War in Iran : Trump's latest misadventure

Away End - General Chat
2136

The conversation above makes me feel guilty. Norwegian petrol and diesel prices are very, very high when compared to the US obviously, but at the moment, the price is lower at the pump for us than it has been since the Russian invasion.

For the first time since forever, we now have diesel and petrol subsidies due to the Hormuz crisis, something the Greens rage about, and Labour were were much against (for economical reasons), but the rest of parliament forced this through (Labour has a minority gov and lost) in a unified front and it was very politically damaging for Labour, which was seen by the public as the party that doesn’t care about rising costs for those who struggle and the transport sector.

But yes, I kind of supported the subsidies (because so many were struggling a lot), but obviously, it does not contribute to Demand Destruction and almost no other states can do this out of the Blue (such extraordinay unplanned crisises in Norway are taken from the Pension Fund). We are “lucky” like that, because normally we have the Budgetary Rule:

Which is enforced with dicipline. But in extraordinary situations like war and crisis (previous cases of overspending was corona and the Russian invasion/rearmament), it is bent slightly. But everyone cannot do like we do and when I look out, instead of in, I feel slight guilt. At the same time I support the subsidies, sigh.

Obviously, a vast number of states have subsidies on petrol and diesel and I am often asked by foreigners how Norway can be an oil producer and still have such high petrol prices, but Norway is not India or Bangladesh and the level of poverty is hardly the same (and the Norwegian state tends to wants us to drive less, so incentives for high prices, but at the same time, price hike here was deemed much too unsocial and big and destructive for the economy as well).

Anyway, I don’t really blame my parliament for any of this, but the US, Iran and Israel…

2137

And w.r.t fuel prices. I’ll say one thing.

Emerging economies are being forced to use Euro norms with respect to pollution control whereas the developed economies have already developed themselves without that handicap. Countries who’ve already made use of the industrial revolution need to have a little bit of lattitude when imposing strict pollution norms to developing countries. Especially when lives are at stake

There needs to be some equivalence there.

1 Like
2138

Norway’s position is a little different, being an energy exporter. Oil and gas revenues are essentially earmarked for future generations in some proportion, rather than being consumed at cost by the current generation. A measure like the temporary one eases that off in lieu of demand destruction, but Norway has already pushed the economic value of energy per kJ far above the global cost - despite being long on electricity, oil, and natural gas.

1 Like
2139

I think Delhi air quality says different…

1 Like
2140

Delhi’s AQI is about the farmers burning stubble. That’s a governance and education problem.

2141

But either way, the cost in logistics etc etc and the end price for reaching the end users in third world countries has to outweigh the pollution.

People really do need to eat. End of.

2142

Nah, you need only look at the composition - the farmers are just an easy target. Burning biomass produces PM2.5 and PM10, which we see and notice most readily. But the SOx, NOx and VOCs are really high, and that is all industrial or vehicular (especially diesel). Long-term those are worse than even PM2.5, while the PM10 looks awful but we actually deal with it reasonably well.

People need to eat, but they also need to breathe.

1 Like
2143

Do agree. I’m not in that cesspit called Delhi though.

2144

But your environment cannot sustain (not even thinking about global warming, just filth and polution) the step by step of the Industrial Revolution due to your extremely high population. At the same time, you don’t have to, as you can skip a lot of the steps that others had to undertake a hundred years ago or more.

But I am not unsympathetic and your argument is a normal one one hears all the time (including from western Academia). However, there are nuances. I agree that developing countries should have some lattitude (which they have alos been given).

But undeniably, and this cannot be disputed, your population is simply too high and mixed with grotesque poverty and inequality,for postindustrial development to go “smoothly”. Everyone in India and China can not have a petrol car or fly airplanes as often as those from a post-industrial state with more equality and the fertility numbers of a post-industrial state.
You already live in a country with massive pollution problems (and littering problems). And Co2 aside, it is not sustainable and will lead to the creation of a proper “Hellhole”.

Edit: I am not calling your country a hellhole or trying to be disrespectful here, Sithbare. Just noting that the inequality, great poverty + high population numbers makes it rather hard, unless you want to destroy your very habitation (which leads to more inequality and poverty, triggering another circle of environmental problems like littering and more).

2145

It’s high enough considering our economy or earning-level.

My monthly electricity bill is $100, and it’s about 10% of my income. We are a small household, and we don’t have air-conditioning, or water-heating. Rice is $1/KG, and many millions would be understrain when the 15% hike in disel for irrigation hits the consumers. The RMG owners have so far absorbed the increased cost, but they can’t tranfer further increase to the selling prices and the result is likely to be layoffs.

We aren’t paying prices similar to Canada, Europe, etc. simply becase we don’t have that kind of earning level.

