true da... fuel prices are the direct reason for our global recession. amazing how few words in print point this out. even more amazing how folks that I'm in contact with also deny this.

to put thing in perspective and why I went thru the ropes, bringing out the big mac index and a basket of goods is the true measure of buying power.

before Katrina, fuel prices in the USA was $1-$1.29. in UK prices were already hitting $3 gal. so prices more than doubled here in US, before recently going down $1 gal to $3gal. the same thing happened to entire world... fuel prices more than doubled almost overnight.

tin hats back on.... IMHO BIG oil companies have teams of economist that forecast how hard to squeeze the world economies. it's my belief that BIG oil doesn't want to kill the golden goose... only fleece it.

the world was on the verge of a second dip in this recession. before BIG oil deciding to pull fuel prices back. due to BIG oil's virtual monopoly position. they control prices at will ... no collaboration needed, BIG oil controls regions of the world. from well head to gas station pumps. the thing that's been missing is real competition in the oil industry.

in the USA, refineries in a very short time span went from large number of owners to a tiny handful of owners due to mass consolidation of refineries. their net profits shot up by 30x+ so they were forced to go on an acquisition binge to shelter those profits from taxes.

IMHO the thing they fear is politicians. for they changed the rules allowing them to merge back together. for all practical purposes, Standard Oil is back together. Politicians can change the rules again and break back apart BIG oil.

the other thing they fear is squeezing too hard killing the golden goose, bringing about a total collapse of world economies ... aka 1929 all over again.

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R90S, R80G/S PD

Average in UK is 12,000 pa, average in US is 15,000 pa (both taken from gov web sites)

I don't think your average person grasps how much this is effecting our economy. EVERYTHING has to be transported. The cost of running haulage has doubled fuel wise, and along with other changes to emmission control and taxation on road vehicles, the extra costs are driving up the price of everyday goods.

Oh yeah you don't have road tax in the US do you? how do you fancy paying your gov another $600 a year for a round paper disc for your windscreen that entitles you to use the road?

Your quite right about the gov controling the tax though, however I think the higher tax rates here are more to do with a welfare state that is becoming ever more un-sustainable and abused by outsiders. But thats another story.

Rob

Your average Herbert is better off in Europe than North America, in my (extensive) experience of being poor and well off on both continents. How much is it worth to have healthcare?

Totally agree, we are in a much better position with our healthcare, it's the envy the world over. And here in lies the problem, when it's become the 'norm' from people form other counties to come here to use it.

I'm not saying anyone should be denied medical attention if they are in need of it, but coming to the UK to have a baby as the airfare here is cheaper than the medical bills back home is frankly taking the p.

Do you want to go down the housing and benefits route too? or is this going off topic too much?


Rob

amazing the disconnect between cause and effect. world's economy is HUGE. logic dictates it would take something equally large to disrupt it in such a short span of time.

unfortunately connecting the dots requires one to think globally. kind of hard to do when one's focus is paycheck to paycheck.

there is no other event large enough within the time frame before almost collapse of world's economies. Oil prices doubling overnight, then proceeding to climb to almost triple prices pre-Katrina.

resulting in the largest transfer of wealth in the history of the world!
yet folks are still having trouble making the connection

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R90S, R80G/S PD

Up to now, the POLL RESULTS are:

32 votes YES, it was planned (66%)
16 votes NO, it was not (33%)

However, public voters are 10 people saying YES vs. 9 people saying NO. I recall another poll where there were more votes than actual voters, I wonder if that could be the case too. But anyway, it seems that the majority thinks that YES, it was planned, or that those voters are more active (more probable).

Of course, we all here are very fortunate, we do not belong to the big suffering bunch in the 3rd world, but that’d be another topic/discussion.

So, I think those called “causes” (as oil price increases or whatever else) are “means”, while those “triggers” (Katrina) an unreal “excuse”, appearing all blurry and messy behind long articles written by those technocrats… Thus, only one thing looks crystal-clear, the “goal”: fill your own pockets and nothing would be easier/quicker than at others expense. Of course, profit is the reason for an entrepreneurial activity, needless to say, but some cases go a little too far now, I’d say. Your pension fund collapsed? What a shame, it can always happen… Your Social Security System is broke? It was mismanaged by the previous corrupted government, such a bad luck… It seems that we shrug our shoulders and accept it, and I wonder: why?

