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Trump honey moon over?

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mikel2
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Re: Trump honey moon over?

#29133

Postby mikel2 » February 5th, 2017, 6:17 pm

odysseus2000 wrote:With green energy the fuel cost is zero so that the costs of generation are the hardware, but green energy tends to peak when it is most needed, so you sell into peak energy prices, leading to very good margins.




I suppose if one forgets things like the upwards of 500 tons of concrete manufacture, transport, processing, installation costs Etc. that goes under each unit plus the costs of manufacturing the windmill together with the design , maintenance, shipping and again installation costs to install a unit with a limited life, fuel costs would be zero but a lot of fossil fuels would have been needed in order to accomplish that overall task.

The costs of fossil fuels would equally be zero if we were to disregard the treasure required to bring them to the surface and distribute them, though their cost must come pretty close to zero if one takes into consideration the huge tax haul we extract from their usage.

I don't think much green energy would be possible if we were to rely solely on renewable energy.

On the other hand fossil fuels are reliable world wide on a 24/7 basis even in places where there are no windmills. They also not responsible for producing merely energy butt also things like road making materials, together with all the tyres that run on roads, Pharmaceuticals, suits, shirts, carpets, curtains, fertilisers, food and probably somewhere around 10,000 other products essential for the survival of mankind living in a modern world none of which could be or are produced by any form of renewable energy.

There will always be a place for and certainly a need for renewable energy but if the economics of green energy to replace the production fossil fuels were so overwhelmingly compelling then the world would not need persuading of their virtue we all would have stopped using fossil fuels 50 years ago.

I must say I am surprised that the green drum has so much credibility left; this article in todays Sunday Times highlights at least one of the absurdities amongst the many.
Snippet from behind the paywall:-

“I'm one of the nearly 12 million suckers in Britain who is about to be hammered for driving a diesel car, which emits noxious particulates. It seems only yesterday we were told by a labour government that it was a great way to reduce Britain's carbon footprint.”

I must also be one of those 12million.
If the left hand knew what the wright hand was up to we would all be all right.

“Enough of the gullible greens-- they've led us into a peasouper”
“All over town, the save the planet brigade warmed their houses with smog-inducing wood burning stoves”
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comme ... -pmnph72gj


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Re: Trump honey moon over?

#29173

Postby odysseus2000 » February 5th, 2017, 8:50 pm

TJH wrote

Don't ignore the cost of back-up energy for when the wind does not blow, or the sun does not shine.

If every one of those schemes had to provide its own backup energy, none would ever have gone ahead.



Ever since power generation went to market pricing, the question of backup became irrelevant. British Energy the nuclear generator which provided back up power with reactors and which could not compete at peak times went bust as backup load was so poorly paid.

Additionally as electrical storage continues to ramp in capability & which with electric cars will become able to take power when ever it is produced is likely to dominate energy storage in a way that was technically impossible before. With this new storage technology the benefits of renewable power become overwhelmingly economically advantageous over fossil fuel generation.

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Re: Trump honey moon over?

#29178

Postby odysseus2000 » February 5th, 2017, 9:07 pm

mikel2 wrote
There will always be a place for and certainly a need for renewable energy but if the economics of green energy to replace the production fossil fuels were so overwhelmingly compelling then the world would not need persuading of their virtue we all would have stopped using fossil fuels 50 years ago


Technical developments have changed the economics of energy generation. Many things that were impossible 50 years ago are now common place and the move to green generation is one of them.

Sure there are things for which fossil feed stocks are convenient and as such it seems more sensible to reserve fossil fuels for them rather than for energy generation. However, most things can be made using electricity. For example you can create hydrogen from water & then react it with carbon, nitrogen etc in the air to make a range of hydro carbons, fertiliser, etc etc..

The move away from fossil fuels will accelerate, the additional taxes & official discouragements on diesel being just the start of the move to convince folk to have electic cars. Of course some folk will object but the vast majority won't care & will happily embrace the future & put plenty of money into the green producers pockets & before long even the name green will likely disappear. It will just be bout the energy and who has the best prices.

