UK energy or should I say the lack of it.

[Texan77]

Wholesale prices in UK for electricity is much higher recent months. Meanwhile the government does not want to let energy companies pass these cost on to consumers. The is the f the same problem in China where they are having a large electrical outages. Now either the government will have to do a large bail out or the Chinese method of no power.

They claim also part of this is cause by Russia not selling enough gas to Europe to force the EU to approve the new gas line as a major disruption like no lights. Russia make excuses for the lack of gas. 

[2tallbill]

Wholesale prices in UK for electricity is much higher recent months. Meanwhile the government does not want to let energy companies pass these cost on to consumers. The is the f the same problem in China where they are having a large electrical outages.

It's called the law of supply and demand, not the theory of supply
and demand. They have to allow prices to go up or they will have
supply problems and outages.

[Wiz]

Wholesale prices in UK for electricity is much higher recent months. Meanwhile the government does not want to let energy companies pass these cost on to consumers. The is the f the same problem in China where they are having a large electrical outages. Now either the government will have to do a large bail out or the Chinese method of no power.

They claim also part of this is cause by Russia not selling enough gas to Europe to force the EU to approve the new gas line as a major disruption like no lights. Russia make excuses for the lack of gas. 

POOR TEXAN

[Drivel removed]

Have you forgot your own history of Capitalism, which you think is the best system to run a country?

Have you forgot Enron company and the biggest Energy scandal in USA?

Enron linked to California blackouts

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/enron-caused-california-blackouts-traders-say

Traders said manipulation began energy crisis

Two days of rolling blackouts in June 2000 that marked the beginning of California's energy crisis were directly caused by manipulative energy trading, according to a dozen former traders for Enron and its rivals

Read the article for starters ........

Have you ever seen or watched an animal dying? I have seen  ...
and noticed just before the end... they were kickin their legs on the air! 

That is exactly how your latest posts look to me. Russia & China are financially worse than the USA......and they cannot survive with out the USA help (buying the cheap products). 

Russia does not provide enough cheap gas... so the Euopran should pay higher prices.
So many Energy companies gone bust in the UK! Actually you do not have a clue what really is going on in the UK!

The end for the USA is coming fast!

 

[Manny]

They claim also part of this is cause by Russia not selling enough gas to Europe to force the EU to approve the new gas line as a major disruption like no lights. Russia make excuses for the lack of gas. 

Cant send gas down pipes that don't exist due to sanctions.

Cant expect any favours from Russia in the light of sanctions.

We made our bed with Russia, now we've got to lie in it. I'm glad I have a log burner.

The gas issue could be solved by fracking, but the PMs wife is a green so we stopped that.

She is also pushing lots of green electricity generation nonsense. 30% of our bills go towards this fetish. They never noticed that wind turbines don't turn if it isn't windy.

Our energy policies are nuts. And no, its nothing at all to do with Brexit.

[andrewfi]

To be fair, the link with Norway for electricity opened the other day. That's a bi-directional link so the UK can send surplus from the UK and vice versa. That's a handy way to even out supply shortages and to deal with days or hours that are not windy enough. As more offshore wind comes online in the UK that supply volatility will tend to decrease anyway.

IIRC the UK government is going to be buying more gas from Norway as well.

We should not forget the energy issue is not just a UK problem. My leccy price has gone up by about 50% over the course of this year and its due to go up even more. Dutch gas prices are through the roof. It's Europe wide and becoming a worldwide issue. The USA is not immune either.

The Chinese government went public the other day and made it clear that they were buying all gas that they could. That's the new order that Putin mentioned a while back. The EU didn't have their heads screwed on. They had this mad idea that Russia would simply keep pumping gas even though it hadn't been purchased. That's madness because all that would do is drive down the spot price of gas. Of course that's what the EU expected to happen.

Russians, not being so stupid, had a choice, reduce transfers of unsold gas and/or sell it at a higher price elsewhere. They have done both.

It's not as though the EU was not warned about this eventuality.

All that said, there's an underlying economic issue here. I'm not entirely sure what is going on. For sure stupid people in Europe who thought they could beat down their main energy supplier on price proved how wrong they were. But there's something else going on to do with volume of supply and economic ability to pay the full cost of energy.

There's something going around in my head about the economic value of energy and related to expectations connected to peak oil. I'll probably do some reading on the topic. There's another story here. It isn't just stupid political tricks.