It seems that nowadays there’s no apparent alternative to our economic system, so there may be some protests, but no big revolutions and therefore less to worry about squeezing the population. It’s clear we are not all going to become communists. No counterbalance, that’s never good (and I am not pro-communism).

But then you read about those semi-secret Bilderberg meetings that even appear in the newspapers and you say: what do the richest/most powerful people on Earth have to talk about when all the talks content absolutely private? I heard it’s all about the future of the global economy. Is that a sort of global masonry or what? It seems they do not represent anyone’s interest other than their own, which is worrying when ministers, etc attend them…

So, if I can forecast a real state bubble in Spain, why wouldn’t they forecast (or plan?) a global collapse? I wonder if they would say: “we have to get ready for what’s coming (and make profit of other’s looses)”; or whatever they have to talk about, that I don’t know, but I assume they do discuss if the colour of the sofas matches the curtains. Furthermore, I think that many of these groups/societies sell values of solidarity (I think masons do, but I don’t know). But what is solidarity only in the frame os a close group? Discrimination against the rest, I assume.

I am probably boring, since I am already boring myself, but the current world would look cool if you watch the MTV, but to me, the future stinks too bad.

can't comment about micro events except within USA. for I was here in Tulsa, OK when it happened. please forgive the American point of view below. but it's an established fact what happens in America ... will shortly happen to the world.

as for the profit motive... nothing wrong with that. it's the American way to squeeze out as much profit as possible. permissible by law of course. which leads us to why things are broken.

charging the American public too much for fuel? price controls is just not the American way. the public is used to being charged what the market will bear. just not for a commodity like fuel.

in America utilities like natural gas, electric power, water, etc. which by necessity have natural monopolies .. are limited to amount of profits they can make by law. ALL rate increases have to be approved by a predetermined process. usually tied to voter approval, etc.

what's missing you say? ... COMPETITION.... that's right what's missing is competition. Due to the blatant non-enforcement of our anti-trust laws against MEGA entities grabbing too much market share within certain geographic regions.

Clinton started it approving mega merger of Exxon/Mobil, but most of the damage happened under Bush II. ALL of the MEGA oil companies were allowed to merge. result is NO collusion needed to control fuel prices. when one MEGA giant oil owns it all from well head to gas station fuel pump. Big Oil simply changes prices at will. prices charged has nothing to do with supply and demand since Katrina.

result is 30x+ pre-Katrina profits to these MEGA giant oil companies in America. guess what ... what happens in America ... shortly will happen to the world. fuel prices skyrocket shortly afterwards to rest of the world.... resulting in the largest transfer of wealth in the history of the world ... and a near collapse of world's economies.

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R90S, R80G/S PD

estebangc "but to me, the future stinks too bad."

I think you need a little cheering up
The world today was created in the greater part by technology not economists, venture capitalist, toadying politicians or trade unionists (remember when they complained that computers where putting people out of a job ), we are truly at the footsteps of great knowledge.
The Berlin wall fell, imo, because of stolen tv satellite feeds showing up the lies of their government, and yes, opulence.
The Arab spring was a combination of people power and the communication revolution.
Indian farmers stopping mid-plough to get the latest prices for his goods or a weather report on his mobile.
The emancipation of women around the world because of social networking.
Centralised medical information giving real-time access to doctors and specialists from around the world.
Engineering and physics have designed fully self reliant homes from sewerage to power and water, it only takes the personal will to create such.
There are also no excuses today for being misinformed (as opposed to being misled) even poorly educated people as myself have all the info at their fingertips, and rest assured the people you complain about fear greatly an informed populace.
Something else we could do on a personal level is to abandon terms such as "Third World"," The West"(I'm from Down-under it always seemed a funny term ) and others that invariably came from economists addiction to a Linnaeus like categorising of human beings.
Remember, estebangc, that you live in a society not an economy.
You can drop by my place any time, pull up your feet and have a cold one.
You are an adventurer, you are part of the adventurers community .

May I say I agree with every point you mentioned (including I should cheer up more!!)? Probably your position is the right one to live happier, but I just cannot avoid the other one to sometimes come to my mind...

