Electricity Bills/ Powered Sites

Not the Climate change increases Jim, they are all Ruddies

No Federal climate tax/charges have come into effect yet as far as I am aware Geoff.

Nope thats spot on, but its something that is going to change the face of electricity if it gets thru

And well it should.

We pay very little for our electricity in Australia and we remain amongst the highest (per capita) emitters of greenhouse gases.

yep its an unwinnable and unloseable arguement. In 50 years we'll never know if we did enough.

And if I ever hear you mention that lady with the long nose again and Minister Prime I will pop around for a chat :0) I nearly fell off my chair laughing and thats not good for someone my age !!

Mike,

I would have thought it was that goose Garret who ballsed it up. Rudd's mistake was appointing a celebrity to a Senior Ministerial postion.

Jim.

here here

you can't blame garret because he was fed information by his staff who are then in turn fed by data that could be corrupted by a system of garbage from people who don't want to lose their jobs. Peter Garrett might be a singer but he is far from stupid. So I blame the staff for not doing their job, i.e. too many yes me. not enough straight talkers

Jim

That goose would have to be the ugliest damn politician to have ever walked the floors of parliment.... he couldn't sing let alone run a portfolio.

.

Hang on...didn't the Rudd government stick him in a safe labour seat with the intention on capitilising on support he might have from the green movement....

Mind you I'm no supporter of Garrett either, but he was no more than a (expendable) pawn in a much bigger game....and that is now back-firing on Rudd. Garrett's problem is that he has no factional support......making him expendable to all factions within the labour party, a fall guy for the inadequate leadership of the current government......

One thing is for sure, Rudd won't be leading the labour party after the next election, regardless of its outcome.

Landy

You siad

"One thing is for sure, Rudd won't be leading the labour party after the next election, regardless of its outcome."

And I'm sure you meant Australian Labor Party.

To use a football analogy, if the Full Forward kicks 10 goals in a winning team and sees off three opponents would he be expected to be relegated to the bench for the next game?

Still, the ring of Prime Minister Gillard has a certain ring to it.

One wonders who the Opposition Leader may be by that time. I'd reckon Wilson Tuckey could be a fair gamble LOL.

Cheers,

Jim.

Yes Jim, quite correct to pull me up on that one...but it certainly feels like we've been 'labouring' under the ineptitude of this current government......

"To use a football analogy, if the Full Forward kicks 10 goals in a winning team and sees off three opponents would he be expected to be relegated to the bench for the next game? "

Couldn't agree more, but surely you aren't talking about the Rudd 'Labor' Government?

Good weekend to you.....Cheers

I sure am Landy,

A C&P of what I said below


Well, here's a brief précis of what actually happened from a business owners perspective.

I started the development work of my business in 2006. In mid 2007 I threw in my job, invested a lot of dough and went at it full time.

By early 2008 the business really began to grow. By August 2008 things were looking sensational. As of September 2008 the arse fell out of it as concerns about the GFC grew.

November 2008 Rudd said (and I'm paraphrasing here) "We're going to act quickly to avert this disaster. We'll stimulate the economy to try to avoid recession. We'll not sit on our hands, fall into the mire, and try to find a way out."

And so he did.

Come January 2009 it was like someone turned the tap back on. Since then we've seen 20% year on year growth.

Conservative Governments react, progressive Goverments act. I'm glad I voted for Rudd, the man has delivered.

As for the debt. One of my Uni Economics Lecturers said "Debt is not an issue as long as you can comfortably service it".

Jim.

And I think governments around the world were right to stimulate economic activity, Rudd was hardly innovative in doing it, most governemnts did it.

But herein lies the issue today, the risk has transferred to Sovereign entities, Greece, Spain, and they can't pay their bills. Acting the way they did during the GFC is one thing, how they manage the systemic risks that were created will be a true measure of their capability.

Australia has 5.2% unempoloyment and everything looks pretty good....but beware GFC Mark 2, it is still a possibility and this time around governments around the world no longer have the capacity to 'spend' their way out.

Mind you, glad your business is working well for you.......best you do hope that Rudd keeps his job, because if Gillard gets it business will suffer from her left-leanings and alliance with the unions.

Cheers

Just to add to previous...

"As for the debt. One of my Uni Economics Lecturers said "Debt is not an issue as long as you can comfortably service it".

