Kevin Rudd

[2020hindsight]

Re: Does Rudd inspire confidence?

GEEZ 20/20 IF THATS THE CASE THE OFFICE FLOOR MUST BE SPOTLESS ,ANYWAY HAVE TO GO TO WORK ,2ND JOB TO PAY FOR THE INCREASE IN FUEL,FOOD,INTEREST RATES FUNNILY ENOUGH ITS AT A BOTTLE SHOPWERE I COPE IT ALL DAY ABOUT THE ALCOPOP TAX:alcohol:

:topic
A mate of my son also works in an booze shop - told me this one

Bloke goes to the hardware shop obviously pissed
"say mate, hic - you got any metho there? I'll have a dozen bottles"
"No way" says the bloke behind the counter - "you look like you'll only drink it"
"no no hic - I'm just painting the loungggeroom, and I need it t clean the brushes!!"
"No way"
"Lishen, now I think about it, it's only a small room, I probly only need three bottles - you got hic three bottlesl? "
" ahhh ok - here's your three bottles"

...
mm "got any cold, mate?"

 

[Julia]

Re: Does Rudd inspire confidence?

2020, the thread is asking does Mr Rudd inspire confidence. It is not asking for a blow by blow rake over of every policy decision made by the former government.

We can safely assume you are a great fan of Mr Rudd. Really don't need you to attempt to justify this with endless criticisms of the previous government, however well deserved they may be.

So, some of the gloss of the honeymoon period seems to be losing its lustre.
The folk are hurting. Pensioners are taking off their clothes in protest and hitting the airwaves in increasing numbers. They are on a roll now, with the medja on their side. A couple of days ago a thread on this forum was started about 'feeling the pinch'. Many of us have responded in agreement.
And I doubt too many members of ASF are exactly struggling financially.
So the difficulties are real for a lot of people. They will blame the government. We will hear more and more that phrase : "the gummint should be doing something to fix it".

Labor partly created this expectation during the election campaign. They bleated on about how people were being hurt by rising interest, petrol and food prices. They would have a committee (or something) to monitor petrol and supermarket prices. Translation of this in the minds of the populace?
If we elect them they will stop prices rising. Doesn't matter that they didn't exactly say that. We hear what we want to hear and if it's repeated often enough it becomes the popular truth.

If we had a halfway credible Opposition, they could be having a field day at present. Instead they are mired in their internal squabbling and competitiveness.

So, do I have confidence in Mr Rudd? No. Imo he's a very articulate, polished product of his background as a diplomat and a bureaucrat. But I have no confidence in the alternative either.

 

[explod]

Re: Does Rudd inspire confidence?

Very well put above Julia.

The promises of governments going back since I have remembered has always amused. Australia is but a grain of sand in the real world scheme of things and it will and has allways been external forces that dictate the state of financial play.

Rudd, doesn't do it for me, Julia Gillard, she is a sweatee. Bob Brown as an honest politician is looking better all the time and perhaps green is the next big thing.

 

[rhen]

Re: Does Rudd inspire confidence?

2020, the thread is asking does Mr Rudd inspire confidence. It is not asking for a blow by blow rake over of every policy decision made by the former government.

Yes. it's my error, Julia. People reading the title of the thread are right to get side-tracked from my original diatribe. My cry transcends politics, yet straight-jacketed by it... the inability of leaders to open their minds to the dire necessity of a new age without the dependence on burning a valuable resource, petroleum.
Our only hope is for the individual to come to the fore...
Governments and business crave the status quo...where the easy money is.
Rudd is a mere pawn.

rhen

 

[2020hindsight]

Re: Does Rudd inspire confidence?

well imho, everything must be seen in perspective..
I mean
a) this is what Costello said the incoming govt would be faced with .. ( which obviously limits your options ..yes?)

http://www.smartcompany.com.au/Free...er-Costello-warns-of-huge-tsunami-071026.html

Henny Penny Peter Costello warns of ‘huge tsunami’
Friday, 26 October 2007
Amanda Gome

Business owners should forget about being relaxed and comfortable. Treasurer Peter Costello has just warned Australians that a “huge tsunami” is set to engulf the global financial markets, with China as its epicentre.