Of course, I do not think life is horrible, nor that current conditions are unbearable. No, that would the false and very selfish as well. I totally agree with you about the enormous possibilities technological advances offer us nowadays. Economy is not all and personally, I am really happy with what I have (don't have a yacht -actually, nor a house- but it doesn't make me less happy). BTW, I used those terms to make it easier, I don't like to say "less developed countries" (I know, technically no more commies, so no more 3rd world or non aligned states).

I refer to future in the long run, just trying to see/forecast if something wrong is going on, before it is too late... You come from OZ, so one example. I was there in 1998 and last year again. Really loved i. But also thought: there is an economic bubble here and in some years it may burst. Sorry if it sounds too bad, it was my impression as well, although I'd love to be totally wrong.

The same for Spain, my (beloved) homeland: we were growing a lot and everyone was "happy-go-lucky" buying expensive cars/TVs/etc getting all that (fake) cash from the banks. Things were going so well that nobody thought that this could change, so when you find it out, then it’s too late.

My father is a farmer and he had an apartment on the coast for the family holidays. "Dad, you don't use it, we have to sell it now before the bubble bursts. In addition, the future for agriculture is uncertain, so it will be good to have the cash" (it was "worth" ca. 5 times the price he bought it 20 years before, isn't it mad??). What bubble, nobody was talking about any bubble back at home? Well, nobody wanted to look at that. Actually, there were signs, but nobody wanted to accept those facts when told about it. Real estate bubble did burst and fortunately, we had already sold the apartment. Not smarter than anyone else, only a little lucky, maybe due to thinking about a difficult future for agriculture.


In Australia I saw a tremendous growth, amazing cars, great consumption and other facts that led me to think: doesn’t it look similar? I know, Australia is a much richer country, with plenty of natural resources. And I’d love to be wrong. But wouldn’t it be better to be ready in case that happened? Say, Spain, Ireland, Greece, Argentina in the past, etc.

In a sentence: grow quickly, crash hard.

Of course, I'm not the Jim Rogers "the investment biker", I dislike stocks and that stuff (aka speculation), but sometimes it is there to read it, some people do it and make the profit and others do not pay attention and suffer it. Actually, we all regular people might more or less suffer it: nowadays, I’d like to come back to Spain, but it’s the very worst moment, due to lack of jobs… and you need to work to get a life.

Future (in the world, and particularly the Western nations)? My feeling is that something wrong is going on, and it will go worse and worse. This crisis imply that middle class becomes lower class, lower class becomes poor/homeless and pensioners may not have any more pension, small and medium enterprises go bankrupt and only BIG companies survive taking all the market share, growing a lot in the long run making some guys at the top of the pyramid even richer, at the expense of the guys on the lower steps.

In the meantime, despite this thread, I prefer to think about travelling and motorcycling.

Taking off the rosy specs' for a sec.
I don't know whether we will survive as a large communal species. Historians can tell you what happened in the past but they can't tell you why. What was the mood of the people?, why did they do the things they did?. Same today, if the collective negative reaches a tipping point all bets are off.

"May you live in uninteresting times" Chinese proverb
We are in a time of transition, it's how you roll with it.

Australia is no different to others in the world economically, we've all got our fingers stuck in others nether regions and we all go down together. estebanc, your are correct in your observations of OZ, many here saw no benefit from our mining boom and are now being prepared for a downturn. The consequence of this arrogance is the dawning realisation that economists don't know our moods and are talking out of their collective ar$ewholes.

Be sure that those who saw no benefit will suffer the recession, while those who made the gains won't suffer the looses... Actually, they are probably getting ready to have the cash to invest and make more money when/if the crisis strikes... (they may even live faaaar away from OZ!) I guess that's my point (if I have any, not sure yet ).

In the meantime, ride a (cheap) bike while it (bike and/or $) lasts, you've got a beautiful country!

Loved Spain estabanc, How can an Aussie not like a red soiled hot country, with cervasas, manyana and a little siesta ... and all the hot ladies you got

This guy says there is - and I agree with him.




And it was planned.

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TTR250 - London to Cape Town

The poll doesn't ask yes or no. It asks yes or NOW. so some like me didn't vote.