J-George will fix it

[tonkatojo]

Can you believe this bloke, his policy's have caused the massive inflation we are enduring then he goes and does this. Please don't bleat the corus of "we inherited rubbish" this character has had 18 month to accomplish this disaster, disaster you might ask, well try living on benefits and see how cushy it is/not, not to mention the pensioners.

http://money.aol.co.uk/2011/11/18/pain-for-benefits-inflation-link-severed/?icid=maing-grid7%7Cuk%7Cdl4%7Csec1_lnk2%7C85779

[sam]

Its not just those on benefits that are affected by the recession, there are plenty of folk out there who work that have been on a pay freeze for the last few years while everything around them is going up, at least the benefits are still getting a rise even if it is a small one its better than nothing and the pensioners are still getting a rise on the higher rate.
In an ideal world no one would be struggling or have debt and there would be plenty of jobs to go around, I have to work 2 jobs just to keep up with things, which in turn means i don't get to spend much time with my family, but hey its life and you just have to make the best of what you have even if it is tough.

[Corrie 3]

Balancing the UK's books on the backs of the poorest in society!!!! Mind you, what do you expect from Tory Scum like Osbourne and Cameron?
I notice that the richest in Society are still getting the Winter fuel Allowance....Shame on the Tories is what I say!!

C3................:eek::roll::roll:

[theone]

I'd bite your hand off for a 4.5% pay rise this year. I think most working people would.

We're all affected by inflation.

[Rheghead]

Please don't bleat the corus of "we inherited rubbish" this character has had 18 month to accomplish this disaster, disaster you might ask, well try living on benefits and see how cushy it is/not, not to mention the pensioners.

http://money.aol.co.uk/2011/11/18/pain-for-benefits-inflation-link-severed/?icid=maing-grid7%7Cuk%7Cdl4%7Csec1_lnk2%7C85779

Well we did inherit rubbish from the last Government, but, the tories are trying to hide away from the fact that they also endorsed Gordon Brown's actions.

[golach]

I notice that the richest in Society are still getting the Winter fuel Allowance....Shame on the Tories is what I say!!

C3................:eek::roll::roll:
Not received my Winter Fuel Allowance yet, and I for one will not be giving it back, even if I do not use it or not.

[tonkatojo]

I'd bite your hand off for a 4.5% pay rise this year. I think most working people would.

We're all affected by inflation.

I notice the tory pal Sir Dick of Virgin got an early Christmas present from good ole georgie. PS: it is a good bet it is worth more than 4.5% than your wage.

[orkneycadian]

Only the start of it - The country is skint - broke - bankrupt - call it what you like, but there is no money in the pot for luxuries like increasing benefits. Lucky theres even money for them at all!

And you can't blame someone who came into power 18 months ago. The situation has been festering for years, decades, and its at least Europe wide, if not near worldwide!

Basically, anyone who isn't living in a 3rd world country has been living beyond their means for way too long. Now we have to live with the consequences.

[tonkatojo]

Only the start of it - The country is skint - broke - bankrupt - call it what you like, but there is no money in the pot for luxuries like increasing benefits. Lucky theres even money for them at all!

And you can't blame someone who came into power 18 months ago. The situation has been festering for years, decades, and its at least Europe wide, if not near worldwide!

Basically, anyone who isn't living in a 3rd world country has been living beyond their means for way too long. Now we have to live with the consequences.

Aye I think your probably right, except the exceptions to the rule, apparently directors are doing OK and believe it or not bankers still will get their annual bonuses and Christmas jolly's. I know it is rough for those folk not getting a pay rise on their salaries but do they actually need them, yes inflation erodes all pay and benefits but the actual figures are not comparable, some folk including pensioners have the option of going without and no other, where most earners can just cut back a bit and still make ends meet.

[orkneycadian]

apparently directors are doing OK

:eek: Eh? On which planet? Companies in the UK are going to the wall in record numbers. Don't think the directors of those companies would agree with you!


and believe it or not bankers still will get their annual bonuses and Christmas jolly's.

That, unfortunately, is a commercial decision for the banks - Not one I agree with, but not eactly the governments fault....


some folk including pensioners have the option of going without and no other, where most earners can just cut back a bit and still make ends meet.

Nobody ever said austerity was going to be easy! :-(

[secrets in symmetry]

Can you believe this bloke, his policy's have caused the massive inflation we are enduring then he goes and does this. Please don't bleat the corus of "we inherited rubbish" this character has had 18 month to accomplish this disaster, disaster you might ask, well try living on benefits and see how cushy it is/not, not to mention the pensioners.

http://money.aol.co.uk/2011/11/18/pain-for-benefits-inflation-link-severed/?icid=maing-grid7|uk|dl4|sec1_lnk2|85779 (http://money.aol.co.uk/2011/11/18/pain-for-benefits-inflation-link-severed/?icid=maing-grid7%7Cuk%7Cdl4%7Csec1_lnk2%7C85779)The current government's policies are responsible for many ills, but inflation is not one of them.

