Unlike other countries…
Just come across the concept of the Dutch Disease while waiting for a drawing to load up at work. Obviously it helped to kill off mass manufacturing in the UK during the late 70s and 80s. Seems a terrible lost opportunity.

Too busy fiddling with kids.

Its an intresting article

care to expand on “Offset oil revenues into the future”

What would anyone want oil for in the future?

“Our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter… It is not too much to expect that our children will know of great periodic regional famines in the world only as matters of history, will travel effortlessly over the seas and under them and through the air with a minimum of danger and at great speeds, and will experience a lifespan far longer than ours, as disease yields and man comes to understand what causes him to age.”

Lewis Strauss, then Chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, 1954

Mr Strauss only got the price of electricity wrong.

There has been no famine in the US, travel over the sea is common, under the sea – well you could argue that submarine cables provide us the ability to see nearly every corner of the world through the internet. Air travel is massively more safe than it was in the 50’s and the biggest healthcare issue is that people are living much longer and requiring more care in later years than had been the case.

cranberry – Member

There has been no famine in the US

Which is the same thing as “the world”? 😛

The money was used to destroy our manufacturing industry and pay the benefits that followed

They knew that this cheeky wee scamp would have been along to claim his birthright at some point in the future

Oh… and what jota180 said.

‘We’ did what ‘we’ do best. Spunk it all away to avoid addressing the real issues about our changing place in the world.

With politicians needling to be elected / re-elected every five years, what incentive is there for them to say “you can’t have all the sweeties now, save some for when you might actually need it”?

Oh, and why in the 80’s didn’t local councils reinvest the money they got from selling off social housing stock into more social housing programmes?

Or did they realise that they sold them off too cheaply and spent the money on jollies to other innocuous continental towns for twinning parties?

Same same but different eh?

Oh, and why in the 80’s didn’t local councils reinvest the money they got from selling off social housing stock into more social housing programmes?

Thatcher forbade it

No different to any number of calamitous and predictable economic scenario we seemed doomed to repeat.

Thatcher forbade it

Really? I was unaware of that. Thank you.

Was it because they were too busy dealing with the calamitous effects of devaluing the pound and paying back the IMF to begin saving for the future?

The UK didn’t need to because the UK has a diverse economy that is not dependent on oil. When the oil is gone we will still be OK.

Really? I was unaware of that. Thank you.

Was you also aware that before Mrs T you could always buy your council house, just that you paid the ‘market’ rate – without a big fat gerrymandering discount.

Makes you wonder when you see how Norway dealt with it. Missed opportunity, whatever the reasons for it.

It was used to keep taxes lower than they would otherwise have been. That wins more votes today than building a sovereign wealth fund for the future.

Our manufacturing industry killed itself without any help from the various governments we’ve had in the last 50 years

Right Wing free market BS, that’s why.

You need to run a budget surplus first…..

@Phil so what about when we had all those Labour governments ?

Apparently, during the 2014 Autumn Statement the chancellor also announced a “sovereign wealth fund” for the north, which would invest tax payments from future shale gas extraction in the region.

I suspect that this won’t be great.

🙂

In the 70s you say? Well, that would be because it was a Labour government that spent money like water and screwed everything up, like they always do.

It is rather hard to encourage people to invest in the future of your country when the top rate of tax is 98%

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1433643/Labour-remains-haunted-by-the-sound-of-squeaking-pips.html

unlike many on here i was up and about in the 70’s.. we had elections every ten minutes we had three day working week we had petrol rationing the telly had to go off b..efore it got dark somenights. we had full on day long power cuts. these were seriously dark days.. blaming it on thatcher is any easy trick for those who wer nt there.. remember democracy and free will kept returning her to no 10.. so she must have been significantly better than her predecessors.

With politicians needling to be elected / re-elected every five years, what incentive is there for them to say “you can’t have all the sweeties now, save some for when you might actually need it”?

Basically the government is a parent with a terminal illness and a spouse that it hates.

unlike many on here i was up and about in the 70’s.. we had elections every ten minutes we had three day working week we had petrol rationing the telly had to go off b..efore it got dark somenights. we had full on day long power cuts. these were seriously dark days.. blaming it on thatcher is any easy trick for those who wer nt there.. remember democracy and free will kept returning her to no 10.. so she must have been significantly better than her predecessors.

Pretty much what my dad says. Try bringing up 3 kids on a 3 day week and striking all the time through no choice of your own. Think my dad had 3 jobs at the time just to pay the bills.

Our manufacturing industry killed itself without any help from the various governments we’ve had in the last 50 years

You really are that stupid aren’t you?

Our industry was killed off through a number of factors.

Mostly exporting to our empire. Empire disappears, so do exports,
Way too much Government interference, Tory and Labour, as an example, Amalgamating our car industry into one giant monster,
Appalling management of said industries,
Unions being dicks.

It was a clusterf**k of epic proportions.

In the 70s you say? Well, that would be because it was a Labour government that spent money like water and screwed everything up, like they always do.

Are you talking about the 70’s or 2010-2015?

Was it because they were too busy dealing with the calamitous effects of devaluing the pound and paying back the IMF to begin saving for the future?

No it was used in an idealogical experiment, which has come back to bite us firmly on the backside.

unlike many on here i was up and about in the 70’s.. we had elections every ten minutes we had three day working week we had petrol rationing the telly had to go off b..efore it got dark somenights. we had full on day long power cuts. these were seriously dark days.. blaming it on thatcher is any easy trick for those who wer nt there.. remember democracy and free will kept returning her to no 10.. so she must have been significantly better than her predecessors.

I remember the same things rather than the rose tinted version some have. Always remember that you had to have candles on the shopping list not for decoration but for when not if the lights went off due to power cuts.

Makes you wonder when you see how Norway dealt with it.

Apart from the population of Norway being 4 to 5 million over the period and UK 56-64 million. Plus they have more O&G reserves than we do. So quite simply it’s like comparing apples and pears.

Slackalice

Oh, and why in the 80’s didn’t local councils reinvest the money they got from selling off social housing stock into more social housing programmes?

Or did they realise that they sold them off too cheaply and spent the money on jollies to other innocuous continental towns for twinning parties?

Same same but different eh?

Not the same in any way! The money couldn’t be reinvested as it was supposed to pay off the long term loans (99 years) that the Houses were originally built with post-war, however, most local authorities are still paying off those debts now, even for houses which were sold thirty years ago…

This is the reason that so many local authorities took up the offer from the government to write the debts off and become Housing Associations in a stck transfer in the early 2000s.

Bugger all to do with Thatcher too, as right to buy was introduced before she was even PM, her government just extented it to more people.

In answer to the original question, Jambalaya has it right. The revenue was used to reduce income tax to the tune of about 1p in the £1. Bargain!!

Trying to get people to think long term when there is an easy, selfish short term ‘solution’ is always a problem.