But there is also one massive thing in common: all these prices are tumbling from the highs to which speculators and not the cost of production took them.
So, what caused this boom in prices? Greedfalation, of course.
Rising natural gas prices were just the effect of greed.
Not, at all, anything to do with supply and demand, oh no, the ‘Tater knows better than that.
The United Kingdom’s (UK) natural gas consumption amounted to 7.4 billion cubic meters (bcm) in January 2023, which was considerably lower than the previous two Januaries. In January 2021 for example, the UK’s consumption volume of natural gas was nearly ten bcm.
Murphy is simply sloganeering for his idiot following.
He’s a seal barking for fish.
@ Dennis
Not idiots, except in the meaning “useful idiots”. The would-be-nomenklatura are using him as propaganda tool, pretending that he, “a professor”, is an authority when they are broadcasting blatant lies bout the UK economy and its impact upon the poor.
The Prime Ministers who, in my lifetime, have done most to help the poor were Churchill, MacMillan and Thatcher – I say this as a qualified statistician who has looked at the data. The only government to make the poor poorer while making the rich richer was “New Labour” when Gordon Brown was first Chancellor then PM. I criticised Brown for his unchristian attack on the poorest and for his general discriminatory treatment of non-unionised workers, but Murphy was one of his fans.
John77
I often said I had calculated Blair was, at the time of leaving office, guilty of (At minimum) 70 counts of high treason in his time in office – which is why his harridan of a wife got the potential sentencing changed. (something which the Tories have failed to reverse – quelle surprise)
Of course Brown would be guilty of even more….
Dennis
I object to your characterisation of Murphy as a seal.
My daughter sponsors a seal in a Lincolnshire seal sanctuary and that animal is in every way far more amenable and far less dangerous than Murphy whose evil is without parallel…
Obviously your observations are correct but the seals don’t deserve the calumny
Is ‘Greedfalation’ Spud’s typo or yours, Tim? Either way it’s quite good.
I don’t think the general public gets the concept of supply and demand affecting prices either. In a time of shortage when the price goes up above the normal price they always complain about people (other people) profiteering. Conversely when there is a glut, do they buy it at the “normal” price? No, they would not dream of doing that. Instead they buy it from somewhere dirt cheap and are delighted to have got a bargin.
If the prices now tumbling, does that suggest that companies are colluding to reduce their greed?
It seems I have unintentionally slandered seals. My bad.
The most apt comparison, which I ignored in my zeal to cruelly mock Sir Richard, is the dung beetle.
Then again, dung beetles takes other creatures’ shit and turns it into something useful. Sir Richard most certainly lacks that capacity. He’s strictly a producer.
So now I’m stuck. What creature exists in God’s Kingdom that is low enough to be fairly compared to Richard Murphy?
Something low grade yet infective. So, not plague, far too important. I would say a mild STD but that does require interaction which his intellectual musings lack. So I’m as stuck as you.
AndyF,
“I don’t think the general public gets the concept of supply and demand affecting prices either.”
No, they don’t. The best example I have is parents complaining about how much more it costs to go away during school holidays. You also see it with people complaining about the high price of drinks at gigs, or airport food.
Look at people in certain jobs, too. Musicians complaining that they get a crappy amount of money from Spotify, authors complaining about how their books are “devalued” because they’re selling at 63p on Amazon. There’s just far too many people involved in both. You should do both for fun and beer money. You might make a living but you probably won’t.
I think supply and demand is one of the most valuable things you can learn. It makes you a better at investing, whether that’s in shares, businesses or your education.
Perhaps a blind mole rat? But he is unable to ‘see’ as much.
Mole rats are communal, Spud is solitary.
Ophiocordyceps, aka “zombie ant fungus”? If successful, it rots the brain to get the ant eaten…