Thursday, July 09, 2009

Slip-Sliding Away

At home, Gordon is about to print more money, having failed last time round to trigger the inflation which is his great hope for cutting the value of debt (and impoverishing those with savings or on fixed incomes).

Industries that make things are still shutting.

Dow's Wilton plant is the only one in the UK to produce ethylene oxide.
Never mind, we'll just import it. And we'll pay for it with the money we've earned from ... er ...

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wonder how many people realise that EO is a vital ingredient for every detergent from Fairy Liquid to your shower gel?

Scorched earth, indeed.

Sgt Troy said...

Meanwhile the cretin Dave Hill on CIF is thumping the internal migration = enrichment by Somalis drum

Unknown said...

Laban, are you aware of an American political figure called Lyndon LaRouche? Here's a link to a recent speech by him that you may find enlightening and surprising. Particularly in regards to the financial situation and 'Britain's' role in it.

The webcast is over 3 hours long but much of that is taken up by a Q&A following his speech.

Harry Hutton said...

Oh, Laban, you’re going to have to brush up on your ethylene derivatives, I’m afraid. Not a single cargo of ethylene oxide will be imported to the UK. It is too dangerous and expensive to ship. All the downstream ethoxylation and glycols units will re-locate to the continent.

Anonymous said...

Immigrants send home 4 billion a year

Good for the economy.

Harry Hutton said...

Unable to sleep for worrying about ethylene oxide, I went for a walk on the heath and a had a long think about it. You were right, man. We can import ethylene oxide, whatever the cost, whoever gets hurt.

Would you like to buy some mono-ethylene glycol? Got a couple of thousand tonnes I’m trying to shift. Make a nice present for someone.

The name is Bond, Jamesh Bond said...

All this stuff about EO is news to me. But then why would a pleb like me know about these things, but you would expect someone in the Government to.

Some of the comments here remind me of a book I read: "A Man called Intrepid" about Bill Stephenson - the man Ian Fleming said was the model for James Bond.

Amongst other things, Bill Stephenson had been an industrialist, and as such knew of the choke points in many industrial processes and production - such as ball bearings etc.

In WWII, as well as help creating the organisation that was to become the CIA, he recommended these choke points be bombed or sabotaged in whatever way seemed appropriate or possible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Stephenson

I bet there isn't a single person in the Government who has a clue about key industries, and doubt if there is a single one who cares.

Anonymous said...

Here, you'll like this one Laban.
Americas new science czar supports putting sterilants in water

Laban said...

I'm impressed with Mr Hutton's erudition - he's not just a pretty face. So once the EO goes, all the downstream ops go with it, do they ? It's worse than I thought then.

Laban said...

sorry - for "pretty" read "witty"

Anonymous said...

"But then why would a pleb like me know about these things, but you would expect someone in the Government to."

You would expect that, would you?

Based on what evidence or prior experience?

I think you delude yourself.

The name is Bond, Jamesh Bond said...

"I think you delude yourself"

You're probably right.

I guess in my ideal world there would be people in Government who had experience of life and the world, such as industry, the armed forces etc rather than a bunch of ex-lawyers, ex-PR tossers and overgrown student union activists.

Probably why I tend to like and respect MPs who have been around. Including ones as different as David Davis and John Prescott.

The name is Bond, Jamesh Bond said...

Some further thought on my self delusion:

In my ideal world the Government would be made up of ex-engineers and ex-military types.

Engineers, have to get things right. It doesn't matter if they are mechanical, electrical, civil or chemical engineers, they all design and build real tangible stuff.

Engineers know that if they get one part wrong, if they use the wrong materials, they don't get the tolerances right (whatever) then whatever they are building or designing will not work, fall down or blow up.

Senior military types are the same. Doesn't matter if its the army, navy or air force, a military force is a system, and if one part is faulty, the other parts are in danger.

Lawyers, Pr-types, spivs from the City are all waffly bulsh*t types - and I speak as some who does a waffly bullsh*t job.

Waffly bullsh*t types are often the sort who will spend vast sums of money on aircraft carriers but will leave out an AWACs capability.

Systems thinkers are what we need running the country.

John Prescott was probably a bad example.