One thing I am sure about is that the 'petrol shortage' in the UK at least was not due to a lack of gas and diesel. Not this time around. Also, I expect to see similar elsewhere in Europe soon.

[andrewfi]

Here we go. This might be part of what's going on. But there's more to the story, but reading this through, it makes sense, as far as it goes.

https://www.nxtmine.com/news/articles/economics/esg-shock-arrives-oil-market-needs-half-a-trillion-dollar-injection-to-avoid-supply-collapse-price-surge/

The part that I have not yet found is about affordability. Can our economies afford the costs of exploration and then the cost of the resultant production. If we can't then power cuts and changed lifestyles will become the norm, as well as decreased output from the rest of the production economy.

Pedal generators for PCs anyone? I've been looking at the viability of moving my work to a laptop. I recently bought a laptop. It's not as powerful as my desktop but has enough power to do most of what I do, the rest I can push off to the cloud. It will even support 2 external monitors. The chip only needs about 15 Watts as compared to my desktop which uses 105 Watts. Of course the entire system in both cases uses more power than that. But put it this way, in my office I never use heating in the winter. That's a lot of wasted energy.

[Gipsy]

To be fair, the link with Norway for electricity opened the other day. That's a bi-directional link so the UK can send surplus from the UK and vice versa. That's a handy way to even out supply shortages and to deal with days or hours that are not windy enough. As more offshore wind comes online in the UK that supply volatility will tend to decrease anyway.

IIRC the UK government is going to be buying more gas from Norway as well.

We should not forget the energy issue is not just a UK problem. My leccy price has gone up by about 50% over the course of this year and its due to go up even more. Dutch gas prices are through the roof. It's Europe wide and becoming a worldwide issue. The USA is not immune either.

The Chinese government went public the other day and made it clear that they were buying all gas that they could. That's the new order that Putin mentioned a while back. The EU didn't have their heads screwed on. They had this mad idea that Russia would simply keep pumping gas even though it hadn't been purchased. That's madness because all that would do is drive down the spot price of gas. Of course that's what the EU expected to happen.

Russians, not being so stupid, had a choice, reduce transfers of unsold gas and/or sell it at a higher price elsewhere. They have done both.

It's not as though the EU was not warned about this eventuality.

All that said, there's an underlying economic issue here. I'm not entirely sure what is going on. For sure stupid people in Europe who thought they could beat down their main energy supplier on price proved how wrong they were. But there's something else going on to do with volume of supply and economic ability to pay the full cost of energy.

There's something going around in my head about the economic value of energy and related to expectations connected to peak oil. I'll probably do some reading on the topic. There's another story here. It isn't just stupid political tricks.

One thing I am sure about is that the 'petrol shortage' in the UK at least was not due to a lack of gas and diesel. Not this time around. Also, I expect to see similar elsewhere in Europe soon.

The EU in their wisdom, decided that buying gas on the spot market would be better than making long term contracts...
The Dutch spot market (for the whole of the EU), is owned and operated by the US, and now the price of gas on the market is around the same as fracked (LNG) from the US... Meaning that the frackers in the US will be able to compete pricewise with the spot market.... Coincidence, I think not...
The UK imports around 1% of its annual gas needs from Holland, this may be Russian/Norwegian/Dutch gas..
There are other concerns re the UK's gas supplies, 2 platforms in the north sea have been down for some time now for well overdue essential maintenance, 1 of which is now reported to be back on line, and the 2nd one, which should also have been back on line, is reportedly not going to be back on line for another 4 weeks..
Add to the above, a third platform which is controlling gas storage only, was also off line for a longer period that was originally planned, which also has affected the ability for the storage to be refilled up to reserve level,
creating the problem that, if the UK suffers a harsh winter, the currently held reserves will not be enough..
As to exactly why gas prices in the UK have soared so much is difficult to comment upon, as normally, the UK has little to no need to purchase gas on the spot market, it would normally have enough for its own annual needs with the north sea and other platforms around the coast, Norwegian, and the little which it gets from Holland..
It would be worth remembering that Hollands gas fields are depleting faster than originally anticipated, and that Norway has reduced its supplies to Europe this year by nearly one third..
Blaming Russia is out of order, as Merkle has stated this week, that Russia are fulfilling their contractual gas supplies to the EU..
Russia has reserved its contractual supply through the Ukraine pipeline, at its contractual price, any increased supply will be at about 3 times higher cost, which, would make this gas far more expensive, or would need to be sold at a loss..
Russia is not in a position to divert gas planned for transit by NS2. due to the pipes from the particular gas field only going to feed NS2, there are no interconnecting pipes built to transit this gas anywhere else..
HTH..

