a very religious man, but I do pray this never happens!

This is all simply my own, personal padded cell armchair analysis, and all my ramblings here are merely my own humble opinions.   Would be very interested to hear from others who understand these complex, geopolitical issues better than I do!

Thanks.

Hook

Hook

It starts (and probably ends) with human greed and too many people on the planet.

We live in a global village and o relatively small number of really gready people manipulate the system to get things made as cheaply as possible to sell to others for as much as possible.

At present, UK businessmen (and no doubt businessmen the world over) are getting cheap labour in China, India and elsewhere, to grow food and manufacture consumer goods which they sell to realatively wealthy people in the "West". They aren't bothered with who is rich or poor, just so long as they can see who is who and manipulate the system.

The "good" news is...........anyone can try their hand at being one of these really greedy people. It's acceptable.

The "government" sets a few rules, one of which is called "tax". In the UK "tax" is added to the delivered cost of petrol (gas to you!). Out of every £7 (approx price of an imperial gallon of premium petrol in the UK) we pay for petrol, the government takes about £4.75 in tax. This helps to "manage" the supply and demand of fuel and its consequent price. Most of the members of the Government seem to be friends with the really greedy people. The government pretends to be friends with the rest of the people also because the rest of the people get to vote for which greedy people's friends form the government. Some countries don't bother with this election palava.

Cheers

Don

PS the above is an over-simplification of a thousand (failed) PhD thesis on the Global economy.

A few more nuclear power stations will help provide breathing space until mankind's genius comes up with a practical alternative to oil, gas and coal.