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Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Ineos Knows EF + CE = FG, But GO'D Doesn't

     Via the GWPF comes a round-up of news about the closure of Grangemouth petrochemical plant.

   "Its chairman singles out energy costs, which he says has been driven up by high environmental taxes on consumers.

In a rare interview, chairman Jim Ratcliffe told the Financial Times that Grangemouth was “at a crossroads”.

“To have a future, it needs cheap feedstocks . . . and a sensible cost structure,” he said. “If we can’t resolve those issues, it would need to shut down.”

and

   "Jim Ratcliffe, chief executive of Ineos, one of the world’s largest chemicals groups, says the danger is that some companies, especially manufacturers, will move to places where energy is cheaper. “It’s fine being very, very green, but not if you’re interested in manufacturing,” he says.

“The UK is already disadvantaged on the wholesale cost of energy, and then it puts taxes on it. Anybody who’s an energy user is just going to disappear.”

    So while we will doubtless see the obedient media telling us it is the fault of mulish unions or evil bosses the true blame for this lies in the hands of our LabNatConDemGreen cartel who voted with  Soviet style unanimity for the most expensive, restrictive and destructive legislation against "catastrophic global warming" in the world.

     It takes rare talent to make an oil refinery onshore from Europe's biggest oil field uneconomic but our ruling cartel have shown they are up to the job.

     In this case it is worth noting BBC Newsnight's hustings for the Dunfermline by election. According to the BBC the main issue was the potential closure of a few rural schools. Windfarms were simply not on the agenda and Grangemouth was relegated to the end. The BBC also decided to ask all the candidates to speak about the latter except Peter Adams the UKIP one who apparently had somehow become invisible to the beeboids. Peter did make a point of aying so, therby losing the chance to speak in the last round too. This is how a state owned "balanced" propagandist behaves not a journalist. The Green candidate was stupid enough to say they didn't want Ineos to put any more money into the plant and they should instead put the money into subsidy dependent "greenery". That is, of course, lunatic but it is the policy of all the approved parties and she deserves a little credit for being more honest than the LabNatConDems.

      Hopefully the people of  Dunfermline will recognise, even at this stage, that UKIP are not their best friends on the ballot - they are their only friends on the ballot.
==================================

    Other news today is that the former head of the civil service Gus O'Donnell (aka GOD) has produced a pdf of how to solves what he agrees are the dreadful problems of the British economy. This is the comment I put on it on Douglas Carswell's:

    "I just read GO'D's words and apart from "unfortunately our main trading partner, the euro area, is unlikely to increase its demand for UK exports very much in the short or medium terms. Our historical trading patterns, which have been so beneficial in the past, are likely to condemn us to the global slow lane for years to come" which explains exactly why we should quit the EU as quickly as possible, I was not impressed.

He says it is "unfortunate" that government is no longer believed able to solve problems but this popular recognition is a necessary foundation for the free market, small state, economy we need.
He says the basic problem is low productivity but has not a single word pointing out that this in turn is a symptom of our energy scarcity.

Economic Freedom + Cheap Energy = Fast Growth but GO'D has barely recognised the first and is wholly ignorant of the 2nd, let alone willing to say anything against the Green Luddites who set our policy (but then the civil service fund most luddism and use it to encourage more civil service expansion).

90% of our electricity costs are state-parasitism and since there is a 1:1 correlation between energy use & gdp we could clearly get into fast growth any time our political class were to allow us energy without their parasitism.

Although his suggestion that civil servants be allowed to see if people are "qualified" before allowing them to stand for election, has drawn most media attention, he has nothing to say about what "qualification" is required - I suspect that studying the diletantte "PPE" degree would be qualification but being unable to see the catastrophic global warming we are alleged to be suffering from would mean disqualification.

In 8 pages the only truly useful line is that cutting nursery costs would improve productivity (something I blogged on ages ago). British nursery care cost 40% of an average wage while in Estonia it is 6%. Clearly 85% of the cost is state regulatory parasitism and yes it does prevent people going back to work."
 

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