He told the Sydney Morning Herald that the US economy would weaken in the wake of the sub-prime mortgage meltdown and that the breakneck pace of growth in China could not continue... etc

b) Also, it's partly honeymoon, but equally, anyone would be struggling to keep the ball in the air at the moment...

c) And Howard made a heap of poor decisions first budget (at the "mean" end of the electoral cycle - whether or not he admits it - they set us back bigtime... and the biggest luddite-influence for yonks...

d) As for the concept of a "honeymoon period", I'll criticise Rudd to this extent - he doesn't have as much humour about him as Bob Hawke used to have. I recall him being challenged "is this just your honeymoon period with the press? " ...

The silver budgie replied " well, maybe, but it's high time it was consumated!!"

 

[Garpal Gumnut]

Re: Does Rudd inspire confidence?

He speaks and acts like a second rate preacher from Gympie.

He inspires no confidence in me on how he will manage this life or the next.

gg

 

[Timmy]

Rudd calls on G8 to pressure OPEC

Rudd calls on G8 to pressure OPEC

G8 reponse: Who?

 

[explod]

Re: Rudd calls on G8 to pressure OPEC

This is dreamalnd stuff for the Sheeple. OPEC can no more increase supply than the Man in the moon. The middle east oil is a sour heavy crude, and becoming more difficult to refine. A government of leadership will move in the early part of its tenure to do big things, even if unpopular, that faces the truth and can realistically solve the big problems.

Natural gas fired power stations, built to be able to convert to nuclear Asap, to power alternative transport.

Stop spending on roads, the taxes from fuel to public transport, bus and rail.

Break the monopolies of supermarkets, subsidise farmers markets to town fringes. Increased incentives to decentralise cities and ports. eg. Melbourne expansion to Portland. Make it pleasant on the outer fringes with decentralised hospitals schools. Small manufacturing will come back in with the rampant inflation of China, encourage the cottage stuff on the ourter finges and near to where our resources are.

Phew, just had dinner, so much to say, someone else please

 

[vishalt]

Re: Rudd calls on G8 to pressure OPEC

Here's a better idea: Shut down the New York Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade.

Then arrest every broker there, force them to sell down all positions, and the price of everything will be back to normal.

The developed world is using less oil and the emerging market is using more, so the trend has been balanced but the price rise hasn't.

This is all Wall Street's fault.

Each of the big banks, Citi, Bank of America, Goldman, Lehman are piling into the futures markets after horrid sub-prime losses.

They're doing that so they can inflate another bubble to recover money and then later dump it and the expense of other people, as usual.

 

[Atma]

Re: Rudd calls on G8 to pressure OPEC

Here's a better idea: Shut down the New York Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade.

Then arrest every broker there, force them to sell down all positions, and the price of everything will be back to normal.

The developed world is using less oil and the emerging market is using more, so the trend has been balanced but the price rise hasn't.

This is all Wall Street's fault.

Each of the big banks, Citi, Bank of America, Goldman, Lehman are piling into the futures markets after horrid sub-prime losses.

They're doing that so they can inflate another bubble to recover money and then later dump it and the expense of other people, as usual.

correct Vishalt. The united states are burning themselves up. All the pomp and happiness exhibited in the election rallies are fake. They are feeling the heat. Their very own institutions that did very dishonest things during the US property bubble(and later fuelled into sub prime crisis) are speculating on oil price futures contracts and sending the world into a spin. This time however, everyone knows they are doing it. No one knew about sub prime until it went to pieces.

Only NYMEX and CBOT closures or heavy regulation would force them out IMHO. world oil demand is down and reports of tankers full of oil and no one wants it. classic bubble isn't it vishalt.