Another to add these days is....also as long as you have access to debt markets. During the GFC, and prior to the government guarantee, the ability of the big four Australian banks to service their debt had not changed, however their ability to access foreign capital markets dried up completely until the government guarantee was put in place.

Mind you, again it wasn;t a stroke of Rudd genius, they had no alternative as other sovereign entities had done it. The alternative may well have been a full blown banking crisis.

Many viable companies were faced with the same issue.......

Not as simple as serviceability any more...

Landy,

As I recall the Federal Opposition vehemently opposed the Govt Bank Guarantee. Spouting hysteria like "Rudd has put us another 300 billion into debt".

BTW, most pleasing to be able to debate isuues without vitriol and insults.

Regards,

Jim.

They did, but I don't compeletely blame them now. One of the big problems with Oz politics is the expectation press and the party backbenchers that the Opposition has to oppose everything the government does. For a (brief) time with Nelson, Turnbull and Rudd, I thought we might have a Parliament where issues were developed on their merits rather than the usual kneejerk opposition and abuse. When Rudd (before the election) basically supported some Howard policies this was interpreted as "pinching Policies". The previous Labour leader was a shocker at the auto reject and whinge response. Abbot seems to be the same. I think there is little doubt that any Lib leader would have done much the same as Rudd and every other world leader to stimulate the economy. The current hospital proposals are actually very similar to proposals floated by Abbot when he was Minister for Health. When you read his responses carefully, his main point isn'that the Commonwealth shouldn't take over hospitals, but that they need to do it completely. And I think I tend to agree with him on that.

Jim

I think you will find the Federal Opposition questioned the form and substance of the guarantee, and the disparity it created due to the way it was conceived, rather than the need to undertake it.

Once the Irish government put one in place it left little choice for other governments around the world. One thing is for sure, without it, Australia would have faced a severe banking crisis as the major banks were unable to fund themselves in the wholesale debt markets at that time.

Fortunately the situation is different today and banks have had access to these markets over the past few months without the need for the government guarantee, albeit at a higher cost for all.

And not wanting to necessarily cast a dark pail over proceedings, however I harbour concerns the very central themes that brought about the GFC have not been resolved, but that the risks have simply been transferred elsewhere in the system, and we are seeing evidence of that in recent times. The range of policy options for the government has reduced significantly should they be called to ‘action’ again.

But we did digress from the subject matter of electricity costs.

And I am with you, no need to get worked up in these discussions, just argue your case diligently.....

Cheers

In Short.
YEP.

Yeah, the stimulus was such a waste, huh? Govt spending as % of GNP is actually quite low. Personally I think increased spending on education, health, environment (eg water rights due to Sate govt incompetence), energy, infrastructure, pensioners, carers (etc) is long overdue. That's what you get after a decade of neglect.

Yeah agreed it was huh??
It was not a good value spend did and its not sustainable.
Unless you think all those Plasmas didn't help the Chinese economy in anyway?
$40 billion down the dunny and nothing tangible to show for it like improved water infrastructure, roads even the odd hospital would have been a better long term benefit to the country.

Nice that the resources boom help make the GNP look so good huh?

Made Rudd look good for the short term but when the bills have to be paid we will see how its thought of then.

Here ya go, a bit of light reading for ya!!

How Rudd Blows Your Billions

Seems your view of the success of the stimulus isn't shared by most economic judges. Not surprising really since you get your information from 'the Hun' and Andrew 'Right of Gengis Khan' Bolt. Howard and his cronies ran this country on the back of the resources boom and simply hoarded the windfall with no vision for the future. Rudd's now got the difficult task of fixing the mess - lack of doctors, not enough skilled workers, inadequate infrastructure, no investment in research, the list goes on.

Fix the mess LOL he can't install pink bats without killing people or build his perceived needed infrastructure in our schools in a responsible way without making a mess.
Interesting the comments coming from the school principles now saying what a waste that scheme is.

Fix the mess....thats just brilliant best laugh I have had all week.

Its OK to criticise the journo's who are starting to write it as it really is, I guess the truth really does hurt.

Here ya go, a bit more light reading for ya!!

Teachers Want Audit of Spending

If your Google isn't broken then maybe try a few searches and spend the time reading the way it really is and not the way Rudd is spinning it.

