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https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/valid-voodoo-monetary-theory-may-appeal-europes-age-071342673--business.html

Don't know why I bother anymore - clearly the system can be broken by small cartels of people and the vast majority of shareholders/pension holders lose out massively. WorldPay was just sold for $43 Billion and used to be part of RBS. What other assets did the UK banks let go for a fraction of their future value? Enriching the 1% at the expense of the shareholders of UK banks and the pension funds which also used to hold UK banks (and therefore why the pensions of millions of UK citizens have been decimated compared to what they were previously promised/told to expect). In 2005 a £300,000 penion pot would buy an annuity of about £30,000 per year, now it is about £16,000 per year. Yet in the intervening time the cost of everything has increased .... houses cost more .... energy bills have doubled .... petrol prices have gone from £0.85 litre to £1.20 litre .... flights have doubled or more in price ...and food has also increased in price. Economically the scale of the disaster has been well hidden by the media as the government was actually fairly well aware that an impending disaster was about to unfold .... but as it suited the 1% then they broadly went along just trying to prevent popular unrest rather than actually trying to cause the 1% to think about the damage to the nation that their plans for the future were about to create. Terribly sad/unjust in my opinion.

You'll see that many people helped themselves to a load of free money doled out by central banks .... you don't need Thatcherites (or Thatcherite policies) to help you. You just need to become friends with the people who have the legal authority to print money (central bankers). Of course they will always give this newly printed free money to their friends first .... wouldn't you do the same?

Hi,

I'm afraid if you look at the market capitalisations of Amazon (over $700 Billion), Facebook (over $473 Billion), and Google ($825 Billion) you will see that Lloyds made huge errors in not investing capital into the tech sector from 2001-2007. No wonder once the reckoning came from central bankers that Lloyds, RBS, Barclays were hammered as despite paying out fortunes in bonuses for "top talent" they had failed to see the future. Need to employ people who can actually see the future, rather than people who can only analyses the past. This is the way to generate better returns for shareholders going forwards. Otherwise if the senior management only have ability to analyse the past - and if they still don't realise that the future is never just a continuation of the past - then I can only see the long-term share price trend being a continuation of Lloyd's past (which is a loss of value despite being interspersed with periods of uplift).

I was thinking that I felt sorry for UK banks because I think their shareholders got a very raw deal post 2008 given the Trillions given to investors in other sectors by central bankers. Yet when I look at it another way I kind of think what did the banks do to help themselves - why weren't they creating a society that was more inclusive, more vibrant, more economically active? Why did they have no positive vision of their own in short except for short-term greed - which only ever leads to future value destruction (people are greedy not because they want that money to create a better society but because they want to retire/walk away from their roles). Generally the people who have visions for a more vibrant, more inclusive, more economically active, society have very little money .... hence perhaps I can see why the central bankers chose to provide them with so much cheap liquidity/loans at the expense of the shareholders who had backed management teams who had no vision for the good of society as whole but who were only wanting to trouser a few million and then walk away from their responsibilities and retire to an isolated family life.

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/valid-voodoo-monetary-theory-may-appeal-europes-age-071342673--business.html

Don't know why I bother anymore - clearly the system can be broken by small cartels of people and the vast majority of shareholders/pension holders lose out massively. WorldPay was just sold for $43 Billion and used to be part of RBS. What other assets did the UK banks let go for a fraction of their future value? Enriching the 1% at the expense of the shareholders of UK banks and the pension funds which also used to hold UK banks (and therefore why the pensions of millions of UK citizens have been decimated compared to what they were previously promised/told to expect). In 2005 a £300,000 penion pot would buy an annuity of about £30,000 per year, now it is about £16,000 per year. Yet in the intervening time the cost of everything has increased .... houses cost more .... energy bills have doubled .... petrol prices have gone from £0.85 litre to £1.20 litre .... flights have doubled or more in price ...and food has also increased in price. Economically the scale of the disaster has been well hidden by the media as the government was actually fairly well aware that an impending disaster was about to unfold .... but as it suited the 1% then they broadly went along just trying to prevent popular unrest rather than actually trying to cause the 1% to think about the damage to the nation that their plans for the future were about to create. Terribly sad/unjust in my opinion.