Most of the political posts I've read tonight could be demolished by an informed teenager. What has caused you all to lose your analytic abilities in the same day?

[ducati]

The current government's policies are responsible for many ills, but inflation is not one of them.

Most of the political posts I've read tonight could be demolished by an informed teenager. What has caused you all to lose your analytic abilities in the same day?

Political dogma

[John Little]

The current government's policies are responsible for many ills, but inflation is not one of them....

I'd be very interested to see some elaboration of this. There are many people, and I incline to believe them, who view fuel taxes as being one of the main engines driving inflation. The knock-on effect of such taxes on general prices is surely undeniable. And 3 million people living in fuel poverty must be an indicator of some sort? Since the average wage increased 2.6% in the last year and fuel costs rose by by 20% this seems to spell inflation to me.

The VAT rise put in place by Mr Osborne also decreases production, depresses the jobs market, raises prices and fuels inflation. It seems to me that with the ethics of Ayn Rand, the economics of Milton Friedman (popular when Gideon was in sixth form) and the social responsibility of Marie Antoinette that it is Mr Osborne who displays all the enthusiasm of a 6th former solving a problem in an economics class.

[theone]

There are many people, and I incline to believe them, who view fuel taxes as being one of the main engines driving inflation.

I'd agree that fuel PRICES were a major factor in driving inflation, but not the taxes.

[John Little]

You think not?

"From 23 March 2011 the UK duty rate for the road fuels unleaded petrol, diesel, biodiesel and bioethanol is GB£0.5795 per litre (£2.63 per imperial gallon or £2.19 per U.S. gallon).[6] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_tax#cite_note-hmrc-5)
Value Added Tax (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_Added_Tax) at 20% is also charged on the price of the fuel and on the duty. An additional vehicle excise duty (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_excise_duty), depending on a vehicle's CO2 production per kilometre, which depends directly on fuel consumption, is also levied."

Wikipedia I'm afraid, but it is accurate according to other sites.

I'd say tax is a major factor.

[theone]

You think not?

"From 23 March 2011 the UK duty rate for the road fuels unleaded petrol, diesel, biodiesel and bioethanol is GB£0.5795 per litre (£2.63 per imperial gallon or £2.19 per U.S. gallon).[6] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_tax#cite_note-hmrc-5)
Value Added Tax (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_Added_Tax) at 20% is also charged on the price of the fuel and on the duty. An additional vehicle excise duty (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_excise_duty), depending on a vehicle's CO2 production per kilometre, which depends directly on fuel consumption, is also levied."

Wikipedia I'm afraid, but it is accurate according to other sites.

I'd say tax is a major factor.

Duty on a litre of unleaded at the moment is indeed 57.95p. That's actually 1p LESS than it was in January.

Indeed the duty has risen only 10p in the last 12 years.

http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/downloadFile?contentID=HMCE_PROD1_023552

Now compare that to petrol prices at the pump of 130p/litre now and 61.9 p/litre 12 years ago.

Fuel prices may drive inflation. But it is not the duty on the fuel that is the driving force.

[secrets in symmetry]

I'd be very interested to see some elaboration of this. There are many people, and I incline to believe them, who view fuel taxes as being one of the main engines driving inflation. The knock-on effect of such taxes on general prices is surely undeniable. And 3 million people living in fuel poverty must be an indicator of some sort? Since the average wage increased 2.6% in the last year and fuel costs rose by by 20% this seems to spell inflation to me.

The VAT rise put in place by Mr Osborne also decreases production, depresses the jobs market, raises prices and fuels inflation. It seems to me that with the ethics of Ayn Rand, the economics of Milton Friedman (popular when Gideon was in sixth form) and the social responsibility of Marie Antoinette that it is Mr Osborne who displays all the enthusiasm of a 6th former solving a problem in an economics class.Yes, you're right about the VAT rise affecting this year's inflation in a major way. I'd forgotten about that - probably because I was thinking of longer-term inflation for which Osborne's policies wil damage the economy exactly as you say. The recent massive increases in gas and electricity prices (which have indeed driven inflation) are not due to the VAT rise though - and inflation will drop a lot in a couple of months when the 2.5% VAT increase is more than 12 months old. Idiots in the political classes (and in the media) will call that drop in inflation a great success - because they can't distinguish between price decreases and inflation decreases.