Meanwhile if you ban wood burners the wood will still rot down and make carbon dioxide.

Regards,

mikel2
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Re: Trump honey moon over?

#29312

Postby mikel2 » February 6th, 2017, 11:21 am

odysseus2000 wrote:Technical developments have changed the economics of energy generation.


Personally I would say that it has been the political developments rather than the technical developments that have been more instrumental in changing the profile of energy generation at least here in the UK.

Sawing down forests in the USA turning them into woodchips and shipping them across the Atlantic to feed our power stations hardly looks like much of a technical development. It looks like more akin to building Easter island stone heads and we all should know where that got the Easter islanders.

Your further comments below appear to ratify that state of affairs by giving a blessing to further government regulation (or probably more accurately government manipulation) to ensure that electric energy is not only seen to be, but promoted by government diktat to produce the best prices.

odysseus2000 wrote:The move away from fossil fuels will accelerate, the additional taxes & official discouragements on diesel being just the start of the move to convince folk to have electic cars. Of course some folk will object but the vast majority won't care & will happily embrace the future & put plenty of money into the green producers pockets & before long even the name green will likely disappear. It will just be bout the energy and who has the best prices.


It may be more about which government has the strongest stomach.

With that sort of 'market' I suppose anything is possible in the short term but ideological governmental interference in the longer term when competing against world markets often ends badly. At a guess I would say 99% of the worlds vehicles are not driven by electricity that presents a pretty tough row to hoe ahead and I can only wish them the best of luck for they will certainly need it.

I would suggest that this is not only not a free market but a market that in the wider more competitive world will not survive unless all governments decide to manipulate their energy markets in a similar fashion. A possibility which in an increasingly competitive world and with such an abundance of fossil fuels there for the taking, I would think would be an extremely remote possibility.


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Re: Trump honey moon over?

#29475

Postby odysseus2000 » February 6th, 2017, 8:15 pm

Mikel2:
I would suggest that this is not only not a free market but a market that in the wider more competitive world will not survive unless all governments decide to manipulate their energy markets in a similar fashion. A possibility which in an increasingly competitive world and with such an abundance of fossil fuels there for the taking, I would think would be an extremely remote possibility.


Yes, but if the importers decide that anything which isn't made with green energy is subject to a carbon tax, then the incentive for the maker to go green becomes large.

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Re: Trump honey moon over?

#29532

Postby youfoolishboy » February 7th, 2017, 7:15 am

odysseus2000 wrote:Yes, but if the importers decide that anything which isn't made with green energy is subject to a carbon tax, then the incentive for the maker to go green becomes large.

Regards,


Green is a very subjective term, are you now saying oil is actually green? There are very few things we import that does not have oil in it somewhere. Plastics are in everything. One day green energy advocates will notice this small inconvenient fact.
Bottom line only importing goods which somebody randomly brands as green is going to increase costs not something many countries can really afford right now so its not going to happen.

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Re: Trump honey moon over?

#29550

Postby odysseus2000 » February 7th, 2017, 9:39 am


Youfoolishboy

Green is a very subjective term, are you now saying oil is actually green? There are very few things we import that does not have oil in it somewhere. Plastics are in everything. One day green energy advocates will notice this small inconvenient fact.
Bottom line only importing goods which somebody randomly brands as green is going to increase costs not something many countries can really afford right now so its not going to happen.


Yes, but it is much nicer sounding than tariffs to protect ones own industry so goes down well with voters, but in practice has the same effect.

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mikel2
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Re: Trump honey moon over?

