The Economist: A Greek bailout, and soon?

harryhound

blueboy43 wrote: »

I agree with some of what you say, but how in GDP terms can it be described as much, much worse ?

GDP fell between start Q3 79 and end Q1 1981 by exactly 6%.

This recession has seen GDP fall by 6.03% (so far).

It is interesting to note that the growth in each quarter when the recession ended was very similar.

Then along came North Sea Oil - I remember it as though it was yesterday, as I was working in Switzerland.

WE CANNOT PULL THAT TRICK AGAIN.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

harryhound wrote: »

Then along came North Sea Oil - I remember it as though it was yesterday, as I was working in Switzerland.

Your memory is flawed.

North Sea oil was discovered in the 1960's, and the first production started be the end of that decade. The biggest fields (Brent, Forties, Montrose, etc) were already in production by the mid 70's.

So by 1981 the major fields had been in production and generating revenue for half a decade or so. They were not significant enough in revenue terms to prevent us going into recession in '79, and likewise not significant enough to pull us out in '81.

WE CANNOT PULL THAT TRICK AGAIN.

Actually, it was never a particularly relevant trick to begin with.

But there is plenty of oil left in the North Sea.

As of this year, around 65% of proven reserves have been extracted over the last 4 decades, but we do keep making new discoveries. There are at least 2 or 3 decades of significant production left. Perhaps much more if we look at the largely unexploited deep water Atlantic gas fields west of Shetland.

Spartacus_Mills

harryhound wrote: »

Then along came North Sea Oil - I remember it as though it was yesterday, as I was working in Switzerland.

WE CANNOT PULL THAT TRICK AGAIN.

It was a double edged sword though. For the benefit of the revenue it gave us helped keep our currency artificially high in the early eighties and helped keep us in recession for longer. But yes it was a big boon for us and the revenues were gratefully received by HMG.

North Sea Oil is now a declining resource, you are right, we cannot pull that one off again and we also cannot nationalise our way out of it either as we have far less to sell off.

StevieJ

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

So by 1981 the major fields had been in production and generating revenue for half a decade or so. They were not significant enough in revenue terms to prevent us going into recession in '79, and likewise not significant enough to pull us out in '81.
.

The mainstream of oil revenues did not start until the 80's and helped Maggie pay for those enormous dole queues created by her deliberate monetarist policies, prior to the 80's the revenues were quite small .

harryhound

Can we all accept this as a definitive summary of North Sea development?
Obviously because of the massive investments required, North Sea oil could not have been generating a positive cash (& tax) flow until the 1980's,

http://www.abdn.ac.uk/oillives/about/nsoghist.shtml


I clearly remember watching the news reports of the Hamilton Bros bringing ashore the first oil - from a large floating buoy with a pipe underneath dangling down into the oil field.
Bit tricky in stormy weather.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederic_C._Hamilton

What ever we can still get out of the North Sea, it won't be cheap and "easy" any more.
There will be ever increasing expensive restrictions on how we are allowed use it.