[Wiz]

Cant send gas down pipes that don't exist due to sanctions.
Cant expect any favours from Russia in the light of sanctions.
We made our bed with Russia, now we've got to lie in it.
Our energy policies are nuts. And no, its nothing at all to do with Brexit.

It'is the Capitalism ..... Clever boys

The ultimate cause of all real crises remains Poverty and consumption constraints are always present of the masses. Moreover, since the percentage of utilization of the total capital, the rate of profit is the capitalist production; its fall rate of return slows down the formation of new Independent funds and thus appears threatening the development of the capitalist processes promotes overproduction, speculation, crises …. Karl Marx

Read the UK GOV Energy National Statistics.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1016822/UK_Energy_in_Brief_2021.pdf 

The miners' strike of 1984–1985 was a major industrial action to shut down the British coal industry in an attempt to prevent colliery closures. ... Opposition to the strike was led by the Conservative government of the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, who wanted to reduce the power of the trade unions.

Today Germany is opening the coal using electric factories, closing down all Nuclear stations and Merkel managed finally to have the NorthStream II pipeline finished, where the UK depends of the unreliable heavily subsidised Wind Mills (MADE IN GERMANY) Green Energy production,  by the UK people. May I also remind you that the south of UK is supplied electricity from France, produced by Nuclear stations.

GIPSY

Excellent and very good information in your post!

[Gipsy]

For those who are interested in Gas transit/distribution etc., here is a short PowerPoint presentation by Paul Metro of the Pennsylvania PUC, which is quiet informative IMO and shows just some of the problems faced by gas suppliers/distributors.

https://pubs.naruc.org/pub.cfm?id=538EB66D-2354-D714-51CD-86E3D5DC7824

[Gipsy]

With regards to Electricity problems in the UK, I like most others only know what I read, however, I would draw attention to one thing which is not helping the Electric production and usage, which is/has not been accounted for in all which is posted here, and that is Electric vehicles..
Over the past 2 years, there are approx. 1M BEV/PHEV vehicles sold in the UK, of which, around 650,000 pure BEV's, the charging needs of said are not yet being accounted for in the current situation, and whilst it may still be within the UK's Electric production capability, it is no small amount, and is destined to become a far larger demand than what was originally planned..
HTH.

[Wiz]

It is pretty obvious that the production of the main electricity energy for a nation, which is the base and the main engine of its industrial base cannot rely primary on foreign supplies, for its production but on its home own sources. Of course supplementary sources, like water or wind and sun power can be used to supplement the base electricity production and would increase its capacity accordingly offering flexibility and reducing the production costs.

For a nation’s stability the ownership for the Production and distribution of the National electricity grid cannot rely in private hands neither to be publicly traded in the money Markets if a Nation want stability.

Look the example of the ENRON scandal in USA and now here in the UK 10 electricity small providers going bust or taken over from larger companies. Already we have been advised for the new electricity prices by the new kid on the game and they are very expensive.

PS: Banks in UK. Latest Observations…. Closing down many Branches and the nearest shop is 10 miles away…… and  when there hardly anybody for service, apart from machines and 1 person keeping an eye……..

 

[andrewfi]

Wiz, would you have sold your holidays for less than they cost?

Only if you were a fool.

Were you a fool?

So, now you know why new contracts for electricity are at higher rates.

If prices from tour operators for holidays fell when you were selling holidays, did you pass at least a part of that onto your clients?

Of course, you did. If you didn't your competitors would do so and you'd lose your business.

Only a fool would not reduce prices to the market level.

Were you a fool?

So, now you know that when wholesale prices for electricity fall so will the prices for consumers.

To help you contextualise the situation in the UK. Numbers vary but only 4-6% of the UK's leccy comes from France. The UK also exports to Europe through the same interconnect.

The UK with its relatively small population is the 6th largest producer of wind-powered electricity with an installed base of 20.7GW of production. We have six of the ten largest offshore wind farms in the world and the largest is British. A significant benefit of a high volume of wind leccy is that production variances tend to even out. It might be windy in one place, but not another.

In 2020, wind accounted for 24% of the UK's power needs. Now that the Norwegian power link is in place, further stabilisation of supply will occur as we import and export power through that connection.

