The Oil Drum: Europe | Energy Prices, Inflation and Denial

77 comments on Energy Prices, Inflation and Denial

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xeroid on June 11, 2008 - 5:01am

Energy prices are rising exponentially - and I gotta assume that no one in government actually understands what that means.

We live in a free country with free markets - that means that the Government policy is to allow us, within the law, to make our own decisions about what to do with our futures - we can live where we want, work where we want, say what we want, buy what we want.

Even if they know that the gas or oil is running out in the UK, the Government assumes (since it has worked well for a very long time) that 'the free market will provide' by reponding to price signals. The UK Government promotes a climate where energy research can be carried out since they do not know which future technologies (if any) will be adequate.

When we wonder about the future price of energy the true answer is NOBODY KNOWS, but, rather than plainly saying that, people such as BERR or CERA give us predictions that are obviously wrong (to anybody, like you and me, that thinks about it) ... as you say, in the case of BERR not even meeting the government inflation target of 2%. The Government wants the people to think it is in some kind of control for as long as possible otherwise they will be voted from power - for better or worse it is the British way whichever party is in charge.

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Termoil on June 11, 2008 - 11:24am

We get the governments we deserve unfortunately, but the alternative is worse. Politicians who ring alarm bells about this simply won't get elected and those who think they can sneak into parliament and then boldly leap out as peak oil advocates soon find the party system does not allow them a free voice. Perhaps democracy as we have known it is about to undergo it's own radical adjustment as it moves from a manager of consumer-industrial society to whatever comes next.

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MUDLOGGER on June 11, 2008 - 2:48pm

>>TO WHATEVER COMES NEXT<<

Aye, there's the rub.

What comes next could be extremely unpleasant and we now head into uncharted waters.

It is possible that Democracy and the rights of man are less to do with the enlightenment and more to do with access to energy.

Wood based societies such as Medieval Europe and Edo-Japan were highly feudal and rigorously class based. Coal, and later oil came hand in hand with Democracy as cheap energy enabled the common weal and an emergent middle class to spend time on other things than back breaking work and a dawn to dusk work pattern.

I would specifically refer to such things as the 'Mechanics Institutes' of industrial towns where young men , who left school at 13 were able to improve their lots by learning after factory shifts.

- Both about Engineering and politics and philosophy.

I would hazard further that the lot and empowerment of women is distinctly related to cheap energy and a the liberation from place by access to goods that run on cheap energy.

We could pass through one of many of several future states:

- Establishment (Army) Coup
- Elected and then perpetual National Socialism
- Dark age, later emerging as feudalism.

I doubt that OMOV democracy with consensual or even civilised adversarial politics will make it. It is simply unaffordable and it is a very recent flirtation conjoined with cheap energy.

Today, the nation that brought you the Magna Carta, the Forrest Carta, the Glorious Revolution, basically pissed on Habeus Corpus.

42 days for a FILTHY STINKING TERRORIST ! - sounds acceptable. Wait until they do you on some jumped up charge - maybe for reading this site, or disagreeing with the PM?

Who knows where this could lead...

We already know that Local Councils are using RIPA Terrorism legislation to snoop on rate payers. Britain is not immune. For every free-born Brit against these impositions, there is an anal, furtive, control freak who goes to bed at night wondering if someone, some where can be stopped from doing what they are doing and controlled.

Our same betters also left a folder full of Al Quaeda fun and naughty secrets on a train today. (Brutality + Incompetence is very Nazi...)

Do not expect things to stay the same.

That is true for Liberal, enlightened democracy as it is for energy and the economy.

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DaveMart on June 12, 2008 - 6:13am

- Dark age, later emerging as feudalism.

Hey, enough of the mindless optimism!
Society in the middle ages just like that in the Ancient world was dependent on mining high grade resources, which are now gone.
Of course, it could be argued that the remains of our civilisation would provide an equivalent resource, but during the descent they would likely have rusted away.
Civilisation if a one-shot deal.
Of course, we might eventually reach the level of the stone age - shame that we used most of the best flints.....

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