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/valid-voodoo-monetary-theory-may-appeal-europes-age-071342673--business.html

Don't know why I bother anymore - clearly the system can be broken by small cartels of people and the vast majority of shareholders/pension holders lose out massively. WorldPay was just sold for $43 Billion and used to be part of RBS. What other assets did the UK banks let go for a fraction of their future value? Enriching the 1% at the expense of the shareholders of UK banks and the pension funds which also used to hold UK banks (and therefore why the pensions of millions of UK citizens have been decimated compared to what they were previously promised/told to expect). In 2005 a £300,000 penion pot would buy an annuity of about £30,000 per year, now it is about £16,000 per year. Yet in the intervening time the cost of everything has increased .... houses cost more .... energy bills have doubled .... petrol prices have gone from £0.85 litre to £1.20 litre .... flights have doubled or more in price ...and food has also increased in price. Economically the scale of the disaster has been well hidden by the media as the government was actually fairly well aware that an impending disaster was about to unfold .... but as it suited the 1% then they broadly went along just trying to prevent popular unrest rather than actually trying to cause the 1% to think about the damage to the nation that their plans for the future were about to create. Terribly sad/unjust in my opinion.

Don't know why I bother anymore - clearly the system can be broken by small cartels of people and the vast majority of shareholders/pension holders lose out massively. WorldPay was just sold for $43 Billion and used to be part of RBS. What other assets did the UK banks let go for a fraction of their future value? Enriching the 1% at the expense of the shareholders of UK banks and the pension funds which also used to hold UK banks (and therefore why the pensions of millions of UK citizens have been decimated compared to what they were previously promised/told to expect). In 2005 a £300,000 penion pot would buy an annuity of about £30,000 per year, now it is about £16,000 per year. Yet in the intervening time the cost of everything has increased .... houses cost more .... energy bills have doubled .... petrol prices have gone from £0.85 litre to £1.20 litre .... flights have doubled or more in price ...and food has also increased in price. Economically the scale of the disaster has been well hidden by the media as the government was actually fairly well aware that an impending disaster was about to unfold .... but as it suited the 1% then they broadly went along just trying to prevent popular unrest rather than actually trying to cause the 1% to think about the damage to the nation that their plans for the future were about to create. Terribly sad/unjust in my opinion.

Does anyone kindly know if the employees pensions be affected by this administration?

I find it almost unbelievable that the Argentinians were able to launch so many air attacks right over British ships without any missile fire from UK forces - our anti-aircraft measures relying solely on cannon and machine guns it seems.

I mean how bad can the preparation have been for the missile-based anti-aircraft systems to have proved inoperable/useless under the battlefield conditions that prevailed around the landing fleet?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2o4r7dHTKQ See this video from minute 7 onwards. The rapier anti-aircraft missiles in the video were pointing at the ground from their launch system and so were obviously no use at all. Does anyone know why these anti-aircraft missiles were shown in this video as pointing at the ground? Was it because the radar systems were not sophisticated enough at the time to lock onto the Argentine aircraft appearing over a hill only a couple of miles away at 500mph? Even so the aircraft are in shot for what feels like 30 or 40 seconds - and we never see any of those that are shot down - so I'm not very impressed by the anti-aircraft defence that was in operation at the time.

Also I do think that technically oil is looking fairly bullish - but I am extremely concerned by the underlying fundamentals which seems to be conspiring against higher prices. During the recent lower oil prices oil companies generally continued to invest in new oil production despite their share prices falling. Basically management chose to ignore market discipline in general and have risked shareholder funds to make it more likely than ould of been the case that Trump will indeed see lower oil prices in the future. And another problem for oil bulls, apart from the lack of financial discipline shown over the past few years by listed oil companies, is that the green lobby just isn't responding to low oil prices. I think the low oil price strategy was predicated that once prices fell investors would flee Tesla and generally governments would raise spending a bit whilst the economic conditions looked good (i.e. oil prices were low). However, investors have not fled from Tesla and governments have not increased spending in reaction to extremely low oil prices (falling to less than $30 per barrel in early 2016). Indeed investment in the renewable and energy-efficient industries seems to have accelerated since oil prices more than halved in 2014 - despite oil prices remaining low since then. Hence I think everything is conspiring against oil bulls in that listed oil companies are not behaving rationally (instead they are risking shareholders capital on oil prices increasing in the future) and neither are governments/banks behaving rationally - despite low oil prices they are transferring more and more investment into solar power, windfarms, private assets, and generally looking to back companies which claim to use energy more efficiently - rather than worrying about the general economic damage they are doing in the process or the generally falling standard of living that about 70% of the population are experiencing in the process. All just in my opinion of course.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rn51K4yCppg - another YouTube video about South Georgia/The Falklands.