As far as I know Rudd didn't install one batt. Was naive to trust that bastion of 'Liberal' politics, private enterprise to do the right thing, look after employees, follow safety standards, no doubt about that. And I can Google with the best of them, so what? Easy to find criticisms of every govt spend. Try http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/05/2508296.htm to see your mate Howard's gross waste on advertising - $1Billion in 12 years of 'govt'.
Bolt is one of the most extreme conservative commentators in Australia. Says a lot that you think you're getting a fair assessment of the 'way it really is' reading him.

Gee whizz $80 odd million average a year over 12 years, not good for sure.

That will really makes Rudd's $10 Billion dollar hand out for Chinese Plasma TV's pale into insignificance won't it.

Or how about the $2.5 billion dollar fiasco as I mentioned before on pink bats.
Nice to try and deflect responsibility for risk management of a government spending program to the small business guys, when its clear that Rudd/Garrett was warned about the risks and failed to even read the assessments.
Oh!! and if its not the problem of the Rudd Government then please explain why Combet is assigned to spending hundreds of millions more to try and clean it up?

Have a read of Aunty's write up for yourself, or are we going to accuse the ABC of also being a right wing conservative commentator also??

Garrett Mess

Easy to apply a label to everyone that offers a different view particularly when it continues to point out what a monumental financial mess Rudd has made in 2 odd years, so much for his claimed "financial conservative management & fiscally responsible attitude"

Fix the mess....Sorry I'm still laughing my head off, thats so funny.

No wonder the states don't want Rudd anywhere near there hospitals to make them a bigger mess than what they are now.

Bolt is not a genuine journalist. His own newspapers don't support his views and he doesn't try to defend them. His job is to promote controversy and encourage "hits" to online sites or letters to the Editor as these all promote figures that newspapers can use to boost ratings to justify advertising prices. Pretty well all newspapers now employ some writers to do just this as a response to falling sales and online news. Nobody reads the responses, but they count as hits. You have to be pretty gullible to actually accept anything from these provocateurs as journalism.

Yep!! lets debunk everyone who dares to question the political leadership in the country.

No doubt about it all the journo's and media have got it wrong eh??

Instead of picking on Bolt why not come up with an argument that supports the programs Rudd has been screwing up, lets hear your side about why Garrett and Gillard are running there portfolios' so bloody well that no Aussie taxpayer has anything to fear.

You would have to be pretty gullible to accept anything that the Rudd government is telling us when clearly the facts are there to see otherwise.

John, what a load of codswallop. If you took the time to read what I had posted and actually discussed this before blathering, you would find that I was less than impressed with the handling of the insulation issue. Which doesn't mean that insulation wasn't a good idea. For some 92% of the installations it has been a very good idea, which is not to support the stuff up in the way it was done and the lives lost. I don't recall a single post of yours that has ever indicated anything but the most one eyed, non critical acceptance of everything from the far right. Thger a re plenty of good, reqasoned critiques from journalists from the right. Bolt is not one of them. He is certainly smart and knows what he is doing. His job is to stir up hits for the newspaper and he does this well, but if you accept them as sound argument you are in line to buy Harbour Bridges.
You don't seem to understand basic economics either. Every country in the world, including the old communist countries, stimulated the economy to hold off the recent economic collapse. We learnt why we need to do that in the 1930's crash. The actual government borrowing by Australia has been chickenfeed compared to what the rest of the world has done. JH didn't "balance the books". He sold our assets, like Telstra and privatised our public utilities, like water and power generation. After which, almost no money went into infrastructure development as this now belongs to private companies. But National debt isn't just government debt. Yes, government debt was reduced, but balance of payments (which we also then have to pay) went into total blowout, which helped bring about the collapse we just have had. And it's not over yet.

If selling asset to clear debt is not balancing the books then I don't know what is??

The results of "balancing the books" is to clear the debt and the resultant interest cost which cuts into the ability of government to use that money to fund other more needed items.
Howard cleared the $96 Billion left over from the Hawke/Keating administration over a 12 year period.
Aside from clearing the debt they also redeemed from Telstra enough money to bank in the Future Fund so that they could begin to cover the Super liabilities run up by successive governments.
It will be interesting to see how long it takes before Rudd starts to strip that money.

We are now looking to have put ourselves in a far worse position by the current government in only a couple of years and the interest bill is growing once more.
This years budget will be rather telling I'm sure.