#29640

Postby mikel2 » February 7th, 2017, 3:28 pm

Regards
odysseus2000 wrote:Yes, but if the importers decide that anything which isn't made with green energy is subject to a carbon tax, then the incentive for the maker to go green becomes large.Regards,


Well I suppose anything could happen but personally I don't see the larger economies of the world or indeed most of the smaller economies of the world wishing to tax their manufacturing and export sectors until the pips squeak or ultimately out of existence.
Survival and independence are a very strong emotional dynamics as we have seen during the recent period of Trump and Brexit but hey who knows we are living in a strange world which will present some exciting opportunities.

youfoolishboy wrote:Green is a very subjective term, are you now saying oil is actually green?


It's not very subjective term it is a completely meaningless term in my view, there are greens in the conservative party, there are greens in the labour party, there are probably even some greens in the green party, there are also certainly some greens In my shopping basket from time to time.

As far as oil is concerned of course it can be green, BP became green with a new greener logo some years back but their environmental credentials had something of a set back so I suspect their green aspirations may have have faded somewhat.

youfoolishboy wrote:Plastics are in everything. One day green energy advocates will notice this small inconvenient fact.



With very great respect I think the people at the heart of this green energy project are well aware of the importance of fossil fuels and carbon going right to the very heart of everything mankind needs for his survival, that's the point.

The creation of a global system of taxation based on universal environmental concerns common to all mankind is of course the dream and basis of a protocol that would have some initial power over all mankind.

It does not have to be true, just credible in that it is being lead by a sea of good intentions all for our own good and we all have a desire to be saved from ourselves.

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Re: Trump honey moon over?

#29700

Postby odysseus2000 » February 7th, 2017, 6:34 pm

Mikel2:

With very great respect I think the people at the heart of this green energy project are well aware of the importance of fossil fuels and carbon going right to the very heart of everything mankind needs for his survival, that's the point.

The creation of a global system of taxation based on universal environmental concerns common to all mankind is of course the dream and basis of a protocol that would have some initial power over all mankind.

It does not have to be true, just credible in that it is being lead by a sea of good intentions all for our own good and we all have a desire to be saved from ourselves.


Let us consider that idea that fossil fuels are at the very heart of what human kind needs for survival.

If this is true then when fossil fuels run out that will the the end of human kind and before that point there will large price rises and fighting over what is left etc. Not a good future.

But what can we do? We need widgets and when they are worn out we need new ones and the old ones go to landfill. This has been the model since the industrial revolution.

But we have advanced quite a lot since then and it is now practical and economic to take a widget reduce it to its constituent materials and then re-use them. The same is now true of electricity. We use it and then we get more from solar processes whether these be directly photovoltaic or indirectly via wind mills, wave mills, current mills etc etc. Now we are beginning to learn to store electricity and that means even things which don't work at night like photovoltaic can charge things for discharge when the sun is not shining.

If you don't believe me then consider what Apple and other makers are doing, engineering their products so that they can recover all the elements used in them. If you can do that with something complicated like an iPhone, how much easier for other widgets.

Now comes the economic and military kicker for by making everything recyclable you create a load of jobs in the recycling industry and you make the nation self reliant of what it has, not needing to keep importing stuff just to put it in landfill. One takes a little island which has always feared blockade by an enemy since the near starvation in 1916 and makes it able to exist with out needing lots of raw materials, but not currently food which remains an achilies heal in a time of blockade.

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mikel2
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Re: Trump honey moon over?

#29831

Postby mikel2 » February 8th, 2017, 10:42 am

odysseus2000 wrote:But we have advanced quite a lot since then and it is now practical and economic to take a widget reduce it to its constituent materials and then re-use them.



Really, I am not so sure if when you are referring to 'we' you are including all of mankind or just an elite band that think they have advanced a lot.

The genocide in Rwanda in 1994 would tend to indicate that given the right circumstances mankind hasn't advanced that much and emotionally hardly a jot when it comes to war and protecting his culture.

As far as reducing widgets to their constituent material and reusing them is concerned I am afraid you are well of the mark with that prospect.

I have no wish to go down the road of illustrating just why this is practical impossibility but just to take one product which has exercised lot of minds over many decades should suffice.