I think Rudd, and all foreign governments should leave OPEC alone, they are not causing this. They haven't done anything differently. Supplies continue. Its ironic that the US investment bankers Morgan stanley, GS, MERILL etc pumping up oil price increases OPEC's oil revenues as well. They are inadvertently helping opec and every shady oil producer.

 

[Smurf1976]

Re: Rudd calls on G8 to pressure OPEC

Increase oil production? For once I'm hoping that a politician is telling lies. If not, if he actually thinks there's a chance of a significant production boost, then we're in massive trouble with someone so badly informed running the country. As I said, hopefully he's telling lies to placate the masses.

None if this is even slightly surprising to those who understand the geological situation. Get over it and move on. Oil and petrol are just, so, 20th century. That we don't have a viable alternative is beyond the point. Oil production growth seems finished or damn close to it.

As for the gas-fired power stations, converting them to nuclear implies building inefficient gas-fired plants (steam turbines and boilers rather than combined cycle) that will use 50% more gas than a state of the art plant. Better to either go nuclear from the start or keep them as gas.

A modern gas-fired plant can't be readily converted to anything that isn't a liquid or gas fuel. Even coal is incredibly difficult - you'd have to turn it into a gas or liquid before it goes into the power station which is an awful lot more complicated than a simple pulverised fuel boiler (conventional coal-fired plant) or even a fluidised bed.

If you want something that's nuclear convertible in future then conventional coal-fired plant is a far more sensible choice than gas - both are basically the same in operation and equipment apart from the heat source and bits related directly to it.

 

[Julia]

Re: Rudd calls on G8 to pressure OPEC

Smurf: are you dismissing the above suggestions of the effects of futures markets as a factor in the current situation?

Are we being just a little too ready to accept a non-future for oil?

 

[wayneL]

Re: Rudd calls on G8 to pressure OPEC

Here's a better idea: Shut down the New York Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade.

Then arrest every broker there, force them to sell down all positions, and the price of everything will be back to normal.

The developed world is using less oil and the emerging market is using more, so the trend has been balanced but the price rise hasn't.

This is all Wall Street's fault.

Each of the big banks, Citi, Bank of America, Goldman, Lehman are piling into the futures markets after horrid sub-prime losses.

They're doing that so they can inflate another bubble to recover money and then later dump it and the expense of other people, as usual.

Absolute nonsense.

The problem is economic policy, not futures markets. Commodities without futures markets are in a bubble as well. eg iron ore.

We must look back to september 11 2001 for the catalyst and subsequent economic policy.

 

[explod]

Re: Rudd calls on G8 to pressure OPEC

As for the gas-fired power stations, converting them to nuclear implies building inefficient gas-fired plants

If you want something that's nuclear convertible in future then conventional coal-fired plant is a far more sensible choice than gas - both are basically the same in operation and equipment apart from the heat source and bits related directly to it.

Good on you Smurf, I am out of my depth here but glad that someone got fired up who has a bit of an idea.

My point is that Governments need to get very serious about big changes. NOW

 

[Smurf1976]

Re: Rudd calls on G8 to pressure OPEC

Smurf: are you dismissing the above suggestions of the effects of futures markets as a factor in the current situation?

Are we being just a little too ready to accept a non-future for oil?

Agreed that speculation would be having some effect. But I see it as the closest thing we're going to get to proof that additional supply isn't going to come online anytime soon (if ever).

If we had spare capactity outside of OPEC or even the ability to develop that capacity, then I'm sure that private companies motivated by profit would be doing so. They went flat out with Bass Strait, North Sea, Alaska etc at $20 a barrel so they're hardly going to ignore prices over $100. But thus far we're not seeing additional supply, we're not seeing anything sufficient being built and we're not seeing major new oil discoveries.

To me, that very strongly suggests that non-OPEC oil producers, who are the majority of oil production, simply can not increase output and can't even find much more oil. They certainly have the motivation but it's just not happening.

