You’re a brave person if you’re thinking a out buying a petrol/diesel car in the next few weeks. Petrol prices now heading for the €2.50 per litre mark in Ireland. https://t.co/4TffDW8q5B
— (@ShaneOSullivan) March 7, 2022
Yikes.
This morning.
Anyone?
Brent spikes to $139 on prospect of Russia oil ban, delay in Iran deal (RTE)
Update:
Eeek.
This morning.
Unidentified K garage, Dublin.
Meanwhile…
Worst cost of living crisis in the history of the state & the Govt are driving prices to max with VAT robbery
EU rules is a convenient lie for this Govt. They CHOOSE not to reduce it
This Govt all have chauffer driven mercs. The taxpayer fills their tank #CostOfLivingCrisis pic.twitter.com/IMMThOAjes
— Politics Watch (@PoliticsWatch14) March 7, 2022
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And this is where the Russian sanctions argument falls down, because an embargo on major trade hurts both sides equally.
But, petrol and diesel prices started to rise way before the Ukrainian situation began, which means that either the markets knew what was coming or, there is another separate reason for the hikes.
If the second, what is it?
Brent crude was 111+ per barrel in 2011. How.much was petrol and Diesel then? I
Yes but it’s refined to those products unless you buy crude oil
The Ruble has lost almost 50% of its value in the last week and is still in freefall. The Russian stock exchange is closed due to fear of collapse, and most major Russian companies listed abroad have lost 90%+ of their value
Embargoes don’t hurt both sides equally at all. They’ll result in a year of inflation and minor economic contraction for the West, but return Russia to the stone age. If a total oil and gas embargo is brought in to fully close the noose they’ll be approaching North Korea or Cuba level within a few years.
You may be right Zaccone but I was thinking more over a prolonged period of time.
It is a short sharp shock to the energy supplier but it takes much longer to feed through on the consumer side. Over time, a hike in energy prices will be passed on to near every aspect of the consuming countries and, will take much longer to recover from too.
One thing I do not understand is how Russia can be such an economic basket case while other energy producers in the middle east are so wealthy. We know that they owe very little in comparison to many western countries for example, so oligarchs aside, as a country they may not own much, but they owe little too.
You answered your own question really, it’s a cleptocracy. You cannot overlook the oligarchs. Anything worth stealing is stolen, the proles get next to nothing.
Are the Arab royal families any different though?
…,what effect on economic activity do you think lockdowns had,an accelerant resulting in increased demand for oil and gas or…?
At any point ever,does your complete and total lack of basic intelligence on say the oil and gas market,cause you to hesitate or are just impervious to logic and reason,do you not feel any shame or embarrassment, asking the most basic questions here,kids in primary school are better informed and far more intelligent.
Your comments are just downright ignorant of the oil and gas market,seriously why bother at all,explaining it is a waste time.Its no wonder you live a fantasy life online.
Are the Arab royal families any different though?
Yes. They fear the people, so ensure they get enough “bread and circus” to remain happy.
@ Zaccone. Not so. Removing Russias’ access from the Swift banking payment system will effect the worlds financial system. Russia is a superpower and makes billions in transactions every day using Swift. The sudden loss of this money from the system could have a Lehmans type effect on the worlds banks and businesses.
There is a real possibility of major businesses and banks failing as this money that businesses relied on will not be there. The banking system is interlinked and considering the effects of ‘printing’ trillions of dollars/euros etc has caused runaway inflation before Ukraine, I believe there will be severe consequences to this rash sanction. Of course I may be mistaken and I hope that I am.
Russia is in no way an economic superpower. Their economy is the same size as Australia or Spain. They’re a mid-tier global economy.
Russia is only responsible for 4.5% of the EU’s trade and 0.6% of the US’s trade.
US banks have exposure of $14.7bn, total, to Russia. EU banks have exposure of approx $80bn. When Lehman Brothers collapsed they – by themselves, even ignoring the other collapses in 2008 – had assets of $639bn. Its no way, shape, or form statistically comparable.
A complete Russian economic collapse will hurt the West economically, slightly, yes. But the figures are very clear. Theres no danger of a systemic crisis for the West in any way.
And what is China’s exposure to the US? The same China who are now ramping up their energy deals with Russia.