Transport the world over is runs on tyres that we are unable to break down because the vulcanisation process creates a compound with a chemical bond which gives us a product at the end of it life for which we have no further use for.

They have tried making artificial coral reefs out of them and have even tried burying them in the desert but the answer it seems now is that we shred them and burn them in power stations and concrete manufacturers the world over to help making concrete.

“World’s biggest tyre graveyard: Incredible images of Kuwaiti landfill site that is home to SEVEN MILLION wheels and so huge it can be seen from space”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z4Y5VONOxa

Not sure just where all the chemicals go to in the burning process


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Re: Trump honey moon over?

#29873

Postby odysseus2000 » February 8th, 2017, 12:07 pm

Yes, tyres, the things that can't be recycled, except they can now even made into new tyres among many other uses:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tire_recycling

Humanity has progressed a lot. The Rwanda genocide had nothing of the sophistication of how we might nowadays commit genocide, nerve gas, nuclear weapons, a whole host of more effective tools of slaughter have been developed rather than axes.

Hence it seems sensible to me that we find ways of using resources to create sustainable prosperity such that although one group of humans could obliterate another, the consequences & retaliations are so potentially injurious to either side that it must give pause.

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Re: Trump honey moon over?

#31062

Postby odysseus2000 » February 12th, 2017, 8:49 pm

Carbon tax, conservative answer to climate change:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-conserva ... 1486512334

Hat tip to Elon Musk for link

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Re: Trump honey moon over?

#45373

Postby odysseus2000 » April 11th, 2017, 8:14 pm

President of the United States:

realDonaldTrump: North Korea is looking for trouble. If China decides to help, that would be great. If not, we will solve the problem without them! U.S.A.



So are now close to the end of the Trump honey moon?

Health care hasn't happened
Tax cuts have happened
Infra structure hasn't happened
Mexico wall isn't built

Now he seems to want to use the one branch of government that he controls as Commander in Chief, to get some of his agenda done.

Does this tweet signify the top of Trumps election honey moon with corresponding unhappiness in the markets or is this all about brink man ship?

Is Trump saying: "Either you deal with me on Health, taxes, infrastructure or I will go and blow up North Korea, get even more popular and force my domestic agenda through?

Interesting times.

Regards,"

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Re: Trump honey moon over?

#45380

Postby PeterGray » April 11th, 2017, 8:47 pm

Now he seems to want to use the one branch of government that he controls as Commander in Chief, to get some of his agenda done

Though it wasn't his agenda last week!

Probably a reasonable response taken on its own, but given his total previous opposition to any Syrian action, the sudden change of view is more than a little scary.

Peter

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Re: Trump honey moon over?

#45517

Postby odysseus2000 » April 12th, 2017, 1:53 pm

President of the United States:
Had a very good call last night with the President of China concerning the menace of North Korea.


Kind of interesting how the President can use Twitter to rally gold & hearten the bears black hearts while at the same time, Twitter struggles to grow profits & revenue.

I now find I am paying more attention to what Trump tweets than most other commentators including his comments on the Republican win in Kansas.

Not sure if folk are underestimating Trump's skill in the use of Twitter.

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Re: Trump honey moon over?

#53004

Postby odysseus2000 » May 12th, 2017, 1:39 pm

Interesting video snippet to which I agree:

http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000617408

Trump will either have to pull out some rabbits or likely go down as a one termer who failed to change much.

The most encouraging thing to me regarding Trump's potential was his firing of the director of the FBI.

If he is going to deliver he will have to start putting some fear into the complacent US political system. The FBI's behaviour pre-election was, imho, so ridiculous that who ever got into the White House would have fired the director.

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Re: Trump honey moon over?

