[GHung]

[ Or, what happens after a country becomes a net importer of oil/gas?]

Britain will have its smallest government since the 1930s if plans for a decade of austerity take effect.

The U.K. government unveiled new budget goals last week that would mean five more years of cuts as it tries to close a stubbornly wide gap between revenue and spending.

Despite recent strong growth, hefty cuts to welfare programs and frozen public sector pay, Britain is still running a budget deficit of about 5% of GDP. Disappointing tax receipts are partly to blame.

Parliamentary elections are just five months away and the new forecasts from Chancellor George Osborne have drawn heavy criticism from independent forecasters as well as political foes.

The proposals would shrink total public spending to about 35% of GDP in 2019-20, according to the Office of Budget Responsibility, the U.K.'s independent fiscal watchdog.

That would be the lowest proportion of national wealth spent by the government in 80 years.

Institute of Fiscal Studies director Paul Johnson said "colossal" cuts would be required to reduce the budget to those levels. Some £55 billion ($85.91 billion) would be slashed from government spending, in addition to £35 billion ($54.6 billion) already cut.

"If we move in anything like this direction, whilst continuing to protect health and pensions, the role and shape of the state will have changed beyond recognition," Johnson said.

Other economists have questioned just how much further Britain can tighten its belt.

Berenberg chief U.K. economist Rob Wood said few other countries spend as little as 35% of GDP, and those that do typically don't have public healthcare or face less pressure from an aging population.

Osborne says the U.K. needs to live within its means. His opponents say he's inflicting needless pain on vulnerable groups and growth could be less robust than expected as a consequence.

A deterioration in tax receipts has depleted Britain's coffers and pushed back hopes of a budget surplus. Back in 2010, the U.K. government forecast a deficit of less than $62.5 billion this year. That projection is now more than $140.6 billion....
http://money.cnn.com/2014/12/08/news/ec ... d=HP_River

http://www.eia.gov/countries/cab.cfm?fips=UK
The UK became a net importer of petroleum products in 2013, making it a net importer of all fossil fuels for the first time since at least the early 1970s. The UK government, aware of the country's increasing reliance on imported fuels, has developed key energy policies to address the domestic production declines. These include: using enhanced recovery from current and maturing oil and gas fields, promoting energy efficiency, decreasing the use of fossil fuels and thus reliance on imports, promoting energy trade cooperation with Norway, and decarbonizing the UK economy by investing heavily in renewable energy. However, for the UK to decarbonize its economy, huge investments in the energy infrastructure are needed.

[Tikib]

Yep the UK is over as a nation but we don't have any deserts to build large amounts of csp so at least we have an excuse

[JuanP]

Thanks, Ghung. This is very interesting. The Brits will have to continue learning how to make do with less, just like most of us everywhere. This was coming for a very long time. The British government has failed miserably in dealing with the coming energy crisis, IMO.

[sjn]

Thanks, Ghung. This is very interesting. The Brits will have to continue learning how to make do with less, just like most of us everywhere. This was coming for a very long time. The British government has failed miserably in dealing with the coming energy crisis, IMO.

They have failed miserably, it's true. Unfortunately, I think the current government are true believers in the miracle of shale, and see detractors as basically irrational potential eco-terroists. The predominant policy trends are, it appears to me:

* Talk up climate concerns internationally (to bring down prices for imported fuels?) while ramping up fossil production and consumption at home

* Subsidise oil and gas production (tax breaks and incentives for marginal north sea production, and direct funding for shale exploration and production!)

* Support the financial services sector directly bailouts and QE as needed and indirectly by for example propping up housing prices by providing funds for mortgages and diposits

* Dispose of all local public services; with the belief the free market or "Big Society" will step in to fill the gaps

Frame every opinion unsupportive of government policy as extremist and therefore illegal (yes, that's right, the thought crime of holding "extreme" views is going to be criminalised and those deemed to be potential terrorists subject to banning orders)

In the end, this basically leaves government as a legislative, tax raising and enforcement body at the bequest of the City of London financiers, without any benefit or practical use to the people of Britian. One wonders why the Scots wanted to stay on board..