Not all trade is equal of course and roughly 50% of Germany’s energy now comes form Russia. What happens in the largest economy in the EU will directly affect the rest.
Nobody is suggesting sanctioning China to cut it off from the global economic system, so its rather irrelevant no?
But for the sake of it – China is 14% of the US’ trade and 10% of the EUs.
Which losing all of would be damaging to both economies. But would be recovered from within 5 years if it came down to it.
People don’t realise just how both rich, and large, the very interconnected EU/US economic bloc is. It absolutely dwarfs anything else on Earth. Particularly when the client/allied states are added to it (Japan, Canada, Australia etc).
Trade with Russia (or China) is a nice economic bonus, but its not required to maintain the highest living standards in the world. Thats guaranteed just by trading with each other.
My point about China is they are increasingly trade with Russia and they are the largest population in the world after all. Next up is India who have also have refused to condemn Russia of course and are doing likewise.
A 50% cut in energy supply to Germany would have devastating consequences- who knows how long it would take to recover.
China’s sum total of trade with Russia is currently only at the level of the Germany and Netherlands combined. Even if it multiplied by 300% overnight – which is both practically and logistically completely impossible – it wouldn’t be close to replacing the 2/3rds of Russian trade thats currently with the combined US/EU/allies. India is an even smaller volume.
Again, I don’t think you quite grasp the size of the US-EU economic axis and its importance to every single country in the world in 2022. If you want to see how countries that are cut off from it do have a look at Cuba, Venezuela or North Korea. The answer is _not well_.
As regards to natural gas supply we’re now almost to mid-March. Winter is over. Germany (and the EU) have enough natural gas reserves that if Russia ended its supply tomorrow the reserves will last until next winter. Russia has lost most of the leverage they would have had in this regard if they’d invaded in November as winter was settling in.
Indeed, you have to look past the usual ahem, news providers to see there’s plenty of game left for those pesky Ruskies.
Lots of western investment from pension funds to banks to property developers to food conglomerates apparently groups like the Kerry group CRH smurfit
To say the sanctions hit both sides equally is a ludicrous proposition. The results will be highly asymmetrical .The west is rich, totalitarian Russia is poor (GDP per capita below Turkey and far below EU countries). Putin has made a catastrophic strategic blunder and complete miscalculation that will bankrupt his country. Russia has nowhere near the human capital or financial resources to occupy a non compliant Ukraine with a well armed and well funded insurgency that is actively supported by the majority of the indigenous populace. He will lose and badly – it is merely a matter of time as the west has far deeper pockets and its almost summer.
I recommend a read of what his spiritual guru has planned for us all – his polemics are required reading at the Russian military academy – though clearly they might have been better advised to stick with something about logistics, coms, supply chains, not that there’s any historical precedent for anyone running into similar issues with invading foreign forces in that region)
https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/182605
So, a few months back (and on a few occasions) I stated that fuel and food shortages were coming. I hope some of you stocked up on gas then, as prices are shooting up for everything but especially fuel now. I’d recommend getting out and bulk buying some core foodstuffs now too before things deteriorate further.
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/media-and-marketing/all-farmers-to-be-told-to-plant-crops-amid-fears-of-food-security-crisis-1.4819680
If you have a south facing window consider some lettuce plants
I hope some of you stocked up on gas then
How do you stock up on gas?
hold in your farts
I bought three patio gas canisters and hob tops. Enough to cook for many months if needs be. I also filled my homes oil tank a couple of months back, and have 5 20 litre canisters with 3 diesel, 2 petrol.
Like these https://www.woodies.ie/calor-patio-grey-cylinder-service-charge-310143
55% of the retail cost is tax
Iranian oil will flow West in a few weeks, also OPEC will increase output. Both of these will drive fuel prices down but the cost of everything else will remain high.
Only if Russia agrees, as they hold a veto on removing the Iranian sanctions. They’ve tried make the removal dependant on Russia being able to trade freely with Iran, which would be a big hole in the West’s sanctions on Russia . Lots of game playing going on at the moment
Indeed, you have to look past the usual ahem, news providers to see there’s plenty of game left for those pesky Ruskies.
The other side of that Ruble coin is that China is willing to take Russia’s supplies and more importunately perhaps, is that they will not be dealing in US dollars.
Russia is already issuing the Chinese UnionPay cards after Visa and Master card suspended operations. Where there is a profit to be made, any and all vacuums will be filled- such is life.
