There's nothing here that we didn't already know, what is interesting is that the BBC have called a spade a spade for once:
UK households could see their annual energy bill rise 20% to pay for the cost of meeting the EU's 2020 emissions target, Ernst & Young has predicted.
Perhaps one day the BBC will mention the £60-billion-plus that the EU costs us every year?
Monday, 30 June 2008
"Green target to hike fuel bills"
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6 comments:
Mark,
Nothing to do with the posted comment. While I agree that losses from derivatives would be even because internal to the banks, they are not because..
The money has been taken out.
The banking system has been artificially inflated since 2001 (whenever), and all of these profits are hedged/guaranteed. However, the guarantees are hollow promises now. The artifical inflation of value has gone in wages/bonuses/payments to employees/shareholders, the banks do not have the ability to pay back the 100K winners because it is not a closed system.
The money left the banking system, it is just more unbacked money in somebody's account.
The money has come out. What was that headline,"a thousand city people receive a million pounds bonus each". But there was no real bonus to give, only from the vitally necessary funds the banks are squealing for now.
This is exactly the same as the windfall tax on pensions. The pension funds showed a spurious temporary gain as a symptom of disastrous economic management, when they go back to real levels they face real significant losses.
This is the loss from derivatives.
The extraction of money from the banking system by many many many people. The false profits have been taken, and now the real losses are being stared at, nothing to do.
Thats why I maintain that the 100K winners cannot be paid back, and so on to disaster.
Stillthinking.
Sure, the money has left banks' retained profits but the money is still in bank accounts.
And a lot of depositors are also shareholders. What banks etc will have to do is persuade people to swap some of their money in an account into share capital (from teh banks' point-of-view, they are changing a short term to a very long term liability).
There is not much that the banks can do about the assets side. For every £1 write down on assets side, they have to persuade depositors to convert £1 of bank deposit to £1 of new share capital.
And yes, there is an overall loss from this tomfoolery.
Not as if I trust any of their figures but that Tory Bruge Group link quotes our 36 year cumulative £350bn trade deficit with the EU countries, any idea how much trade we lost by being outside the EU for 15 years? Any idea how much subsidy we gave our farmers before we joined the CAP? Anyway, can we put a price on preventing another European war?
Neil: in reply to your three questions:
A: None whatsoever.
B: No idea, but the answer is either 'None' or 'Too much'.
C: No. But if that really floats your boat, you might argue for more defence spending just in case. (and less 'attack' spending, obviously).
Mark, apart from you being wrong on all three counts - our farm subsidies and waste would be similar to the costs of CAP, our lost trade enormous and the risk of war just not worth it, you might want to consider the massive costs of leaving the EU.
NH: "Anyway, can we put a price on preventing another European war?"
If an European War was prevented it was not prevented by the Euroepan Union. The European Union was and is incapable of force projection, you only have to look at events in the Balkans.
If war in Europe was prevented, it was prevented by Germany loosing any militaristic inclination.
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