Hi Hawkey47,

My main concerns is that major economies around the world are on a knife edge. The trouble with the global response to the last financial crisis was that it massively increased the wealth of the richest 0.1%. This has actually hindered oil demand in my opinion because the people suffering due to the austerity policies and government cutbacks have been powerless to tell of their suffering/hardships as the global media is almost entirely controlled by the 0.01% to serve the desires of the richest 1% (and generally they seem to desire to become even richer rather than trying to increase the general standard of living of the countries in which they reside)..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO6Ptcerz3g

This is what war is - I only hope that some good can come of it in the future. For Argentina the war was a catastrophe, politically, militarily and economically.

I think the green brigade, and those who would like to ignore history, should reflect deeply.

Yes economic progress is not perfect and has some drawbacks. But currently the global economy runs on oil and its important for everyone's standard of living. Governments around the world need to spend more money to avoid leaving vast segments of their populations behind. Hence I think that oil development will continue and I only hope that as well as investors getting decent returns that the tax proceeds are used to make the world a better place.

Hi,

Do you have a figure for how many barrels of oil per day the infrastucture for the internet consumes?

Personally I would be surprised if it was more than 0.2% of global oil consumption.

Google and Amazon have been investing heavily in solar and windfarms. I think Apple uses 100% renewable electricity. Even Google must have a good percentage of its servers running purely off solar power or wind power.

I think your point about the internet infrastructure was an interesting one .... however having thought about it, I doubt that the infrastructure for the internet uses much oil at all. In the 1970s even the UK had oil-fired power stations. However the last one of those closed down in the 1990s I believe. And in many other parts of the world oil-fired power stations are just a figment of history now. Because coal is cheaper than oil then if fossil fuels are used in some countries to generate electricity then it is mostly coal rather than oil nowadays.

Also consumers are quite sensitive to oil prices in countries like the United States because historically the oil price has always been cyclical - therefore most people will think may as well cut down out oil usage during times of high prices as they are only likely to last for a couple of years before there are many more years of low oil prices to enjoy.

Hi all,

Even if all that has been said is correct (which needs to be counterbalanced by the information below) then does it really point to oil prices heading higher?

Economies have become more efficient in their use of oil since the last financial crisis and bank lending has dried up and construction activity retreated to a quarter of a level of the most recent boom decade of 1997-2007.

Also, now people spend a lot of time on social media, taking pictures and uploading them, chatting to their friends online, playing computer games online - and all of this uses no oil at all.

Also, how many people since the last oil spike in 2008 have replaced their oil central heating with gas or found other ways of cutting down on their oil usage?

Also, if oil prices rise what's not to stop the banks tightening lending even further - purposefully causing a few major high-profile bankruptcies to increase the global fear index amongst investors - and the government continuing with their miserly public spending (pay capped at 0.5% which is below the rise in national insurance and pension contributions), spending on roads remaining minimal (roads in my area are becoming undriveable due to potholes), and perhaps if there was another Lehman's then people would see the same reduction in GDP as happened during the great financial crisis of 2007-2009. Surely all of this would cut global oil demand by about 5 million barrels a day if one basis it pro-rata on the fall in global oil demand of circa 4 million barrels a day from 2007-2010. This was followed by a further 4 years of high oil prices (over $100 per barrel which prevented oil demand from increasing as would normally be expected after such a severe financial recession).

So, given all of the above I doubt that there would be any oil market deficit given that Norway will be bringing online the giant Johan van Sverdrup group of fields next year, then you have new fields offshore Brazil, US shale is still increasing out to 2022 before they need to take stock on growth, Canada can continue at current oil output for the next decade and can increase if they are able to build a couple of new pipelines, then Iraq has been steadily increasing from 2.3million bopd in 2007 to about 4.5million bopd as of today. Also Indonesia is another recent growth area for oil production as well as the South China sea. Even the North sea saw a 4% increase in oil production last year and with the Schiehallon redevelopment it can maintain output for the next 40 years.

So a shortage of oil does not seem likely - more the opposite - because nobody stands up for the oil industry politically, and because the oil industry themselves don't stand up for their long-suffering investors (capital only ever seems to disappear away from shareholders of oil companies.

Hawkeye47,

Even if all you say is correct (which needs to be counterbalanced by the information that there are a lot of newer Saudi fields having recently entered production, as well as new fields offshore Brazil, Ghana etc to replace any supergiant fields getting tired) then it would necessarily mean oil prices will head higher.

Economies have become more efficient in their use of oil since the last financial crisis and bank lending has dried up and construction activity retreated to a quarter of a level of the most recent boom decade of 1997-2007.

