Monday 15 December 2014

Osborne and Oil

Some laud Osborne for being clever, always a dubious epithet in cynical Britain.  I wonder if he's remembered his cunning 2011 wheeze, the 'Fuel Duty Stabilizer', which set Fuel Duty to rise automatically in the event the price of oil fell below $75.

Probably seemed a bit hypothetical back then, with oil at $90 and rising.  So, Genius George, what happens now ? 

More generally: how are you going to parlay this economic windfall into a Conservative victory ?  Better not squandor this one.

ND

Footnote:  the new 17% interest rate in Russia must ring mournful bells for Cameron, who in 1992 was SPADing for Norman Lamont when the latter fatally announced a rate of 15%.

8 comments:

CityUnslicker said...

$59 this morning, hard to pick a bottom in the trend at the moment. Huge sell-off in OIl risk assets.

Good news overall I guess, shame about the greenies eh?!

Nick Drew said...

greenies, reds and scotties, couldn't happen to a nicer bunch

to all our Scottish readers: - just joking

Anonymous said...

If the price drops below break even point for US shale, is it possible to buy the cheap foreign oil, say, "Thanks very much, chaps!", and then restart the shale program once OPEC bump their prices back up. Or will closing the US shale wells destroy set the industry so far back it'll ruin too many and make it very expensive to start up again?

It would be great to use OPEC's cheap oil up first. Then tell them to f**k off.

dearieme said...

"always a dubious epithet in cynical Britain": my experience is that you should replace "Britain" by "England" there. Scots seem perfectly happy to describe people as clever without any pejorative intent.

Jan said...

If the intention is to "break" Russia I think we may live to regret it.

Jer said...

Jan - yep, we've done a lot of damage already to Russian sentiment towards the West. If Putin were to fall the clamour would be for someone more nationalistic and probably more militant too.

Russia isn't a great economic power, but she is a great military one.

Sebastian Weetabix said...

This Scottish reader is chuckling heartily at the fact the penny still hasn't dropped for my "low-informatinon" compatriots, viz: SNP members.

BE said...

ND this is why I have to come back to this blog after a good long break.

You mention TWO thoughts in a single post which have been whizzing around in the last couple of days.

Why DIDN'T George take the opportunity to engage his "stabiliser"? Currying the votes of White Van Man? Maybe, but at the risk of losing mine. Whoops, too late.

And memories of White Wednesday. I saw something about Apple having restricted rTunes or something. I remember on White Wednesday the computer teacher at school (yes) was worrying because he had just ordered some new Macs...

Anyway. When is George going to cut public spending?