THE BRITISH THREAD II

I spent 20 years flying fighters from carrier decks including two combat tours, and have lots of memories of squadron mates who didn't make it back - so I don't buy your vapid 'social speak' generalities about taking risks. Moreover my lifestyle is not materially different from that of most Americans ( we don't have a permanent aristocracy here).

The two things are not connected George. Many others have seen friends not make it back. I don't see what that has to do with the risk calculus of cheap gas or whether you buy it or not. Don't blame me for the facts. Asserting they are "vapid" is ridiculous. That has nothing to do with anything.

You were challenged to answer the arguments not to once again parade your heroic exploits.

I would guess most Americans would dispute your claim about your lifestyle.

Perhaps you would take the trouble to explain what that assemblage of words really means.

I filled the gas tank in my automobile this afternoon. The price for 91 octane fuel was $3.25/gallon (There is considerable state-to-state variation in the price).

There are risks attendant to the production of all of the commodities and goods we consume - food, energy, clothing, etc. The EU threatens African nations with a comprehensive ban on the import of all their agricultural products if they dare to use any of the genetically engineered seeds that promise yet another agricultural revolution analogous to the introduction of the "miracle rice" that ended centuries of starvation in British ruled India. Who bears the risks there?

The British government induced the United States to finance a coup in Iran. overthrowing PM Mohammad Moussadech in 1954 so that the Anglo Iranian oil company could continue extracting 90% of the profits of the company (a predecessor of BP), (and end the unrest at their persian Gulf refinery at Abadan ) as opposed to the 50-50 split the US had recently concluded with Saudi Arabia, an arrangement which Moussadech sought with the British. The rationale of the British labor government was that they needed the money to pay social welfare benefits to British citizens - even though oppression and poverty in Iran was the consequence. President Truman had resisted the British pressures, but newly inaugurated President Eisenhower assented - and the deed was done. There is evidence suggesting that he later concluded that he had made a serious error, and that influenced his decision less than two years later to tell the British, French and Israelis to get out of Suez after their invasion in 1956.

You don't know my lifestyle and I don't know yours. Furthermore I doubt that you know much about "typical" American lifestyles.

Do you really mean to imply that the heavy taxes imposed on the sale of petroleum products in Britain absolves British consumers of moral responsibility for the risks, suffering and damage attendant to its production?

I can't answer such facile generalisations George. There are books written on many of the points you raise. Miracle food production should start off by studying Malthus. The population of organisms will expand to eat the food available. But it won't just eat food. Europe introduced "Set aside" to prevent a repeat of butter mountains and wine lakes. Farmers were paid to leave millions of acres of good land unfarmed. Why take the risks of genetic modification? Not to boost Monsanto's profits I hope.

I took the gas price in the US from a news item two nights ago on CBS News.



You only need replace "induced" by "seduced" and you've made the US look like a deflowered virgin. A Marine wouldn't believe that. You then move on, to keep the metaphor going, that her regret caused her to make another large error. As if.



Come on old boy. You've passed out enough info for us to make a reasonable guess as to your lifestyle. I watch CBS, CNN and FOX enough to get a picture of average American lifestyles. Way below your's I would have said. And we know your general attitude to status markers. It's hardly likely they are confined to A2K. I don't own a car. My leisure activities are conducted entirely with walking distance. About 400 yards. The pub and back. 24/7/365.



No--I don't. Most of them are nearly as bad as you lot and would be just as bad if they had enough money.

Do you dispute that the cause of the Gulf oil spill is insatiable demand for oil? And nothing else. One of the issues in your last election was offshore drilling. Why was it an issue? There's no dispute if there's no risk.

Mr Bush didn't use the word "addicted" in the State of the Union speech casually. Every word of such speeches is carefully considered. He meant like with heroin. And the Global Warming lobby has a giant risk at the other end as well.

I think you're waffling George. And I don't think you should use your dead miltary comrades to prop it up.

Foul, Spendy. Below the belt.

Risk: are you saying that oil companies ar entitled to take risks, which they can evaluate, with others' lives and livelihoods?
They have wiped out the fishing and most of the ecology in the Gulf of Mexico. How dare they do that, even if we do need ever more oil. The CEO of BP says he "wants to get his life back". I say he can have it back when the fishermen have got theirs.