Also, now people spend a lot of time on social media, taking pictures and uploading them, chatting to their friends online, playing computer games online - and all of this uses no oil at all.

Also, how many people since the last oil spike in 2008 have replaced their oil central heating with gas or found other ways of cutting down on their oil usage?

Also, if oil prices rise what's not to stop the banks tightening lending even further - purposefully causing a few major high-profile bankruptcies to increase the global fear index amongst investors - and the government continuing with their miserly public spending (pay capped at 0.5% which is below the rise in national insurance and pension contributions), spending on roads remaining minimal (roads in my area are becoming undriveable due to potholes), and perhaps if there was another Lehman's then people would see the same reduction in GDP as happened during the great financial crisis of 2007-2009. Surely all of this would cut global oil demand by about 5 million barrels a day if one basis it pro-rata on the fall in global oil demand of circa 4 million barrels a day from 2007-2010. This was followed by a further 4 years of high oil prices (over $100 per barrel which prevented oil demand from increasing as would normally be expected after such a severe financial recession).

So, given all of the above I doubt that there would be any oil market deficit given that Norway will be bringing online the giant Johan van Sverdrup group of fields next year, then you have new fields offshore Brazil, US shale is still increasing out to 2022 before they need to take stock on growth, Canada can continue at current oil output for the next decade and can increase if they are able to build a couple of new pipelines, then Iraq has been steadily increasing from 2.3million bopd in 2007 to about 4.5million bopd as of today. Also Indonesia is another recent growth area for oil production as well as the South China sea. Even the North sea saw a 4% increase in oil production last year and with the Schiehallon redevelopment it can maintain output for the next 40 years.

So a shortage of oil does not seem likely - more the opposite - because nobody stands up for the oil industry politically, and because the oil industry themselves don't stand up for their long-suffering investors (capital only ever seems to disappear away from shareholders of oil companies)

BoomerBower, grateful for your sanity. Indeed a zero tariff economy seems like it should be the most efficient. Anyone proposing tariffs is trying to protect their vested interests at the expense of other (cheaper) products which are being sought by other people who would benefit from those alternative (cheaper) products.

And politically the government should win the most votes (in a democracy) under a zero tariff economy where each business freely trades with every other business - agreeing prices mutually to trade the goods at - or not trading if a price cannot be agreed. However, in theory at least tariffs only act as a hindrance to real economic activity - the free trading of goods between two or more parties where the net utility from all the swaps/transfers leads to an overall higher state of utility for all involved.

Except the system is still a failed system isn't it? Or perhaps when I walk around I am seeing a different reality to you and also judging it by different standards? But a million people using food banks, zero hour contracts, annuity rates cut drastically after 2007, public sector pay (except for doctors and senior managers/CEOs/directors) capped at 0% or some years 1% if they were lucky. Also many sectors falling drastically in share price, first banks, and later UK retail, grocers, and telecomms, energy companies - those providing customer services as well as energy supply (such as SSE and CNA).

So £27 Billion doesn't sound a lot perhaps - but why don't you find out all the details about how it is calculated? Numbers do not really reflect the impact of financial events on people's standard of living. I wonder how many would have had to adjust their standard of living downwards post 2007 - due to the previous financial promises to them being broken? If so are they happy about it? And in a Democracy if the majority aren't happy they will vote against the government - wonder what will happen in the next General Election? Anyway, not that elections are the most important thing to people who actually care about the general standard of living that is being created in the UK?

So what do people think of their own standard of living, that in their local area, and that within the UK generally? Has it generally been improving or worsening? If so in what ways? What do you like about the way the economy is changing and what do you dislike? Has your own lifestyle changed and was this due to personal choice or being forced to adapt to changes in price? And, whatever the reason, do you think the general lifestyle trends you are seeing benefit you or not? Are you getting healthier? Fitter? Richer? More socially connected? Have more opportunities or less? Have more choice or less? Have more holidays or less? Have more time available for your hobbies? Are already benefitting from automation, or think your family will benefit in the future? Agree with the general vision for the economy proposed by the government or not? Think the government can influence the economy much or not (is it really influenced by the decisions of individual companies doing their own things?)

So JABH, you have raised a good point that £27 billion is only £500 per person for rescuing people's savings from decimation - if the banks had collapsed and the debts had to be paid off by the rule book (using first bonds and then customer deposits - as the share equity was apparently worthless).