[sjn]

Isn't that the truth, JuanP. Dumb British twits could have invested their oil wealth in sustainable development; solar, more and better electric trains, urban infill around rail stations, EV charging networks. Instead they went for the Vegas thing. Dumb twits.

Up until the 1960s, the UK had an extensive branch rail system which meant use of personal auto-transport was entirely unnecessary. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeching_cuts It's not easy to go back. At the time town and village life centred around the railway station, but since then the development of trunk rail line and road transport network has concentrated development around the major urban centres London, Birmingham, Manchester etc and left smaller towns and villages depopulated and cut off.

[sjn]

From your link (in the comments) sjn:

Anonymous Coward, Sep 30th, 2014 @ 10:23am
I propose that anyone proposing proposals that ban anyone from proposing proposals be banned from proposing proposals!

[ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

We are a witty lot, eh?

Does sound like an excellent idea!

[ROCKMAN]

As a rule I don’t post political editorials but the link was sent to me by a Brit so I’ll make an exception this time. His comment about the link:

“I have a unique and profoundly experiential viewpoint on each of George's topics as I sit and read and watch the EU, including England, slip deeply day by day into the political and financial abyss , all resulting from their misguided experiment in highly progressive Socialism and wealth re-distribution, accompanied by their disastrous immigration and health care policies. It is likely only two or three of the states of the EU block remain viable entities, with the Euro currency in a relentless decline.”

Warning: this may be hazardous to one's liberal slant: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ ... story.html

[PrestonSturges]

My wife's grandparents (when they were alive) remembered trolley/train networks out to tiny Pennsylvania farm villages. Granny could take a trolley to Allentown, then catch a train to Philly. The entire state was crisscrossed with different trains lines that all converged in the big cities. It must have been great. But of course that was a waste of time, from the managers perspective. Time spent on a train was better spent hustling for the boss. From the managers perspective.

Very often "the end of the line" was an amusement park out in the country. You could go everywhere switching from one local trolley system to the next. Of course a lot of this was about moving factory workers and goods. I was in an old deserted country store in PA and he had a blueprint style map of all the narrow gauge railroads that had criss-crossed the county to service the coal mines. I offered him $100 for it but he refused - he probably died with that thing still on the wall. Cool place - it still had gas lamp fixtures that were made to run on acetylene, not natural gas, and somewhere there was a central tank where they would have put carbide and water to make the gas.

[PrestonSturges]

Keep in mind that when WW2 broke out the British soldiers often had rotten teeth and sunken chests while the German soldiers were big and healthy as race horses. Better genetics? No, Hitler knew he needed to spend money on things like childhood nutrition to have a strong army.

[Keith_McClary]

* Subsidise oil and gas production (tax breaks and incentives for marginal north sea production, and direct funding for shale exploration and production!)

Decline of British Coal

[sjn]

As a rule I don’t post political editorials but the link was sent to me by a Brit so I’ll make an exception this time. His comment about the link:

“I have a unique and profoundly experiential viewpoint on each of George's topics as I sit and read and watch the EU, including England, slip deeply day by day into the political and financial abyss , all resulting from their misguided experiment in highly progressive Socialism and wealth re-distribution, accompanied by their disastrous immigration and health care policies. It is likely only two or three of the states of the EU block remain viable entities, with the Euro currency in a relentless decline.”

Warning: this may be hazardous to one's liberal slant: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ ... story.html

This image of England as highly progressive would have been true for the period following WW2, as PrestonSturges alludes to, lessons were learnt about the importance of having a fit and healthy populace. The British National Health Service wasn't born from altruism, but the realisation that it was in the national interest to prevent endemic ill health and subsequent poor worker productivity. Such systems do not have to cost more than lost to that alternative.