-------------------

Gipsy, as you may know, I have written here about the issues of charging EVs in the UK and elsewhere. For sure it is going to be an issue, however, right now, we have a situation where most people will be charging their cars at home during times of overcapacity. Supply issues are likely to be, in the UK, more about local network capacity, not generation capacity.

At the moment it is not an issue and the use of smart metering will tend to reduce the impact of EVs charging at night by scheduling charging. So, if you plug your car in, it might not charge right away, or may do so slowly. In that way, the demand upon local substations/transformers is evened out. My guess is that charging of cars will also have its own tariffs that are not as inexpensive as right now. Their goal will be to further spread the load of car charging across the day.

The UK is planning to have sufficient wind power capacity to provide leccy to all homes in the UK by 2030. That will leave the legacy power generation available for industrial and other uses.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/04/gone-with-the-wind-why-uk-firms-could-miss-out-on-the-offshore-boom

As the wiz noted, the bad thing about all this is that a large part of the production of these plants is being done in Asia (China) and Germany. Wind power will not be a supplementary power source, but the main power source. I think that's pretty splendid.

[AvHdB]

Will there be a Polexit?

The highest Polish court has directly contravened and dismissed the EU laws/constitution. The ruling brings into sharp focus the legitimacy of rule from Brussels.

Underneath is all that is not being written about what would happen to the rest of the EU if all the polish workers come home? I remember some years back Manny complaining about all the polish workers in the UK. Now there is no truck drivers. Poland is ready for the workers to come home so it no longer needs the EU. It is the EU that needs Poland.

Worth noting two years ago in British tabloids German trucking firms were advertising in Polish to attract long and short haul drivers. Better conditions, higher pay & closer to home.

As I noted before the British has done a good job at creating this situation.

[Manny]

One thing I am sure about is that the 'petrol shortage' in the UK at least was not due to a lack of gas and diesel. Not this time around. Also, I expect to see similar elsewhere in Europe soon.

That 'crisis' was media-induced. One memo was leaked about a temporary supply shortage to about three petrol stations and the media picked it up and started howling "fuel shortage", and everyone rammed the petrol stations panic buying. There wasn't and isn't any *actual* shortage.

It was worse in London and the southeast due to the denser population. And greed. People were fighting on forecourts there. In the north there were queues for a few days, some stations limited purchases to £30 each, some places ran out temporarily but it's pretty much back to normal now.

People's stupidity is the main factor. People were following tankers and thefts started with people drilling holes in tanks to steal fuel. I stayed in Liverpool last weekend, I passed by a station that was open and had a very short queue. I thought I'd nip in to top up. In front of me was an Asian gentleman, he had queued to put what was like £3 in his car before it was overflowing onto the floor. It was full already. He had no need to be there to panic buy £3 of fuel when his tank was already full. He was so stupid he kept trying to get more in and it was pissing all over the floor. Good job it was diesel and not petrol. There was a viral video of a Chinese woman, I think in London, who had filled up a plastic carrier bag with fuel. I ask you.......

[Markje]

Oooh stupidity is a true human trait.

You'd think Gas-station and "lighter" are a no-brainer. Especially trying to light the fuel as it goes into your transportation.

So enter these 2 dumbells.

https://www.dumpert.nl/item/100011002_d21af640

In the news-article : It is unclear how the fire started...... noooo, thats not true and people wonder why everyon says "fake-news!"

[andrewfi]

Actually, Manny, while that might've been the trigger, it seems that there was an underlying cause.

As is so often the case, it is the law of unintended consequences in play.

In brief, as you know, E10 petrol was introduced to the UK on September 1st. The stuff rots rubber so petrol stations needed to upgrade their tanks and equipment. The deadline for the changeover is not for some weeks (a couple of months after Sept 1st).

To enable the changeover many petrol stations had reduced their storage levels in their tanks and, being good citizens, they were working to change over as fast as possible rather than spreading our the work until November IIRC.

When the media leaked the memo and kicked off the while silliness, petrol stations the length and breadth of the country were caught with less petrol in their tanks than normal.

Supply networks are surprisingly fragile and, no doubt there is a shortage of drivers. However, the reason we ran out so fast was that the average level of fuel in storage under forecourts was running much, much lower than normal. Had the tanks been at normal levels then the shortage might not have happened, or at the least, been much less because the whiplash effect was able to move so fast.

