Friday
Feb052016
by 
Josh
Josh A cartoon week - Josh 361
Feb 5, 2016 Josh It's been a fun week.
First, there was a survey of 17 countries showing the British rank 15th in their concern over climate change. H/t GWPF
;)
Then we had George Monbiot wrongly citing the IMF on an equally wrong definition of subsidies.
;)
Finally, we had the post Paris realisation that since climate science is settled we don't need any more climate scientists. Australia has jumped first with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) to axe 300 of to 350 jobs.
;)
Reader Comments (54)
JamesG, The UK does not get its gas from Statoil. According to UKOOG total UK 2014 supply was 765,340GWh, of which about 425000GWh was UK production and 349000GWh was imports net of exports (discrepancies due to losses). Of the imports most came from Norway (57.4%), then Qatar (LNG, 24.5%), then Holland (15.1%) which has its own gas fields.
Moreover, any monopoly tends to inefficiency, inability to take or price in risks, and holding its customers to ransom. That applies to state monopolies too. So it is highly likely that a state owned monopoly oil and gas production (including downstream refining and chemicals) would produce poorer products, less innovation, more blunders and less profit.
Try again.
A person doesn't have to be pro-nationalisation to notice that many state-owned industries are very well run. That many were not run well in the UK has to be set against the fact that private industry here is also traditionally badly run. The difference is in the quality of the management, which in the UK is often very dire indeed. Foreigners like Nissan and Tata had to show us how to do it.
And neither do you have to be an economics buff to notice that the intention of all companies is to maximise profit and that is preferably done by avoiding competition and striving to be a monopoly or cartel which fixes high prices. Absent regulation, monopoly is the end state of all business and free markets become mainly free for inefficient cronyism and blatant criminality.
A person doesn't have to be pro-nationalisation to notice that many state-owned industries are very well run. Feb 8, 2016 at 3:15 PM | Unregistered CommenterJamesG
Try as I might I cannot think of an example.
"free-market economics that have demonstrably failed"
What's this failure of which you speak?