#53020

Postby DiamondEcho » May 12th, 2017, 2:16 pm

odysseus2000 wrote:Interesting video snippet to which I agree:
http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000617408


It is a shame we don't get to see what the other panellists had to say. Also I think you need to bear in mind that Joshua Brown is a New York City based wealth manager and NYC is 'of the left' and rich/left a la Hampstead etc. Some of his comments on his blog are surprising in their political veracity - 'I would note that Janet Yellen is the only person keeping things under control right now in this country. Congress is f***ing useless to Trump so far, but Yellen is saving his ass. ... Holy [expletive deleted], it’s almost as if he is actually listening to his advisors and retaining what they’re teaching him about how the world’s gears turn.'
http://thereformedbroker.com/2017/04/12 ... -get-woke/

I find it hard to take seriously people who express themselves in such a way, never mind from a wealth manager who is entrusted with wisely caring for others investments.

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Re: Trump honey moon over?

#53026

Postby odysseus2000 » May 12th, 2017, 2:33 pm

DiamondEcho:
It is a shame we don't get to see what the other panellists had to say. Also I think you need to bear in mind that Joshua Brown is a New York City based wealth manager and NYC is 'of the left' and rich/left a la Hampstead etc. Some of his comments on his blog are surprising in their political veracity - 'I would note that Janet Yellen is the only person keeping things under control right now in this country. Congress is f***ing useless to Trump so far, but Yellen is saving his ass. ... Holy Manure, it’s almost as if he is actually listening to his advisors and retaining what they’re teaching him about how the world’s gears turn.'
http://thereformedbroker.com/2017/04/12 ... -get-woke/

I find it hard to take seriously people who express themselves in such a way, never mind from a wealth manager who is entrusted with wisely caring for others investments.


Yeah, it wouldn't go down well in the UK, but that kind of brash aggressiveness is how the Yorkers tend to behave.

I have followed him for a long time now & rate him highly, most of the usual crowd on cnbc I have have found to be worse than useless as they fill my head with all kind of nonsense.

The points he made about the disbelief that Trump will get anything done and that the market players were instead focused on the folk they trust, Bezos, Cook etc is also consistent with the areas of the market I am doing the best in this year.

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Re: Trump honey moon over?

#53073

Postby DiamondEcho » May 12th, 2017, 4:41 pm

odysseus2000 wrote:Yeah, it wouldn't go down well in the UK, but that kind of brash aggressiveness is how the Yorkers tend to behave.


Don't I know it, I used to work there for one of the big-beasts at the World Financial Centre and live out in the NJ commuter-belt. As so often happens in private vs corporate life you have to assume dual faces, the private one to share amongst like-minded friends, and the corporate one you are obliged to assume to fit in. To an extent if you're working for '''Goldman-Lynch-Stanley Inc''' what ever you earn you have to assuage the potential public moral rage by pretending you're right down with the poorer folk. I worked for them in 4 countries, this issue really only really presented itself in NYC, much less so in London, and not at all out in Asia. But for him to do it so publicly as the proprietor, the face of his firm, suggests to me his expressed views are firmly where his client-base is at.

odysseus2000 wrote:The points he made about the disbelief that Trump will get anything done and that the market players were instead focused on the folk they trust, Bezos, Cook etc is also consistent with the areas of the market I am doing the best in this year. Regards,


Well we'll see, it seems to be mostly conjecture for now, and meanwhile the press are in glee reporting every hurdle. Just today it's been announced that there is a major US-China trade deal, if that's true then that's one heck - as they say - of an achievement.

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Re: Trump honey moon over?

#54715

Postby odysseus2000 » May 18th, 2017, 2:42 pm

The US establishment now has its chance to get rid of Trump and seems keen to make the most of the opportunity by appointing the special prosecutor.

Interesting development, very reminiscent of Watergate and if things go badly for Trump it is very likely they go badly for the markets too, but if there is some positive news for Trump things can rally fast.

Not the sort of dynamic I much care for, too much risk both ways.

However, it is clear that the popularise movement set off by Brexit has now hit major obstacles, first Le Pen, now The Donald.

Kind of want to think that Trump survives this, but don't want to underestimate how much many loathe him to the extent of doing anything including trashing the US market if they think it will bring him down.

Regards,


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