Guest 640- Registered: 21 Apr 2007
- Posts: 7,819
28 October 2008
16:218179Another tale of woe(not!!) from the poor misunderstood oil companies. Their profits soar to unbelievable levels..making literally billions! Up 148% in just 3 months. They cant print money as fast as these guys can make it.
Counterpoint this with house re-possessions for the ordinary average Joe in the street, those poor sods struggling with mortgages, yes these house re-possessions are up tooooo.....
up 71%.
Have you ever heard anything like this. Repossessions running at such a level on one hand while the filthy rich get filthier and richer on the other hand, and its all happening in a recession near you!
There is something wrong with this picture. Its not right. Communism set out to cure imbalances like this but sadly failed.We need some kind of new system to regulate wealth so that we get a more equal distribution.
Trade Union Leader Tony Woodley has once again today called for a 'windfall tax' but so far his calls for same have fallen on deaf governmental ears.
Choke on your digits as they roll rapidly by next time you look at the £ refill gauge on that whirring petrol pump.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
28 October 2008
17:428182Regulate wealth, more even distribution? - PaulB, what utter baloney.... that is how your destroy wealth for everyone. Come on, get away from this discredited socialism that should have died with the end of the Berlin Wall. The failure of communism was the inevitable result of a command economy and an oppressive government that sees its right to restrict the ownership of property and freedoms. Only through oppression can socialism obtain its ends, temporarily that is, until it collapses under the weight of the poverty it creates.
I will not condemn or critisise profits. The people they benefit are those people who have pension funds, ISAs and so on, very ordinary people. Would you describe the young lady who holds £1,000 in BP shares who I met yesterday as a fat cat? She earns £20,000 a year in a very mundane job but she has done a bit of saving over the last 15 years and has built up a smallish portfolio that will provide her some security in old age. When people have seen £billions wiped off their investments by 'Brown's Slump' leave them a little cheer with a piece of good news.
The days of them and us, where they owned industries while we had nothing are well gone. Most people have a stake in the success of the economy and British businesses these days. If anyone reading this does not have then they need to think about what they are doing with their money and do a rethink, there is no excuse as from very modest regular investment you can build up substantial funds for yourself and family.
That said, George Osborne has called for BP to reduce it prices at the pumps in response to this news. A far more sensible approach than a Union dinosaur calling for a penal windfall tax with all the damage that does. The Government, of course should also do its bit and reduce taxes, from cuts in spending, to help people manage in these hard times.
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
28 October 2008
17:488185barry are you a tory or a commanist with that last post,that in my view is a comminist view.
Guest 640- Registered: 21 Apr 2007
- Posts: 7,819
28 October 2008
18:168186Just to add some figures to the original posting as I forgot to put the amounts in...
for the 3 month period BP made a profit of £6.8billion
thats £70million a day
..you and me are paying for that profit
our gas bills have soared
our electricity bills have soared
our petrol bills have soared
...all these utility companies have or will weigh in with huge profits way above what would be the norm for a business, simply because they have us by the short and curlies. As they said on TV last night...you dont have to buy that new TV, or you dont have to buy that new sofa, but you do have to buy your heat your light and your fuel. if you dont you die. In other words as I said above, they have you by the short and curlies its a license to print money.
BarryW the lady with the small investment is not my target. But she is among the relatively few..on the other hand every single living person in the UK is subject to these punitive high prices from utility companies/ oil companies. Even politicians from all sides are getting embarassed by this situation. This is the highest BP profit of all time.
Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
28 October 2008
19:188193i think you will find paul that your gas and electric are based on the price of oill,the price of oill has come by more than hale but the gas and electric sullpliers are keeping them at the higher price to keep there profits high to.
Guest 667- Registered: 6 Apr 2008
- Posts: 919
28 October 2008
19:308194You call it what you want, I call it curupt, that people struggle to put fuel in their cars to go to work to earn a living to pay bills they struggle to pay and these large Companies like BP can make such vast profits.
Yes they need to make a profit of course they do but such profits at the expence of others is beyond me.
As I have said before the rich get richer and the little old lady by her small fire goes cold and the single mum with children to feed goes hungry.
No I am not an out an out socialist by any means, but what we have here is why I wonder where we would go if the Conservatives got back in. Even higher profits for the large Companies I suppose.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
28 October 2008
19:338195It is not a relatively few PaulB. The vast majority of people in the UK have a stake in BP either direct like her or/and through their pensions, ISAs and so on. For those who actually grasp the truth of that this is a piece of cheering news in the gloom.
Brian - there is nothing communist or left wing about what I said, not in the slightest. Mrs T was the great advocate of the public being able to own a part of the shareholding in businesses though their investments and expanded it greatly with PEPs and pensions. That is a a fact and is something that has only benefits to us all if we take the opportunity. This is very different to the dead hand of state ownership and intervention such as PaulB advocates.
Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
28 October 2008
19:348196thats a possabilaty harry,they have got a moto rob the poor to feed the rich.lol
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
28 October 2008
19:358197Harry I would sincerely hope lots of profits for all companies, particularly the smaller ones, that will help everyone in the UK by increasing general prosperity and providing a comfortable income in retirement for ordinary people.
Profut should be celebrated.
Guest 667- Registered: 6 Apr 2008
- Posts: 919
28 October 2008
20:208203Of course profit should be celebrated Barry as a Manager I spend my day trying to assist in the Company I work for making a profit and I do get an annual bonus for how well I do. However some of these large Companies make obscene profits and the fuel companies fall in to that field.
As for pensions I have had to work hard to try and get my own right for when I retire, after all a certain Lady took the pensions away from the Bus Company emloyees when she de-nationalised National Bus.
Guest 675- Registered: 30 Jun 2008
- Posts: 1,610
28 October 2008
20:598209Barry, by your own admission we are heading deeper into recession and yet, precisely when people will have less money, you are still advocating cutting services and thus depending on them spending more. And it has been well documented that the fall of the Soviet Union was driven by the insane costs of the arms race, taking money away from vital services. Their forces could not be paid because the money was being spent on upgrading the non-used super destructive weapons.
Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong.
Richard Armour
Guest 658- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 660
28 October 2008
21:238212Reading this thread pass me the mess webley I'm off to my room.
beer the food of the gods
Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
28 October 2008
21:338216you will only make a mess for someone else to clear up guzzler and think of all of that paper work about half a rain forrest worth.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
28 October 2008
23:148242Harry, that lady was responsible for boosting UK pensions and extending them, Brown stole from them and has since destroyed them.
Chris - after 11 years of unrestrained spending growth there is a great deal of fat in the public sector and a hell of a lot of spending cuts can be made without touching front line services or capital projects. Make no mistake about that.
Guest 667- Registered: 6 Apr 2008
- Posts: 919
28 October 2008
23:348243Sorry Barry, Brown was in opposition when Mrs T stole the pensions (BEST) from the employees of the National Bus Company, she point blank refused to honour our pensions and more than likely the other Companies she privatised. We had to start all over again with our pensions.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
28 October 2008
23:408244Harry, I do know my stuff about pensions as I deal with them daily on a professional basis, advising on them and setting them up. I could list all the factors that have damaged our pensions and, a certain Labour Peer who died on his boat apart, who's midemeanours led to the 1995 Pension Act, it is all down to a certain Gordon Brown. I wont bore you with the details.
Guest 640- Registered: 21 Apr 2007
- Posts: 7,819
29 October 2008
07:318252This rampant unchained capitalism isnt working either. Look no further than the recent financial chaos and near meltdown the world over. Politicians who previously left it all to market forces are now calling for regulation, and severe regulation is needed. Why should we trust these wild speculators any longer. When it all goes wrong its the clobbered fuel beaten and fleeced taxpayer that has to bail them out, and my gawd did they need bailing out.
Sadly though it goes on unharnessed. Only last night before I went to sleep I heard of yet more chaos on the radio.
Wild speculators, hedge fund managers, in frenzied short selling gambled with money they do not have, that shares in Volkswagen would fall. They gambled billions that the shares would fall. The shares didnt fall, but rocketed upwards after Porche slipped in to buy most of Volkswagen. Result billions lost again. But the hedge fund managers gambled with money they do not have, now they have to pay up. Let them go to the wall this time. Let them pay the real price of job losses and homes repossessed in real world terms.
Unfortunatly we cannot let the banking system overall go to the wall as its a vital part of daily trade, but tight controls are needed desperately.
Guest 667- Registered: 6 Apr 2008
- Posts: 919
29 October 2008
07:548254Barry I would never challenge you on your knowledge of pensions but I also know what happened to my Company pension when the Company was privatised.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
29 October 2008
08:208260PaulB - dont get too worked up over Hedge Fund managers. I am grateful for my conservative (little c) approach to financial planning and have not directly exposed my clients to these funds. There would be a knock on effect from a collapse of Hedge Funds into the wider market, true, and many institutional funds will have an element of hedge Funds within them, but it is not helpful to exaggerate the impact. The term 'hedge Funds' does cover a range of different approaches and each will be hit in different ways. I do expect though there to be problems emerging from that source and there are always winners and losers. I am sure that those that lost heavily in the surge gained on the falls or visa versa, that is life. take what you hear in the media with a pinch of salt.
You have to remember PaulB that retail financial services were first regulated by free marketeer Mrs T in 1986. What is important is not necessarily more regulation, but getting the right regulation. A part of the problem was the way Brown changed the way banks were regulated from the Bank of England to a complex tri-partied arrangement and that has a great deal to do with our domestic crisis.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
29 October 2008
08:228261Harry, I think there may be some misunderstanding of what happened to your pension. If I get time I will do a bit of specific research into your problem. Do email me some details/information that might help and I will see what I can dig up.