Also, was this bailout actually large enough is then perhaps another question to ask? Did the government get value for money in terms of achieving David Cameron's strategy for fixing the UK? Or is it still a case of broken Britain? Also what sort of things would increase people's standards of living - e.g if the next government coming into office in 2021 had £50 billion for a fresh economic b

Analysts: Permian Oil Output Set To Double By 2023

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/analysts-permian-oil-output-set-180000699.html

Permian oil production— currently just shy of 4 million bpd—jumped by around 1 million bpd from a year ago and is set to jump by another 1 million bpd, to 5 million bpd, by early 2020, Eric Lee, energy analyst at Citigroup, told CNBC.

“We’re happy to look out to 2023, when it gets to 8 million. ... They figured out how to access it at very low break-evens, like $30/$40,” according to the analyst.

How come they never thought of unlocking the potential of the Permian in the USA between 1975 and 2005 - for thirty years American oil production declined - and yet nobody thought to unlock the potential of the oil resources in the Permian basin? Why not? Especially when 8 million bopd just from the Permian would be almost double the total US oil output in 2006 (from every state including Alaska). So why didn't the US companies/government tap into this resource before 2005? Seems a little odd or not?

Analysts: Permian Oil Output Set To Double By 2023

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/analysts-permian-oil-output-set-180000699.html

Permian oil production— currently just shy of 4 million bpd—jumped by around 1 million bpd from a year ago and is set to jump by another 1 million bpd, to 5 million bpd, by early 2020, Eric Lee, energy analyst at Citigroup, told CNBC.

“We’re happy to look out to 2023, when it gets to 8 million. ... They figured out how to access it at very low break-evens, like $30/$40,” according to the analyst.

How come they never thought of unlocking the potential of the Permian in the USA between 1975 and 2005 - for thirty years American oil production declined - and yet nobody thought to unlock the potential of the oil resources in the Permian basin? Why not? Especially when 8 million bopd just from the Permian would be almost double the total US oil output in 2006 (from every state including Alaska). So why didn't the US companies/government tap into this resource before 2005? Seems a little odd or not?

Analysts: Permian Oil Output Set To Double By 2023

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/analysts-permian-oil-output-set-180000699.html

Permian oil production— currently just shy of 4 million bpd—jumped by around 1 million bpd from a year ago and is set to jump by another 1 million bpd, to 5 million bpd, by early 2020, Eric Lee, energy analyst at Citigroup, told CNBC.

“We’re happy to look out to 2023, when it gets to 8 million. ... They figured out how to access it at very low break-evens, like $30/$40,” according to the analyst.

How come they never thought of unlocking the potential of the Permian in the USA between 1975 and 2005 - for thirty years American oil production declined - and yet nobody thought to unlock the potential of the oil resources in the Permian basin? Why not? Especially when 8 million bopd just from the Permian would be almost double the total US oil output in 2006 (from every state including Alaska). So why didn't the US companies/government tap into this resource before 2005? Seems a little odd or not?

Analysts: Permian Oil Output Set To Double By 2023

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/analysts-permian-oil-output-set-180000699.html

Permian oil production— currently just shy of 4 million bpd—jumped by around 1 million bpd from a year ago and is set to jump by another 1 million bpd, to 5 million bpd, by early 2020, Eric Lee, energy analyst at Citigroup, told CNBC.

“We’re happy to look out to 2023, when it gets to 8 million. ... They figured out how to access it at very low break-evens, like $30/$40,” according to the analyst.

How come they never thought of unlocking the potential of the Permian in the USA between 1975 and 2005 - for thirty years American oil production declined - and yet nobody thought to unlock the potential of the oil resources in the Permian basin? Why not? Especially when 8 million bopd just from the Permian would be almost double the total US oil output in 2006 (from every state including Alaska). So why didn't the US companies/government tap into this resource before 2005? Seems a little odd or not?

Not really a large increase. Don't your remember back in 2010/2011 when this sector was rising 10% per days - often more days than not for weeks at a time. Those were far larger rises. Also, look at companies in other sectors such as ASOS, Google, Next, Kaz Minerals - 4% only a tiny move compared to the frequency with which those companies move by 10%+ per day. Kaz Minerals was really interesting - dropped from 1000p down to less than 70p and then back up over 1000p - and not the first time - did roughly the same during 2006-2010 as well as during the most recent cycle. I think that's one of the things to be aware in the market .... 4% is not considered a large move by many - hence the potential to make and lose money very fast when you think the market does not bat an eyelid at things dropping or rising 1000% over a 6-month period.