3 Likes
2146

Electricity is a little different, particularly where people don’t really use a great deal of it. Electricity is tradeable globally only in a very limited context, where transmission capacity exists at scale - so it ends up being priced very differently depending on where you are. But petrol/diesel really cannot stray too far from global pricing before a country sees real distortion problems, except in the rare producer country cases like Venezuela where a portion of production is simply diverted as a form of social welfare. Bangladesh doesn’t have particularly efficient refining (nor afaik particularly inefficient), so process + global market price really has to be fairly close to the price set to consumers. That is even more the case because Bangladesh imports over half of its consumed fuel as fully refined products (so someone else is capturing the refinery margin). That 15% hike isn’t actually enough, so funds have to come from someone else. I recognize that logic has brutal effects.

On electricity, I almost certainly pay less per kWh than you (about USD 0.06 kWh), but I am kicking myself for not buying an electric car. With current gasoline prices, my weekly drive up to the lake in Quebec this summer would more than pay for itself - I would be able to charge once a week at West Quebec rural pricing, or about USD 0.03/kWh.

Instead, every time I fill up I will be cursing the Americans..I have seen some of them thinking that it is unfair that they bear all the costs of this stupid war with Iran, and that somehow some of their allies and other countries should at least be providing funding. Meanwhile, most of the rest us daydream about compensation. I am fortunate enough to live in a country that won’t see physical scarcity and will simply deal with higher prices (and indeed is earning that higher price for all-time high exports), but there are many many countries like Bangladesh that are being pushed to the wall by this stupidity.

2147

The difference in purchasing parity often doesn’t compute when a commodity is priced globally in a foreign currency.

The nearest for the UK to compare would be the phasing out of domestic coal fires. When I was growing up, all the buildings in Liverpool were caked black with soot. People’s lungs were subject to the same level of pollution.

There was a movement to replace coal with gas and electric heating from the 1950s and a ban on dark smoke from chimneys in 1968, which resulted in either switching to gas/electric or more expensive “smokeless” fuels.

The problem was that this hit the poorest hardest. There were grants available to help with the switchover, but the cost of the electricity was still much higher than a bag of coal.

There isn’t really an easy answer to that. When I worked in government, we gave grants to help with energy efficiency in the home, but for vehicles, the most efficient ones are usually the newest, and really only easily available to the already well off.

As for what people in wealthier countries can do, maybe the answer is for western consumers to pay more for imported goods. Looking at my shirt, it is manufactured in Bangladesh. Would it kill me if it was a couple of Euros more to pay for environmental standards and a decent wage for the seamstress? Not really? Would it improve the lives of the people who make the shirt? Almost certainly.

4 Likes
2148

That’s high Ifti. Not sure how much the US to Bangla currency rate conversion is , but that’s very high. My current bill comes to around 2.5k INR in summers where the usage of AC is like 16 out of 24 hours a day. Maybe 25-30 USD.

There’s been so much talk about Bangladesh having a better GDP per capita than India. And this is surprising

1 Like
2149

I understand where you are coming from. But you got to realise that most of the countries (which are in the third world) have been dealt a shit hand with respect to what they have had to deal with.

Is a huge chunk of India’s population poor ? Yes.

Is it improving? Yes

But I just fail to see why the developing countries have to pay the price.

Countries in Europe routinely give their manufacturing to China for example and that’s nothing but shifting the carbon tax from one place to another.

I’ll get into this conversation more. Phone battery is about to die

3 Likes
2150

And looking at the greedy capitalists around , you can be rest assured that the extra money will go right into their pockets and not to the people who slot to make the shirt.

1 Like
2151

I’m always a bi dubious about “Fairtrade” schemes. Who makes sure that the money actually does get to the farmer/worker/whatever?

Your other comment about exporting pollution and exploitation abroad is also on the nose. I suspect that much of it comes down to WTO rules.

2152

Sadly that is spot on,the worker sees nothing .

2153

The money do get to the workers. Question is how much, or rather, how little.
In my ASEAN region, with some exceptions, financial support - direct or in kind - to the poor, be it from the authorities or privately run charities, seem to benefit the intended recipients only to the tune of 10%.
In other words, for every dollar meant for the unfortunates, 90 cents went into the intermediaries.
I’ve known of CEOs and top executives of non-profit and not-for-profit organisations being paid obscene amounts for their “hardwork”.
Many years ago in the generally corruption-scarce Little Red Dot, a top executive was found to have installed gold fittings into his personal office toilet and flew First Class on “company” account. He was later convicted of corruption in his position as CEO of a non-profit charitable foundation run chiefly on donations.
The foundation itself is in the clear, it’s the bosses who run it that sucked the blood of the intended beneficiaries and make suckers out of generous well-meaniong donors.
There is a reason I never give money to charities and such. Instead, I hand out small cash, food and little luxuries like chocolaties to destitues on the streets.
A friend of mine do it differently. He usually bulk buy fastfood from KFC and McDonald’s, and sweet treats too, to give directly to orphanages and old folks homes.
No chance given for the middlemen to siphon off any money.

2 Likes
2154

It’s easy for people to preach. But the fact is that people the world over need the cheap produce that the third world or the second world countries provide.

2 Likes
2155

Maybe somebody could start a cost of living thread.

2 Likes