I am not sure I can recall anything quite as blatant as this since I was studying for my PhD and commentators talked at length about the Opec cartel supposedly controlling crude oil supplies. That view never had any legs, due to the emergence of other oil and other energy producers, as well as the behaviour of Saudi Arabia, but the establishment of the organisation in the early 1970s had the same audacity about it.
That PhD didn’t take then, eh?
That Opec doesn’t have complete and inviolable market power is true, but the idea that it doesn’t have any is idiocy.
Lord O’Neill is a former commercial secretary to the Treasury and the current chair of Chatham House.
Lord help us all.
Certainly not “never”, a strange thing for him to say. Even “alternative” producers like Venezuela joined up and the price of North Sea oil followed the Opec lead.
North America is now oil self sufficient and Russia is pitching itself against the USA, but Opec still produces 27million barrels a day.
‘the much-discussed German “50+1” common ownership model, and that might not translate to the English game.’
Aye, the German model that is so anti-oligopolistic that it’s monopolistic instead. Bayern Munich have won the last nine Bundesliga titles.
Whereas in England the most common champions in the last ten years, Man City, have been displaced occasionally by lesser clubs – Man U, Chelsea (twice), Liverpool, Leicester.
Clubs owned by fans are a great success in Spain – Real Madrid or Barcelona win La Liga virtually every year. Though Atlético did win in 2013-14. Is a duopoly better than an oligopoly?
In Italy, meanwhile … In France, … In Portugal I see that a club that is neither Porto nor Benfica won as recently as 2001-02. In the Dutch League since 1999 – 2000, it’s Ajax or PSV who’ve won, with only three exceptions. In Scotland, …
I am not sure I can recall anything quite as blatant as this since I was studying for my PhD and commentators talked at length about the Opec cartel supposedly controlling crude oil supplies. That view never had any legs, due to the emergence of other oil and other energy producers, as well as the behaviour of Saudi Arabia, but the establishment of the organisation in the early 1970s had the same audacity about it.
Perhaps one of the most bizarre statements made by someone not named Richard Murphy that I have ever read.
Fuck the gong, I’m starting to wonder why Murphy hasn’t been been made a member of the peerage. If O’Neill can get there, I don’t see why Murphy can’t.
Murphy was in fact offered a peerage according to people who usually can be believed. He then demanded not just the peerage and the £60k a year tax free expenses, he wanted an £80k a year salary on top of that. At which point the Labour Party said no.
According to the story that is…..and Murphy himself has said much the same as well.
“the £60k a year tax free expenses”: I hereby put my name forward for a peerage.
Lord Dearieme of Ecclefechan and Kirkcudbright, since you ask.
Murphy was in fact offered a peerage according to people who usually can be believed.
A better argument for abolition of the whole system could not be made.
Breaking news for Lord O’Neill
It seems he coined the term “BRIC” when he worked for the vampire squid in the 2000s.How out of date it seems now. But, given he discussed OPEC without an accurate views of its membership, should we really be surprised?
Lord O’Neill wasn’t born until 1957 so he was still at school, and very probably unaware of OPEC, when it quadrupled the price of oil.
I was born in ’57, was in school (and probably high as a kite), without a car, and was still very aware OPEC was quadrupling the price of oil.
Lord O’Neill is a moron.
Incidentally the oil price slumped 60% (more relevantly, 70% adjusted for US$ inflation) in six years 1980-86 which included the time when Lord O’Neill was writing his PhD thesis. So maybe people believed that OPEC had no more power over the price of oil than Unilever does over the price of margarine.
But some of us had a grip on reality.