As for OPEC, again it's similar. They ignored quotas and pumped like crazy at $20 but aren't increasing output at six times that price. Their official price band was $22 - $28 until not that long ago. But to get prices back to that level would see a major increase in demand (priced out third world countries, priced out consumers in developed countries, industry and especially power generation switching fuels). We'd need a lot of extra barrels to sustain a lower price and OPEC would surely know that.

All up, it just seems more than a co-incidence that we see this non-response from OPEC at the same time we see a non-response from other producers right at the time many are expecting geologically driven peak in production.

It's like noticing a cool breeze blowing at 4pm on a hot summer's day. The temperature starts to drop right when you'd expect it to. Some may say the thermometer's broken because the temperature was steadily rising before that so the trend ought to continue, but to me it says that actual events are going as expected. You expect the temperature to peak then decline at some point and even the ultra optimists expect oil production to peak and decline sometime. That time appears to be rather near - soaring prices and a frantic pace of drilling leading to little if any gains in production.

More effort in, no additional production. That's exactly what happened in individual fields or countries that have long ago peaked. More and more drilling failed to offset production declines. Trouble is, this time it's global.

So yes, speculators are likely increasing prices. But they can only do so because there isn't an ability to easily ramp production up. Even if that capacity does exist, it's clearly not being used which makes it somewhat irrelevant from a consumer's perspective - the capacity doesn't exist as far as "cheap" oil is concerned even if it does suddenly appear at $200, $500 or whatever.

 

[Smurf1976]

Re: Rudd calls on G8 to pressure OPEC

Good on you Smurf, I am out of my depth here but glad that someone got fired up who has a bit of an idea.

My point is that Governments need to get very serious about big changes. NOW

I see you're in Melbourne. Newport is an example of an old technology gas-fired plant - it has a boiler and steam turbine just like a coal-fired plant. Apart from issues with the environment and the physical size of the boiler being a bit small, you could convert that quite easily to coal. Or just put in a reactor and make it a nuke plant.

If you look at all the other gas-fired plants in Vic then they're open cycle gas turbines. Basically jet engines. Jeeralang (Latrobe Valley) is the historic one but there are quite a few newer ones. No chance of converting them to anyting really unless you count oil or coal gasification. Certainly they don't make viable nuclear plants.

The modern approach is to combine the two. Jet engine burns the gas and the exhaust heat is captured to make steam to run a steam turbine. Often both turbines drive the same alternator ("generator"). That saves about one third on gas consumption but makes any conversion to nuclear etc impractical. No such plants in Vic but there's a plan to build one. Such plants already operate elsewhere in Australia and there's heaps of them overseas.

 

[Timmy]

Re: Rudd calls on G8 to pressure OPEC

Increase oil production? For once I'm hoping that a politician is telling lies. If not, if he actually thinks there's a chance of a significant production boost, then we're in massive trouble with someone so badly informed running the country. As I said, hopefully he's telling lies to placate the masses.

I started this thread in a light-hearted vein ... as if the G8 could give a flying whatever for what Mr. Rudd calls for ... if they even know who he is (he is the PM of that place that Mel Gibson* and Kylie Minogue are originally from).

I think this 'call' is near to 100% for domestic consumption, fearless leader doing something, that sort of thing. I actually think the government, treasury, and the RBA are not entirely uncomfortable with the strength of oil, and hence petrol, prices from the perspective as a brake on the Australian economy. There is only so much that can be done with monetary policy, and implementing a restrictive fiscal policy is not something the baby-kissers have the spine to implement; a high petrol price is providing the tax and it can be blamed on someone else - happy days.

Thanks all, especially Smurf, for the info here - really good stuff.






*Yes, yes, I know, born in NY, but you get my drift.

 

[vishalt]

Re: Rudd calls on G8 to pressure OPEC

Absolute nonsense.

The problem is economic policy, not futures markets. Commodities without futures markets are in a bubble as well. eg iron ore.

We must look back to september 11 2001 for the catalyst and subsequent economic policy.

