The Earth's Plentiful (?) Bounty

I'm not a fan of the crass headline, but I am pleased to see that the Daily Mail is interested in tackling the subject of oil reserve depletion:

According to David Strahan, a respected business journalist and author of the new book, the early warnings of an oil crisis were correct in every respect, save their timing.

In the next couple of decades or so, he argues, our civilisation will have crossed a point where the peak of oil discovery and production has been reached.

From then on, the story will be of dwindling supplies and rising prices.

Is he right? Well, he marshals some impressive arguments. The rate at which we discover oil has indeed been falling for 40 years.

In the Sixties, geologists found some 55 billion barrels a year. Today, the figure is down to just 9 billion barrels.

Most worryingly, we now consume three barrels for every new one discovered, and out of the 98 oilproducing nations, 60 (including the UK) are now in terminal decline.

Tax revenues here are dropping as North Sea oil production declines.

Indeed, Britain will become a permanent net importer of oil next year - according to The Oil Depletion Analysis Centre - and then our balance of payments and energy security will begin to deteriorate.

Strahan says: "It's the end of a gravy train for Britain."

Indeed. Our trade deficit is already dire and we haven't begun to the feel the pinch of being a net oil importer.

Let's remember that although it is difficult to fix a peak in the production of oil, - Strahan has predicited 2020 by the way - it doesn't change the basic fact that easy oil just isn't being discovered anymore. Tar sands may be numerous, but are far more difficult and expensive to extract than sweet light crude. And then there is demand, which shows no sign of abating. This all points towards oil trending higher and higher, at the very moment Britain is becoming a net oil importer.

So, all in all, I'm thinking Tony got his timing just right. As for you Gordon...oh dear.

Propping-up Fundamentals

What was it Tony Blair said about marriage and single parentage? Do I look bovvered? No, that's not it, although it does show that Tony missed his true vocation in life. It was, in fact, said to be a 'good thing', but we shouldn't see it as a 'marriage versus lone parentage', contest.

Well, Tony, your Chancellor does see it as a contest, and he comes down hard on the side of single-parents:

Parents who earn less than £50,000 a year would be better off splitting up, it was claimed.

Benefits and taxes are weighed so heavily in favour of lone-parent families that couples need to bring in twice the national average income before staying together has a financial advantage, a report said.

Research by Patricia Morgan for the Institute of Economic Affairs think-tank, has provided more evidence that large numbers are either living apart or hiding the fact they are a couple just so they can hold on to tax credits and benefits.

Brown's motivation is an interesting question. I'd suggest that the housing market may be one of his main concerns, and with the twin policies of mass-immigration and encouragement of living alone, the current government has created a demand for 250,000 new houses per year. Like I've said before, the fundamentals are probably the most important part of the housing market's increase, although I still believe that speculation is also a main cause for the boom, so to shore them up probably seems like a good idea. And, the recent havoc created by the American market's decline, probably strengthened this belief.

The social consequences, however, will far outweigh any temporary benefits derived from this easy-money non wealth-creating situation. So, we now know where to look for the where and when of our society's further descent into the abyss.