The capture of, and gaming of the systems put in place over the decades are a function of human nature, it's unavoidable to a large degree, but it isn't helped by having a highly hierarchical political economy. Probably the greatest weakness of a hierarchical system of governance and economic control is it's only necessary to corrupt/sponsor a very few individuals to have a controlling influence over society. Indeed if those who rise to power themselves have a strong idealogical drive and vision it can end up quite radically reshaping the political landscape. I don't know if a more distributed, anarchic, indeed democratic system would work, although I should be careful what I write!

There are still some strong vestiges of Socialism in the UK, the welfare state does still provide a minimal level of support to the poorest in society and some manage to game the system for all it's worth, although many working poor are now increasingly facing hunger. At least the NHS is still available to all, although the funds spent on expensive drugs and extreme measures (plus fertility treatments!) doesn't make it as good value as it should be. It's another unfortunate example of capture and gaming of the system.

Thoughtful people generally aren't supportive of Big Government, after all the purpose of government is to do that thinking for them. Bigger the government, the more control those at the top have, the more authoritarian they are, and more interested in only looking out for maintaining their privilege and position. The system loses accountability.

[PrestonSturges]

This image of England as highly progressive would have been true for the period following WW2, as PrestonSturges alludes to, lessons were learnt about the importance of having a fit and healthy populace. The British National Health Service wasn't born from altruism, but the realisation that it was in the national interest to prevent endemic ill health and subsequent poor worker productivity. Such systems do not have to cost more than lost to that alternative.

The reason England became progressive was that Churchill called an election right after the war in 1945 and he was crushed, along with the rest of the Conservative Party. Churchil gave a speech saying that labor unions were an existential threat to England, which is weird because we had just beaten Hitler who took power mainly campaigning against labor unions! FA Hayek (of Austria) had spent WW2 in the UK rather than returning home to fight with his Austrian countryman, Hitler. It seemed like Churchill was trying to commit England to a return to the prewar economic and class structure.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/ ... n_01.shtml

In the opening broadcast of the campaign, on 4 June, he warned that the introduction of Socialism into Britain would require '... some form of Gestapo, no doubt very humanely directed in the first instance.' This preposterous allegation, apparently inspired by Friedrich Hayek's book Road to Serfdom (1944), was likely to impress no one except the most loyal and unquestioning of Tories. There is no evidence, however, to suggest that it cost Churchill many votes, still less that it cost him the election.

[Tanada]

Isn't that the truth, JuanP. Dumb British twits could have invested their oil wealth in sustainable development; solar, more and better electric trains, urban infill around rail stations, EV charging networks. Instead they went for the Vegas thing. Dumb twits.

Up until the 1960s, the UK had an extensive branch rail system which meant use of personal auto-transport was entirely unnecessary. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeching_cuts It's not easy to go back. At the time town and village life centred around the railway station, but since then the development of trunk rail line and road transport network has concentrated development around the major urban centres London, Birmingham, Manchester etc and left smaller towns and villages depopulated and cut off.

My wife's grandparents (when they were alive) remembered trolley/train networks out to tiny Pennsylvania farm villages. Granny could take a trolley to Allentown, then catch a train to Philly. The entire state was crisscrossed with different trains lines that all converged in the big cities. It must have been great. But of course that was a waste of time, from the managers perspective. Time spent on a train was better spent hustling for the boss. From the managers perspective.

My parents could travel to the county seat and board the DUR, Detroit Urban Railroad, right up into the late 1950's and for a very low fee ride from Novi, north of Detroit, to Toledo, Ohio. The combination of the Interstate Highway System (I-75) and a certain auto company buying and closing electric railroads that competed with its business ended the DUR in the late 1950's. Part of the road bed was converted to widen a state highway (M-125) and the rest was bought by Detroit Edison and reused as a right of way for high tension power lines.

[PrestonSturges]

It would be impossible to describe to the rest of the world the blind hatred of American conservatives for trains. It seems to be unique in the world.