No--I didn't say that Mac. I said we require them to take risks. We demand it of them. It's their duty. We pay them top dollar to ensure somebody will.

World oil consumption is 85 million bbl/day. Per bloody day. That's 31,000 million bbl/year. George's lot alone do in 21 million bbl/day and they have a recession on. Malta's on 17,00o bbl/day.

Let's take the moon landing enterprise as an example. When the astronauts arrived back they were put through a process to try to ensure they didn't bring anything back with them which might be detrimental to our well being. No doubt it was an expensive process as well as being tiresome.

In other words a risk was officially recognised on the advice of scientists. An unquantified risk too. The virus ZONK was discussed.

A risk was taken at Aberfan in order to keep the cost of coal down.

They say we are taking a gigantic risk of global warming and there is no other reason for it to be taken other than to keep the consumer jamboree going. So that you can go to B&Q in your car and buy a load of crap that makes you feel better. Fly to other countries on a whim. Soak in a hot bath. You get the picture. Before us everybody had managed on the energy the sun laid down each day. That's why we think they were "backward". And are "backward" today if they are still relying on the old sun. That lawnmower you bought probably represents, at a wild guess, 3 months sunshine stored up in the vaults of the earth. Maybe 30 year's worth.

How about the unasked for risk to the aboriginal Indians which Europeans took when we went to explore the Americas.

You've been reading those ladies magazines again.

It isn't just that we need ever more oil. It is because we need ever more oil at a cheap price. It could be said that we are truly addicted to that. By which I mean a collective nervous breakdown if it goes seriously wrong. That would be a risk to take. They will soon stop pumping oil if nobody wants to use it.

And the regulations HAVE to take that into account. Regulators could devise rules to any safety standards the public is willing to pay for. And there would still be a risk. But until things like this happen it's all out of sight out of mind. You just call in at the gas station and fill the tank up at $3, the price of a cheap pint, moaning and groaning about it only being $2.90 last week. On a 40 mile round trip to get a pizza like one A2Ker boasted of doing. ci. boasted of trips of thousands of miles to get the squitteroonies. And you all praised him and a bunch of the worst photographs it has ever been my painful duty to scrutinise. And insulted me for questioning the wisdom of such extreme profilgacy.

Poor Spendi. He apparently believes in a world that is perfectable at the benign hand of bureaucratic regulation of human activities. Even setting aside the implications of this view for individual human freedom and initiative, this is at best a foolish notion. What could be more ludicrous than the notion that brueaucrats administering, generally rigid and slowly changing, regulations will usually outsmart, or be more energetic and agile than, crooks and exploiters motivated by self-interest and greed ? Here in the states our current government is working hard to create more regulations to restrain our financial markets, adding new powers to the same bureaucracies that failed to catch Bernie Madoff in a fifteen (or more) year gigantic Ponzi scheme. If there is a better example of human folly, I can't think of it.

I'm not arguing against the creation & enforcement of laws limiting various forms of crime - only suggesting that they restrain only the least aggressive, acquisitive or violent criminals. For the others only the example of retribution will be effective. (This principle will likely apply with BP as well as potential new owners circle about.)

Spendi apparently also believes that the existence of people who are willing to buy something (petroleum in his example) compels others to produce it. This is a novel argument that, for those who believe it, could be used to rationalize any form of criminal behavior.

The world uses petroleum because it is a uniquely plentiful and easily transported and used source of energy. This abundant energy is what supports the existence of the six or so billion humans who now inhabit this earth. Its use does far more good than harm. The sappy and credulous consumers of global warming catastrophe scenarios generally avoid any discussion of the economic, social and human consequences of their prescriptions. Admittedly they are very busy fudging the scientific data; excluding from publication in scientific journals those who are skeptical of their prescriptions; and rationalizing obvious facts like chaos and absolute unpredictability in non-linear dynamic systems, and our inability to reliably forecast the weather more than seven or eight days into the future - even after four decades of Moore's law and the associated 20 or so doublings of computational power.