Here's a piece on the subject. It does not have all the numbers I saw in the original article I read. But you get the drift.
https://theconversation.com/fuel-shortages-could-the-uk-switch-to-e10-petrol-be-the-underlying-cause-169207

[Wiz]

Andrew, In reply to your silly question/comments effort, I have to tell you that in my early days in the UK, I have been lucky to meet and become a good friend with a Great Englishman who gave me an excellent advice, when we first met and he helped me to learn on how to run my company efficiently and successfully, till the time I retired.

His name was Freddie Laker, one of the best
and real Englishman, I met in my life.

His advice was very simple.

"Pile them High, sell them Cheap" and "You will make a lot of money my Greek friend!"

With his advice I was competing head on with Thomson, Kosmos and Intasun and to be honest I don't remember any day that my allocations on flights went empty and above 2-3 empty seats, thanks to Freddie's Advice!

In your effort to prove that I am a fool%u2026..you became blind and missed the main meaning of my previous post! If you had kept your eyes open then Capitalism would not have made you blind or to look a fool.

Freddie also teached me how to watch my backside from pompous clogs %u2026..like you!

In your reply you completely ignore'd the basic premises and important parts of my arguments.

As the wiz noted, the bad thing about all this is that a large part of the production of these plants is being done in Asia (China) and Germany. Wind power will not be a supplementary power source, but the main power source. I think that's pretty splendid.

I totally disagree with your statement, following my 15 years of experience working for the National Electricity Company of Greece that your windmill power will ever be the main power source in any National Electricity Grid, for the simple reason that No wind No Honey!!!!!!!
It is that simple.!!!!!  what you don't understand?

Only a fool will take your comments seriously! It is that simple.....

Actually I didn't know that you are a fan  of Greta Thunberg but then in our old age we do like them young to boost our ego!

  

[Manny]

Wiz, your large, bold attention-seeking text is something I remember Legal and Olga used to do years ago. It doesn't make your points more valid, in fact, it causes many to skip your posts altogether. It's unnecessary and hard on the eyes for everyone else. It may be your peepers aren't too good at your age, but instead of this textual assault, you can adjust your browser magnification and settings so the texts read better for you. Or get some new specs. Please refrain. Post normally, address others with respect. Try to be less of a resident curmudgeon*.

And how on earth is Freddie Laker relevant for this discussion? Indeed, he pioneered the budget airline industry and was followed by Stelios and others who did it better. The 'pile it high and sell it cheap' philosophy in business only works to a point. Personally, I'm not a believer in the concept as an ongoing stable business model. Laker Airways/Skytrain was financially unstable and run on a shoestring (frequently seen with that business model). This compounded in its collapse in 1982 owing £250m which at the time was the biggest corporate failure in Britain. Despite that failure, he certainly was a pioneer in the industry who could be compared to Branson and Stelios. Both of whom have also had bankruptcies, and both of whom have sailed uncomfortably close to the wind (in Branson's case literally as he flew a balloon along the gulf stream) at times.


* 'Curmudgeon' is not a word I've used for many years. It drifted into my head I think as the recently reappeared TomT used to call Scott J. Tepper it back at the time he was our resident one.

[Guile]

Wiz, your large, bold attention-seeking text is something I remember Legal and Olga used to do years ago.  Try to be less of a resident curmudgeon*.

he's up to his posting tricks again huh, like he needs to shout for people to hear him.  Good thing I put him on ignore.  Curmudgeon, good word! i've used it a few times to describe him also.

[TomT]

There was a viral video of a Chinese woman, I think in London, who had filled up a plastic carrier bag with fuel. I ask you.......

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission had to issue warnings about filling plastic bags with gasoline.

Sadly, Darwin Awards are neither swift nor sure.

[Wiz]

Manny, I was not aware that RUA is a concentration camp and we all have to wear the same clothes and follow the same lines of presentation like the owner of the site. If that is the case I just wonder why the program of RUA offers a variety of styles, colours and text sizes?, When another member is using large text…you said nothing!

On the other hand it is very noticeable that when other members, like Andrewfi, are very rude towards me you say nothing to them neither remove their offending remarks, and you have done that too many times with my posts and continue doing it in this post, and continue showing your dislike towards me. Take another look at your comments in the last 2 lines of the 1st paragraph and your lecture of your last post.

I will not bother to explain more, my views regarding Freddie Laker, his advice and your comments, where you omit very important information about him, the role of the Tory Government and the end result of his effort to establish cheap travel for the masses.