[John Little]

Duty on a litre of unleaded at the moment is indeed 57.95p. That's actually 1p LESS than it was in January.

Indeed the duty has risen only 10p in the last 12 years.

http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/downloadFile?contentID=HMCE_PROD1_023552

Now compare that to petrol prices at the pump of 130p/litre now and 61.9 p/litre 12 years ago.

Fuel prices may drive inflation. But it is not the duty on the fuel that is the driving force.

You seem not to be seeing VAT as a duty.

[secrets in symmetry]

Political dogmaYes, indeed, but I did get one bit wrong, as pointed out by John Little.

The rant (in another thread) against having specialists to sign off people with long term sickness displays similar dogma.

[theone]

You seem not to be seeing VAT as a duty.

Okay. If we include VAT

In 1999 petrol was 62p a litre. 47.2 pence was duty, 9p or so VAT.

In 2011 petrol is 135p a litre. 57.95p is duty, 22.5p or so is VAT.

So the tax has risen from 56.2p to 80.45p in 12 years. When the petrol has risen from 62p to 135p.

So the percentage of taxation has DROPPED from 90% to 60% in that time. Or to put it another way A 43% increase in total taxation compared to a 217% increase in total fuel price. Fuel, before tax, has risen from 7p per litre to 54.5p in that time.

The MAJOR contributer to fuel driven inflation rise has been the increase in the suppliers cost of fuel. Not duty or VAT.

http://www.abd.org.uk/taxtable.htm

[John Little]

Thankyou - very interesting and most illuminating.

It inevitably raises the question of why the price is so high. World prices are partly to blame - but the oil companies do seem to be making rather large profits.

Is it then a question of supply and demand, and should we be looking to OPEC as the author of our problems rather than anyone else?

[theone]

Oil companies are making large profits, of that there is no doubt.

But oil companies don't set the prices. Speculators do.

And of course, these speculators react mostly to OPEC's plans and announcements.

So maybe OPEC are as much to blame as anybody.

A very real reason for the USA wanting "firendly" leaderships in these countries.

[John Little]

That is true.

And it opens up a whole new can of worms - because the economy of the world, in that case, is driven entirely by what happens to the price of one particular fossil fuel.

Therefore, in eschewing the use of one fossil fuel, which we have scads of, in favour of buying another from a cartel who deliberately restrict the supply to maintain the cost, are we not cutting off our noses to spite our face?

After all, coal is quite a cocktail of chemicals.

Maybe in the end it could come down to our Chemists and other scientists finding ways to exploit our own greatest national resource in cleaner and more efficient ways. I recall that the most efficient steam engine of the industrial revolution was only about 33% heat efficient. Surely it could be used in better ways these days?

Or are we irrevocably committed to chasing the chimera of renewables?

[secrets in symmetry]

With Wee Fat Shrek in charge, there is nothing on the menu but renewables, and if he pursues this path as it seems he wants to, this could be very serious indeed for Scotland's economy.

There are various forms of clean coal technologies that could one day appear on the menu. Perhaps a more enlightened leadership might one day encourage them.

The efficiency of coal fired power stations is limited by Carnot's Theorem, which in turn is a consequence of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, so 30% efficiency is actually very good!

Here's a quick explanation on Wikipedia: Heat into mechanical energy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil-fuel_power_station#Heat_into_mechanical_energy)

Follow the links to the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the Carnot Cycle for more details.

[theone]

I don't know enough about coal technologies, I know there's clean(er) ways to burn it but whether or not they're suitable, they're certainly not "in vogue".

I don't think there will be any significant move away from fossil fuels will be made until the need is really there, costs above what people in the west can/are willing to pay. Unfortunately, that will be too late for most as it will take years, probably decades, to impose the changes.

There's plenty of doomsday themed books about the demise of oil. We'll find out in our lifetime how right they are.

[secrets in symmetry]

This country has huge coal reserves, which I expect we will return to some day. It won't be cheap though.

[theone]

Maybe in the end it could come down to our Chemists and other scientists finding ways to exploit our own greatest national resource in cleaner and more efficient ways. I recall that the most efficient steam engine of the industrial revolution was only about 33% heat efficient.


The efficiency of coal fired power stations is limited by Carnot's Theorem, which in turn is a consequence of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, so 30% efficiency is actually very good!


The efficiency isn't necessarily the be all and end all.

If the energy can be produced cheaply enough, and with an acceptable level of harm to the environment, the actual efficiency percentage becomes irrelevant.

If we were getting electricity at 1p a kW hour, with no carbon emmisions, at 10% efficiency, nobody would care about the 9kW hour being wasted!