They and their compatriot green worshipers of the contemporary god, earth, appear to forget that this benign earth (1) is finite and will have a firey end as the swelling red giant sun envelops it in a few billion years; (2) has never been stable; (3) has engineered at least two mass extinctions in the observable physical record; and (4) is now in an interglacial age - and readying itself for the next one.

In their long advertising campaign under "Lord'"Browne, BP invested large sums in attempting to convince the public that they were "Beyond Petroleum" and were really producers of the new clean, green energy of the future. Even apart from the fact that this was not and is not true, this was a nonsensical campaign for a petroleum company. Now it turns out they weren't really very good at extracting petroleum either. BP's market capitalization is now down about 25% from its pre-catastrophe level. Basic market forces will likely soon create new owners of BP as it wakes up to find itself part of Shell or Exxon, thus eliminating the management that delivered this disaster, and, with it, the utility of regulatory "reform" for them. (Nonetheless, over here, our misguided government will likely pursue this course.)

Spendi has adopted a new (in my perception) and somewhat mean-spirited tactic of personal attacks on those who express ideas he doesn't like. That's unfortunate. It makes him look a bit dipso-foolish.

Goodness gracious George. I didn't know that a bit of straight talk would upset you that much. Are you feeling a bit guilty about 5% of the world's population, 2% if you discount America's poor, consuming 25% of oil production?

I'll try to take a more detailed look at your bullshit tomorrow when my tittering might have subsided.

It is normal to simply shake the head slowly when uttering such phrases rather than engaging in long-winded explanations.



I don't see any alternative to proceeding along that course George. We have placed a mighty collective bet on it.



Individual human freedom and initiative imply a simple field of action. I hardly think we are faced with anything like that today. But assertions of that nature are in need of some justifications. Obviously you think that your own capacity for freedom and initiative is shared by the remainder of Americans.



The project is by no means perfected yet. We could crucify a few in Central Park. That would diminish the energy and agility of the crooks pretty efficiently I should imagine.



I'm not ashamed of believing that. It seems pretty obvious to me. The prostitute is the classic and, they say, the oldest example. What would anybody invest billions of $$$$$ to produce 80 million barrels of oil a day, and refine it, if there was no demand for it. The interesting aspect is whence the demand.



I don't follow you there George. A few jibes to wake you up might be well intentioned rather than mean-spirited. As someone who has been subjected to thousands of personal attacks in defending the religion you profess it is surprising that you single me out for censure after having had nothing to say about those.

I prefer to allow the courts to decide on BP's culpability in the matter of the oil spill. Does not British support for American policy in Iraq and Afghanistan run as far as even the benefit of the doubt until the evidence has been heard?

Apart from unresolvable civil claims for damages it isn't a judicial matter, and, despite its boastful assertions, our government won't make the key decisions in the matter. The real punishment for BP will come from the capital market which now values the company at less than 75% of its value on the day of the explosion. The accumulating costs of the containment & cleanup operation and subsequent claims could well depress its market value much further. At some point soon it may become the target of a hostile takeover, and, even with British government support, it could find itself beyond saving.

It seems to me that, in view of its former role in creating the present instability throughout the former Ottoman Empire - and in Iraq particularly - the British support for these actions is not so much a favor to us but an historical obligation.

As for the other ideas which you reasserted above, they fundamentally contradict the religious views which you claim to so stoutly defend.

I'm interested in what you mean by that George. I don't know what religious views you are referring to.



You shouldn't be telling us all that. You should be shorting BP all on your own whilst talking the share price back up. Maybe you're buying BP whilst talking it down. Whatever price it is today it is a valuation made by experts.



I think it best to leave that snapshot of history for another day.

On this day the British are supporting the US actions. At cost of treasure and lives. All I said was that at the least a benefit of the doubt might be extended to BP until the evidence has been heard in view of that fact. The anti-British rush to premature judgment is hardly becoming of an ex-military officer.

The British government, when it announced its participation in the Iraq venture, said it was doing so for its own objective reasons and not to "help" the United States in any way. Was that a lie? Assuming some validity in your "benefit of the doubt" thesis, I assume the U.S. enjoys a great deal of such benefit for the lives and treasure (to quote your words) sacrificed to preserve the British empire during the wars of the 20th century. The truth is that countries (yours and mine included) act in accordance with their perceived self-interest.