None of this is surprising as its always been the domain of Labour governments to run the country into the ground financially.

I would also point out that water and power generation are the domain of the states, so its pretty hard to claim that Little Johny was responsible for that.

Big deal if you think my posts are from the far right, I believe in questioning and holding to account the government of the day regardless of the political persuasion.

When I see something that has actually been done right and actually shows a definitive long term and sustainable benefit to this country by the Rudd government then I will be the first to acknowledge it.

Well, here's a brief précis of what actually happened from a business owners perspective.

I started the development work of my business in 2006. In mid 2007 I threw in my job, invested a lot of dough and went at it full time.

By early 2008 the business really began to grow. By August 2008 things were looking sensational. As of September 2008 the arse fell out of it as concerns about the GFC grew.

November 2008 Rudd said (and I'm paraphrasing here) "We're going to act quickly to avert this disaster. We'll stimulate the economy to try to avoid recession. We'll not sit on our hands, fall into the mire, and try to find a way out."

And so he did.

Come January 2009 it was like someone turned the tap back on. Since then we've seen 20% year on year growth.

Conservative Governments react, progressive Goverments act. I'm glad I voted for Rudd, the man has delivered.

As for the debt. One of my Uni Economics Lecturers said "Debt is not an issue as long as you can comfortably service it".

Jim.

"If selling asset to clear debt is not balancing the books then I don't know what is?"
Then I can only conclude that you don't know what is. Getting rid of your assets (especially those like Telstra and our energy/water utilities) and transferring debt form Government debt to another line in the Balance of payments, is not balancing the books. Like every big business, debt is a form of investment in the future. That is why businesses borrow money, they all do it. It's good business. You invest in infrastructure to deliver later dividends. JH (and also Keating) were swayed by the Milton Friedman school of economics which recent events have shown to be a total economic catastrophe. Fortunately John Howard didn't completely buy it and kept some of our banking controls in place. You keep refusing to comment on why every government in the world, left or right wing, decided it needed to stimulate the economy. If they hadn't, we would have had massive closure of small business in every country and the sort of depression we had in the 1930's. The level of debt we have taken on is quite modest.
I agree with you re. the States. Do you want to join me in arguing that we need to get rid of the States because no matter whether the federal Government is Liberal or Labour, they need to be able to actually have a long term policy and be able to implement it. Quite impossible for any party at the moment as everything has to be compromised down to meaninglessness.
"When I see something that has actually been done right and actually shows a definitive long term and sustainable benefit to this country by the Rudd government then I will be the first to acknowledge it."
Well, you could start by responding to Jim's post. As I recall ikt, your first anti Rudd posts started about the time of the election and included issues such as emissions trading which were virtually identical to Howards, but which seemed to draw no comment from you.

Mfewster,

"JH didn't "balance the books". He sold our assets, like Telstra and privatised our public utilities, like water and power generation."

Yes he sold part of Telstra. Please elaborate on "and privatised our public utilities, like water and power generation."


Regards

I am with Gramps here the State Governments privatised the water and utilities, not John Howard.

I also pointed out that the states are responsible for power and water but is seems to have been conveniently glossed over by Mfewster.

Lets balance the books, If I owe the bank $100- and I have an asset worth $100-, how much balance sheet equity do I have??
Obviously nothing, the defining factor is that the $100- I owe the bank is costing me 7% and if the asset I have worth $100- is not generating enough revenue to cover the interest plus its operating cost plus a return over and above this then I am in almost every instance better off clearing the debt by selling the asset.
Balancing the books is a broad term used in a general description of reconciling the account, which is just what I have done.

Your correct its good business to borrow to re invest in your business so long as what you are investing in adds value to the business and not only covers its cost but can contribute in a meaningful way to the earnings of the business.
In the case of government we have nothing tangible to show for the increased level of borrowings that is occurring, simply the government is now spending more than its earning and creating a negative cash burn which is funded with borrowings.
These borrowing now come with increased interest and that means a compounding effect of less money to apply elsewhere.
Its a rolling stone that if not stopped will create the problems we are seeing in countries like Greece.

Australia is a far luckier country and we started the GFC with a stronger balance sheet, IE no debt and money in the bank, I wonder how that happened???
I also wonder what would have happened if Australia didn't have the strength in its balance sheet before Rudd started to spend, how much further down the debt ladder would we be?