[theone]

This country has huge coal reserves, which I expect we will return to some day. It won't be cheap though.

Correct, but it's becoming a more appealing option as oil and gas prices rise.

[secrets in symmetry]

The efficiency isn't necessarily the be all and end all.

If the energy can be produced cheaply enough, and with an acceptable level of harm to the environment, the actual efficiency percentage becomes irrelevant.

If we were getting electricity at 1p a kW hour, with no carbon emmisions, at 10% efficiency, nobody would care about the 9kW hour being wasted!Yes, absolutely! The chemical, thermal, mechanical and/or electrical efficiencies aren't as important as people naively think. The cost to the end user is very mportant.

Having said that, efficiency is important when considering reserves of the raw materials.

Anti-windies and anti-coalers are particularly bad at producing specious arguments using efficiency. Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the WWF are some of the worst offenders.

[secrets in symmetry]

Correct, but it's becoming a more appealing option as oil and gas prices rise.Yes, and it will be even more appealing when all the oil and gas that can be extracted economically has run out!

Renewables will play an enormous role over the forthcoming decades (whether we like it or not), but they can't do the job on their own - for reasons that we have done to death on this forum. Clean coal should surely play a role - until we can harness the energy that drives the stars - and thereby perhaps even reach out to them. :cool:

[John Little]

The efficiency of coal fired power stations is limited by Carnot's Theorem, which in turn is a consequence of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, so 30% efficiency is actually very good!

Here's a quick explanation on Wikipedia: Heat into mechanical energy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil-fuel_power_station#Heat_into_mechanical_energy)

Follow the links to the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the Carnot Cycle for more details.

Thankyou - interesting stuff and reasonably understandable to a non-scientist.

I hope you are both right. It seems to me that this county's answer to Saudi lies not in wind but underneath our feet.

It would provide jobs, economic stimulus and technological and scientific advance.

I cannot help wondering why our leader's faces are set so much against it.

[ducati]

I cannot help wondering why our leader's faces are set so much against it.

Because last time we relied heavily upon it, a certain rather mischievous group of specialist workers discovered that they could hold the country to ransom to further their own ends.

[John Little]

Because last time we relied heavily upon it, a certain rather mischievous group of specialist workers discovered that they could hold the country to ransom to further their own ends.

Time, machinery and extraction techniques have moved on a long way since then.

When an industry starts almost from scratch then it begins with a technological advantage over its competitors abroad, uses more machinery and is able to set its own terms and conditions.

The old British coal industry was labour intensive, out-moded, insufficiently rationalised and uncompetitive.

A new British coal industry need be none of those.

[ducati]

Time, machinery and extraction techniques have moved on a long way since then.

When an industry starts almost from scratch then it begins with a technological advantage over its competitors abroad, uses more machinery and is able to set its own terms and conditions.

The old British coal industry was labour intensive, out-moded, insufficiently rationalised and uncompetitive.

A new British coal industry need be none of those.

I love the idea of a Time Machine being used to extract coal, perhaps we could go back to the time when the primeval forests were laying down the coal seems and plant them where it would be convenient for us now. :cool:

[John Little]

LOL! For what else were commas invented?

I'm sure there's a novel in that somewhere.

There is a place like that though- Coalbrookedale.

If you dig a shaft down 400 feet, on the way you find; red clay for bricks, limestone, white clay for firebrick, iron ore, sand and coal. All you need to make iron in one hole - almost as if it had been put there on purpose.

I cannot remember the order they come in - except that coal is at the bottom for I have walked into the tar tunnel at the bottom of the cliff.
And just by it is the River Severn which is navigable. Perfect for an industrial revolution.

[secrets in symmetry]

Why is this thread entitled J-George? I think of our Chancellor as Jessica-George every time I see it. :cool:

[John Little]

I took it to be Junior George...

[secrets in symmetry]

I've got it - I think.... It's a play on Jim'll Fix It.

I prefer Jessica-George.

[tonkatojo]

I've got it - I think.... It's a play on Jim'll Fix It.

I prefer Jessica-George.

Give this person a gob stopper for a prize.;)

[secrets in symmetry]

Give this person a gob stopper for a prize.;)Thanks, lol!

I'll take the lollipop from Jessica-Jane's mouth - see one of the first photos that appears when you google her. She's in her undies, so I'd likely get a whipping if I post it here.

[tonkatojo]

Thanks, lol!

I'll take the lollipop from Jessica-Jane's mouth - see one of the first photos that appears when you google her. She's in her undies, so I'd likely get a whipping if I post it here.

Steady now that is taking the prize too far.