I'm not aware of any "rush to judgement", anti British or otherwise - at least on my part. BP caused the spill: that is self evident. I'm not advocating any punative government action against BP. It is the direct losses associated with containment and compensation to those directly injured that are likely to bring BP down. I'll readily agree that our greens and other credulous believers in sappy global warming theories (like the British government and our current administration) are likely to demand punative action (though the British government will likely, in this case, overcome its green instincts in the interests of British capital and the various Lordlings on the BP Board ). However, that is mostly empty rhetoric for the continued satisfaction of their soft-headed supporters.

The truth is we and the world need the petroleum, and those who extract it are not criminals, though they may occasionaly be incompetant and careless. Market forces have their way of driving out incompetent and careless managements. It is only incidental that this incompetent and careless crew distinguished itself in a supremely hypocritical effort to rebrand itself as "Beyond Petroleum". Beyond indeed !

I can agree with most of that George. Beyond Petroleum is indeed silly but I assume BP was addressing a silly audience.



I can't agree with that at this stage. Emotions are running rampant. Understandably.



Even at today's price of £3.93 the market capitalisation of BP is around £75 billion. That's a long way from the market driving BP out of business and another company swallowing such a bite is not easy to contemplate. There might be monopoly legislation to overcome as well.

I daresay that a large amount of American money is invested in BP.

Out of 40 brokers recommendations today 21 go for "strong buy", 8 for "buy", 8 are neutral, 2 for "sell" and 1 for "strong sell". I assume that these brokers have their ear to the ground.

By the way, Americans don't do hostile takeovers.

They do hostel takeovers.

Did some Americans cause a flood at a hostel? W

Perhaps we ought not to discuss what Americans have caused.

No real argument there - except for BP's ultimate responsibility under contract law. It has already come out in the Interior Department's hearings on the matter that day to day and minute to minute operations of everyone on the drilling platform were being directed by the BP drilling engineers (mostly Americans from Houston).

The American President and administration that Europeans cheered so much has turned out to be a rather shallow, narcissistic and vengeful fellow, who appears to be in it all way over his head - just the sort to victimize others to protect himself. He has already threatened heavy fines on BP, and this, still unresolved, incident and an earlier BP refinery fire that involved a number of fatalities, will make such actions both easy and very popular among folks in the political left here.

If all that happens and the oil continues to flow the bill could indeed threaten BP's status. Just the threat of bankrupcy is usually enough for an hostile takeover to succeed with frightened stockholders, who, as you noted, include many Americans.. I don't know enough about the business to be sure there are willing and able candidates for such a move, , and I don't know enough about BP's governance to be sure there aren't any 'poision pills' that could prevent it, but it wouldn't suprise me.

This is near enough to my view of the matter George--



Blaming BP when they had in effect been ordered to get oil at all costs in the manner of the Wild West is mere scapegoating.

Anybody " seeing" Mr Obama's grand entrance into London for a conference a while back can be forgiven for thinking the addiction truly had hit bottom.

Can "goody-goodies" keep your gas at $3? That's the real question. Can your economy afford $8 which is what we pay? Are critics of BP anti-American?

As I said earlier--the oil companies can have any safety procedures the public is willing to pay for. The Bargain Hunter forces the issue. And then starts yelping when his own logic comes to its inevitable conclusion.

The pelicans so much fuss is being made over were almost destroyed by pesticides used to get at cheap food. And the suffering of that species is miniscule compared to that of the chicken which is the sacred totem of the world's oldest religion and the latter suffering is deliberate.

Have a look at The End of Suburbia : Oil Depletion and the Collapse of The American Dream is a 2004 documentary film concerning peak oil and its implications for the suburban lifestyle, written and directed by Toronto-based filmmaker Gregory Greene. 78 minutes. Available to watch online.

And the American Dream is the subliminial subtext of almost every advert.

"Can your economy afford $8 which is what we pay?"

no.

that would effectively stop the poor from driving. and many from working.

and your defense of BP's arrogant disregard for safety and environmental concerns is annoying.