Simply speaking Jim's claims of a percentage increase means nothing on its own right, if I sold one set of drawers in the first year and two in the second then I have 100% increase in sales growth.
If Jim sold 5 sets of drawers in one year and 6 in the next he made his 20% growth, sounds great in a percentage but in reality it may not add up to much of a growth in cash earnings.
Any which way good for him, if he is happy. I never knock small business as I intimately understand how hard it is to be successful in this country.

But my thought has always been that its survival of the fittest in business and if anybody needs a one off stimulus to maintain viability then they are only staving off the inevitable and better to let them go down and allow the well run, strong and viable businesses continue to thrive.
Bad business is bad business regardless of how much artificial money is used to prop it up in the short term.

I have been in business for more than 27 years and obviously regard myself as successful in my business ventures.
I have seen and survived the odd recession "we had to have" without any government handouts or stimulus, I did it by running a strong balance sheet and a tight cost base, in other words a viable business.

I have also been directly exposed to the positives and the negatives of the Rudd stimulus.

One venture I'm involved with is exposed to the gaming industry and the best trading conditions experienced in this market for a long long time was around the Nov/Dec 2008 period, quite amazing in fact how much money the pensioners of Australia spent on gambling a direct correlation to the Rudd hand outs.
It was short lived, and expected as a result of the stimulus and the same business is now retrenching its work force as it see's the spiral down as a result of the one off stimulus running out of steam and the market getting worse than was experienced before.

This is why the current concern is for a double dip recession, its not over out there, Rudd did what he needed to do to keep us out of a technical recession as its always been a case of history that recessions hit this country when Labor is in power.
He spent to protect his political image, so Rudd and Swan can puff their chest in Parliament and say "We stayed out of recession"
It will remain to be seen how much we will suffer the long term ramifications of this spend.
As I said this budget will be quite telling.

Sorry folks, I've only just got back home. It's going to take me a little time to wade through to respond to all this, so I won't get to cover the lot in one shot.
Re ownership of utilities. While utilities owned by the States, all such sales require Federal approval. As I said previously, this process actually started under Labor but it sure gathered pace under Howard/Costello when Kennet in particular started selling every asset not nailed down. This was part of a larger world movement stemming from Milton Friedman in the USA but very enthusiastically also carried on under Thatcher. It is also associated with takeovers and assett stripping of companies. My beef on this re Howard/Costello is that they rode the wave of increased income from mineral exports but instead of using the income to create infrastructure, as for example Menzies had done, they bought popularity by lowering taxes. The bush in particular has suffered from the "user pays" principle.
I also reckon that if Abbot had been PM at the time of the recent financial stress, he would have done exactly what Rudd and every other world leader has done to stimulate the economy, and the most significant of these things in Austtralia, was underwriting the banks.
The big plus that Rudd did has been largely not understood or overlooked. Rudd was the first international leader to demand international control of hedge funds and the derivatives markets. These (which grew out of Friedmann freemarket principles) caused the recent crash. Australia has more controls in this area than most countries (Howard, to his credit, didn't move to get rid of these controls but I'd bet he was under plenty of pressure from the further right to do so).
I totally agree that it isn't over and until the world's pollies are game to tackle this, it will all happen again and I agree that there is a limit to how often you can stoke economies with"stimulus" packets. Trouble is, everytime there are moves to control this kind of market activity there are shrieks of "communism" from the right and the USA ion particular, backs off.
Re "Balancing Books"
Selling your assets to pay debt makes sense if you are closing down. But if you have an ongoing business, it makes little sense - as long as the debt is incurred in building for the future. Which is why previous Lib leaders also borrowed for National projects. The pea and thimble trick that Howard and Costello did was a little different. There are two components to our national debt; the government debt and our balance of payments. When theyprivatized, thenTreasurer also gave permission for massive debt to be created in the private sector to pay for the purchases. We transferred the debt to another line in the national accounts, the balance of payments. Which guarantees that the prices for our utilities will continue to climb steeply as the companies try to pay off their debt (which is still our debt). Personally, I'd rather have that in government hands so we can hold them responsible and make sure services get provided to the bush, even if sometimes thjis has to be at a cost shared by the whole communitgy; or we hold politicians to account if they don't build infrastructure.
Whew. I'm stopping now.