Yes and Russia travels further down the road of utter dependency on China.
Well done Putin, by striking out at the West you’ve made Russia a vassal state of the East.
The US is by far the most indebted country to China- their figures dwarf everyone else. If it comes to availing of financial services or being indebted- as far as dependency goes, I know which position I would rather be in.
It’s geo politics so obviously not that simple of course.
Electric cars https://youtu.be/xRogZnTJHEA
In a fuel/energy shortage, electric vehicles may prove pretty useless.
The chip shortage means anyone ordering a car now, won’t see it for 12 months or so. So it will be a while before we can tell if new electric car sales have significantly increased. Still a lot of fear about over battery life and range anxiety. Which is strange considering we are on a small island. Batteries on current electric cars will last the lifetime of the car.
Half our electric power came from wind in Feb, another great milestone. The sooner we can decouple from gas and oil imports, the better.
Aren’t there other problems besides range to consider. You can fill your car at the pump in minutes whereas electric charging takes hours, big problem for those without a home charging point or place to install one. Also the cost of replacing the battery is still extremely high. Range and charging times will improve in the future but they are still major issues at the moment
My EV can charge from 5% to 80% in 20 mins and from 20% to 80% in about 11 mins. Wife’s PHEV slower but then there is a petrol backup to hand. It has a decent range mind you and filled it up 3 times since she got it last summer. That said, you need a very fast charger for fast charging and unfortunately they’re thin on the ground in Ireland. I’m rarely outside the Pale and that far from home mind you. I have obtained a strong element of electrical self sufficiently thru solar pv and battery/inverter tech where I’ve got 20kWh of storage to hand. If I don need to draw from the grid, I do so at night and on a nightsaver rate. So so far we’re broadly unaffected by the current and forthcoming energy crisis, thou it did require a fair amount of capital to get set up in the first place. Money well spent.
“Half our electric power came from wind in Feb”…
Who is ‘our’ referring to?
What about the other 11 months?
I drive a small fast car (GR Yaris) and normally put 50 squid into the tank when filling up. That amount usually gets me 3/4 of a tank. Yesterday the same 50 squid filled the tank up to the very top. I’ll have to moderate my heavy right foot. Most fulfilling, un.
For sure. You already paid too much tax on an overpriced yaris.
See details below but in two weeks in, Russia has unilaterally moved down to: the Nazis can stay if they say no to NATO and hand over territory. Certainly not the final word on this but quite a climb down for their lunatic opening gambit reflecting their military incompetence and the power of the hard hitting western sanctions repost.
The Kremlin demand that Ukraine forgo right to join any bloc is incompatible with Helsinki Final Act and Paris charter. Were Ukraine to agree to such terms (not impossible), it would also have bad implications for other EU or NATO aspirants.
The Kremlin has announced its demands for ending the war in Ukraine:
• Ukraine must change its constitution to guarantee it won’t join any “blocs”, i.e. NATO + EU.
• Must recognize Crimea as part of Russia.
• Must recognize the eastern separatist regions as independent
Here is what Putin has to say about denazification- is he wrong? If so, how?
https://www.tiktok.com/@president.vladimir.putin/video/707175643561233946
so he wants to install a pro-russian puppet leader instead of the pro- eu puppet leader.
wouldn’t it be nice if the ukranians could elect someone who put ukraine first?
Of course, but Ukraine has a history of being the centre knot in a very long drawn out tug of war.
Sorry cut the link above short.
https://www.tiktok.com/@president.vladimir.putin/video/7071756435612339461
wouldn’t it be nice if we elected someone who put Ireland first …and not their mates
All politicians are out to put their country first…until they get elected, then it’s feeding time at the trough. Look at our great socialist president, living in a mansion foc and having his pets chauffeured around in a limo while he takes the chopper and signs off on Irish water
nasty little hobbitssssss
“Govt all have chauffer driven mercs. The taxpayer fills their tank.”
Why add this nonsense? The taxpayer pays the govt that’s how it works. Who wants an underpayed govt, you want to make the role attractive. Cut top govt wages by 80% and the savings would have no impact on the economy.
It has no connection to cost of living or Vat. Yes they could reduce the VAT rate, or put it up, or reduce income tax etc. Its all a balance at the end of the day when it comes to running a country