But that's a fixed-price that the Government of China has agreed to. Who the hell has agreed to US$139 oil?

There is still enough oil for several decades left from the statistics I've seen for countries like Canada, Saudi Arabia etc.

It IS the fault of the Wall St banks, they will always cause a bubble after one is finished, the lower dollar is just some paltry excuse.

It's funny because why didn't this become an issue two years ago when: the US economy was growing nicely, Europe was steaming ahead and emerging markets were surging too?

Suddenly when developed world demand is down and emerging is rising slowly oil goes boom!

Goldman Sachs was the first one to come out and say $150, they built up their positions in oil through their hedge funds and used the media to unleash fear on the markets.

Then Merrill Lynch, Citi, JPMorgan all come out and started agreeing with their price, I really wouldn't be surprised if they built up positions and then used the media to get everyone else on to inflate their positions.

Now people are so scared that superannuation funds have joined the NYMEX to simply have a small asset allocation to oil because it's now the "have-to-have commodity" and it's making things worse for those are unfortunately petrol reliant to live and work..

This is Wall St's new bubble and this is Wall St's fault.

On the flip side this is really going to push the agenda for hybrid fuels/more efficient technology.

 

[wayneL]

Re: Rudd calls on G8 to pressure OPEC

But that's a fixed-price that the Government of China has agreed to. Who the hell has agreed to US$139 oil?

There is still enough oil for several decades left from the statistics I've seen for countries like Canada, Saudi Arabia etc.

It IS the fault of the Wall St banks, they will always cause a bubble after one is finished, the lower dollar is just some paltry excuse.

It's funny because why didn't this become an issue two years ago when: the US economy was growing nicely, Europe was steaming ahead and emerging markets were surging too?

Suddenly when developed world demand is down and emerging is rising slowly oil goes boom!

Goldman Sachs was the first one to come out and say $150, they built up their positions in oil through their hedge funds and used the media to unleash fear on the markets.

Then Merrill Lynch, Citi, JPMorgan all come out and started agreeing with their price, I really wouldn't be surprised if they built up positions and then used the media to get everyone else on to inflate their positions.

Now people are so scared that superannuation funds have joined the NYMEX to simply have a small asset allocation to oil because it's now the "have-to-have commodity" and it's making things worse for those are unfortunately petrol reliant to live and work..

This is Wall St's new bubble and this is Wall St's fault.

On the flip side this is really going to push the agenda for hybrid fuels/more efficient technology.

You are still confused between cause and effect.

Hedge fund buying of commodities are an effect.

The cause is economic policy.

 

[Smurf1976]

Re: Rudd calls on G8 to pressure OPEC

There is still enough oil for several decades left from the statistics I've seen for countries like Canada, Saudi Arabia etc.

In the OPEC countries those "statistics" are a political statement since the actual reserves are a state secret.

You could say "The Australian economy is booming, everything is fine and there isn't a single problem in the country that hasn't been fixed according to the claims released by the ALP's campaign office 5 minutes after the election date was announced".

That's clearly a political statement and not a fact. Same with Saudi etc oil reserves - that's why they just keep publishing the same figures year after year. It's actually illegal for Saudi Aramco to publish any decline in reserves.

That said, Saudi's official reserves would run the world for about 8 years. Canada's would do it for 4 years (or 6 if you use nuclear power to run the tar sands extraction process). Trouble is, it will take half a century to get that 8 or 4 years worth out of the ground - that's the problem.

It comes back to two things. Economic policy and geology. Geology sets a hard limit. Economic policy has totally ignored it and added massive inflation as well. Hence a boom in the oil price.

Much of what's been done in recent years is going in totally the wrong direction. It was madness to have private electricity companies building low capital cost plants running on gas or diesel with the company focused more on futures markets and the stock price than actual energy supply. It was madness to have millions mortgaging themselves to the hilt to buy outer suburban properties and SUV's. It was madnes to think that inflation somehow creates prosperity...