Notwithstanding the fact that this is not the appropriate forum for political debate, your latest diatribe deserves one final comment. Your folksy, simplistic and narrow economic 'analyses' are amusing but loaded with obvious bias and ignorance. For example you state that "its always been a case of history that recessions hit this country when Labor is in power", clearly inferring that Labor economic management is therefore somehow to blame for these recessions.

Anyone with a modicum of intelligence understands that recessions have multiple causes, many/most of which are invariably outside the control of a small economy such as Australia (irrespective of the party in power). More importantly though, you are simply, and patently, WRONG.

Since WW11 Australia has had 3 'significant' recessions. The first in the early 1950s occurred under Menzies (Lib); the second. in the early 1980s. occurred during Fraser's stewardship (Lib); and the third. in the early 1990s. occurred under Hawke (Labor) (ref:. http://www.treasury.gov.au/documents/110/HTML/docshell.asp?URL=3round.asp).

In the case of the current GFC most analysts agree that China's booming economy kept Australia from a recession, and the Rudd govt stimulus package significantly softened the blow (of the crisis). No one, especially Rudd, has said that Australia won't bear some pain as a result. And Rudd has made it clear that we will all have to pay in coming years in order to return the budget to surplus. The amount of economic pain and the time it takes depends (as it always has) on world economic growth/conditions.

"Folksy" LOL
I like that, never been called "folksy" before. :-)

Thanks

Cheers

John,

Might you enlighten us as to who you are, what your "business" is and what your qualifications (other than quoting Andrew Bolt and that lunatic Monckton on matters that you hold so dear to your heart) are for making your wide sweeping, radically biased remarks?

It's easy to hide behind an internet alias as you do and fire salvos.

I, on the other hand, am an open book. My name is James Best and I've never hidden it. My business details are openly available.

.............. Yes

whats a "McMansion?"
or is that a typo?

McMansion's are all the great big two story houses you see being built in just about every housing estate in this country. All look the same with collumns at the front and no eaves so they are sweatboxes in summer. Hence the need for at least two a/c units to cool them and even heat them in the winter as they are not quite as thermal efficient as they should be.
No gardens either so the estates will be like deserts in the future. Who needs a great big house when the average family is getting smaller? A small campervan or camper trailer would be just as good and would leave room for some shade trees!!
Just a thought.

in actual fact its more efficient cooling/heating a single large building than several small ones, especially two story. Less surface area for more volume.

Yes, we must not forget the home theatre and the three bathrooms need to be kept cool as well as heated.
Interesting to see some of these houses have a quarterly power bill approaching $1000 and a smaller house about half that or more. I've never had a power bill over $280 in the last 22 years in this house.
I think we've done this topic to death, don't you? let's get back to the real side of life.

CAMPING!!!!! OUT. Er, not really shouting, just looking forward to Easter.

Yep here in WA were getting massive increases in gas and power

LOL :-)

Mate you miss spelled that last word, Ya got the "H" mixed up with the "D"

now THAT John is funny!

"Only draw back is the Swmbo will depart, and the teenagers, The Relos won't want to know you!' "

Errrr .... where's the drawback? Swmbo possibly LOL

Regards

I agree entirely

New Zealand has gone through the privatisation fiasco and were promised cheaper everything

What happened

The electricity was split up into generating, network and retail.

So what happened we were paying more per unit PLUS a fee for generation AND a fee for the network.

Someone has to pay for all the extra levels of management.

Its all a load of manure.

As well as electricity they privatised the railways and all that happened was most of the branch lines got shut down and the fares went up.

Same with the Post office It got split into Post, Postbank and Telecom.

Telecom spent huge amounts of money doing indoctrination courses and when they were all finished they started mass sackings and centralisation.

The phone service has gone to crap just like Telstra all service work is contracted out and on short term contracts so no security to the contractors.

We worked as Toll operators and were told that we were safe for quite a while (like a year or more ) 3 weeks later we were told get ready you shut down in 8 weeks.


So Australia look forward to progress.


Selling the silver balances the books this year but what will take the place of the income generated by the sold off entities.

Nothing Just the fat cats getting fatter and the public get shafted

And that was ELEVEN years ago they did that in NZ so the buggers KNEW what was going to happen!

Back in the 70's there was a Professor Bockriss from the University of Adelaide who was forecasting that energy costs would consume up to a third of family incomes and that this would happen within 10 years.
His time frame was out but we seem to be headed in that direction.