Laker Airways was declared bankrupt in February of 1982. Freddie Laker sued several airlines for their predatory pricing structures, which helped to force him out of business. He won a settlement of $50 million as well as a private settlement of $8m from British Airways.

May I remind you that without his efforts the British public would not have their their cheap holidays abroad and then travelled by the millions every year. Take a look at the situation to-date! Tories in Power again and Liars running the show!

I am sorry but enough is enough of your “nice” behaviour, towards me.
Wish the best to the Tractor driver and the kids.

 

[Texan77]

Have you forgot your own history of Capitalism, which you think is the best system to run a country?

Have you forgot Enron company and the biggest Energy scandal in USA?

Enron linked to California blackouts

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/enron-caused-california-blackouts-traders-say

Traders said manipulation began energy crisis

Two days of rolling blackouts in June 2000 that marked the beginning of California's energy crisis were directly caused by manipulative energy trading, according to a dozen former traders for Enron and its rivals

Read the article for starters ........

Have you ever seen or watched an animal dying? I have seen  ...
and noticed just before the end... they were kickin their legs on the air! 

That is exactly how your latest posts look to me. Russia & China are financially worse than the USA......and they cannot survive with out the USA help (buying the cheap products). 

Russia does not provide enough cheap gas... so the Euopran should pay higher prices.
So many Energy companies gone bust in the UK! Actually you do not have a clue what really is going on in the UK!

OK Tell me what is going on in the UK. You guys are regulating the energy companies out of business. This is normal to the UK. Like you know any about what is going on the the USA?

First I did not say anything about Russia. They are not spectacular and will likely not be in future but Russia does not rely on much from the out side world except to sell gas.  China on the other hand has a huge problem. It needs to import a lot of stuff. It has over built and the ability to keep it up is coming to and end. The UK is over regulated and everything is done on the national level which is like the most inefficient level is can be done on. Why is petrol there the equivalent of 6.00 dollars per gallon where here it is 2.50? Housing cost sore because of regulations no truckers because they will not process licenses. You guys make the USA look efficient. ( this is difficult to do) The USA may die one day but the island the UK is on would of sunk long before that.

In ENRON case people went to jail. What is going to happen in the UK? Maybe in UK they get government jobs or something. Are you saying the energy companies are not going broke. Instead of just saying I am wrong tell me why!

Understand the USA is fifty small countries. WE in Texas have very little in common with California. California problem are the fact that state is the most regulated state in the union. It is almost as bad as the UK.

Why all these huge letters. You are taking up so space of the forum for for little or no reason.  Maybe you have some kind of ego problem and need to make for what you do not have in life by using big letters.

[Guile]

Wiz needs to write in bold cause he feels he isn't heard. He ran his own forum once.  Everyone left. 

[AvHdB]

It has been noted unthread the scandal involving Enron some 20 years ago. It is a unfair comparison. The downfall of Enron and in fact Arthur Anderson did NOT result in higher fuel prices.

It was pure corporate greed and very shoddy accounting practices. Yes many investors were hurt much like B. Madoff. This seems to a very American activity.

[Wiz]

It has been noted unthread the scandal involving Enron some 20 years ago. It is a unfair comparison. The downfall of Enron and in fact Arthur Anderson did NOT result in higher fuel prices.

It was pure corporate greed and very shoddy accounting practices. Yes many investors were hurt much like B. Madoff. This seems to a very American activity.

The scandal of Enron, resulted apart from going bust.... also in electricity blackouts which left California.... in a very bad state.  Oh sorry that was not a scandal but as you say......." a very American activity" basically everything was Normal. 

I think you will tell me the same was about the  Sub prime mortgage crisis in 2008 when millions of Americans lost their houses and contributed to the 2007–2008 global financial crisis!

So everything is normal under the Capitalist System....... If that is the case why then USA has the need to invade and destroy so many countries killing millions of people?

What is Normal for you it is not normal for other people who lost their lives because of American foreign policies and wars. USA is just a gangster country and nothing more........ and unfortunately you are exporting your actions and behaviour to the world including the UK too.

It was the USA who financed the lab tests in Wuchan, investing $$$$$$ via Mr Fauc etc..... and your ex president had the guts to claim "the China" .... Virus.

Do you think you are talking to young children? .... 

sorry I forgot that you said: "This seems to a very American activity."

Have a nice day!