Ledbury Portal Community Forum

It's difficult to untangle all the 'facts' and figures that has left the UK on an economic precipice that our government now says the majority of the public must pay for - the majority that is, not the uber wealthy elite.

So the UK national debt is about £900 billion (give or take the odd £50 billion) and as far as I can see the taxpayers bail out of the banks - £850 billion - must have caused the biggest chunk of this.

As the economy suffers and splutters thanks in large part to increasing energy costs. Before the Afghan and Iraq wars began a barrel of oil was about $20 - now it's about $100 a barrel. Who has profited from this? Why, the oil companies, of course. Exxon Mobil recorded the biggest profit of any company in the world in 2008 - over $45 trillion! Chevron came second - nearly $24 trillion! These figures are truly astronomical, aren't they? It's good to know that someone is making a profit, isn't it? BP might be in the shit right now, but the first 3 months of 2010 they had a 135% jump in profits making them a rather paltry £3.6 billion. Enough for a yacht and some clear water and probably a bit more too.

Umm.. Exxon Mobil.. weren't they the guys who payrolled George W. Bush's presidential election campaign? Weren't they also the guys who put pressure on George W. Bush not to sign up to the Kyoto Treaty?

It's a small world, isn't it?

That Iraq war driving up the oil company's profits so fantastically has cost the American tax payer and his descendants dear. Stiglitz and Barnes call it the $3 trillion war. The same pair estimate that Iraq and Afghanistan will really cost the UK £20 billion in 2010.

What really caused all this debt? Was it the £1.4 trillion of personal debt in the UK prior to the banking collapse? Was it bailing out the banks to the tune of £850 billion in the UK? Or could it have anything to do with Bush's spectacular bankrupting of America and driving up the cost of oil?

Most people thought the Iraq war was about America and Britain 'grabbing' Iraq's oil. Incorrect. The war is about controlling oil prices.... and a very few people are doing very, very nicely fank you.