BeechBaby is pretty much correct IMO. It’s no conspiracy as such. It’s more that people are very good at jumping on the opportunities that come floating down the river, cheered along with the rest of the population screaming that “we” have to do something. Others are doing all they can to maximize the “crisis”.
If nothing else, it shows that our society is industrious 
Read in the news that the most probable thinking behind the pipelines is to create FUD in the west. Russia is probably behind it, but it can’t be proven. If the did it, why did they do it and so on. Sounds plausible
The problem with simplifying the problems we face to that degree is that all attempts to solve the underlying actual problems are thus discredited.
While I agree that the threat from Islamic extremists was extremely overstated thanks to largely one deadly, emotionally scary attack (9/11), COVID-19 was a real problem at least until vaccines were available and the current war and accompanying energy crisis are also real problems that need to be addressed. The banking crisis of 2008/09 probably less so.
LeSving is absolutely right that each of these real crises has led to profiteers that are seeking to optimise their personal gains from the misfortune or fears of others. No conspiracy needed to explain such behaviour.
Any supplier with a dominant position in a given market will lobby government to build barriers to price out smaller players from competing, and supply reasons why their position needs to be protected. And you can be sure that government will play along. Bureaucracies prefer a smaller number of companies to regulate, each with the resources to create whole departments just to talk to government, and they prefer stability over progress.
Unless discipline is applied to curb government motivations, irrationality and stagnation is the result. What we’re seen in the last few years is a lot of irrationality, and what we’re seeing now is the resultant stagnation, and chaos…. because clamping down on ideas and competition does not in reality create stability at all.
EuroFlyer wrote:
A well identifiable group of leading German politicians never listened to the people warning them – not of Putin per se – but of making us overly dependent on one gas and oil supplier. That’s just bad craftsmanship, bad management.
That is totally true and it is a different issue. They should never have let themselves become dependent on a single supplyer.
The German energy politics were driven by the Green wish to get out of nuclear energy and the opportunity to exploit Fukushima was just too great to miss. What is happening right now however is totally unacceptable: Closing down the 3 remaining NPP’s despite the current situation is just idiotic and has to be stopped, not only by Germany but by the countries who are contractually obliged to deliver power to the Germans. IMHO, if they shut those NPP’s down, they need to be cut off from the European electrical power grid.
What I meant in my post was the intention to tie Putin into behaving himself by allegedly making him dependent on the money he got for the gas and whatever else they tied him into. That per se was not a totally bad idea, however to give him this kind of leverage most definitly was.
Snoopy wrote:
I’m also not talking about the timeframe 20 years ago but after 2010, and most notably 2014 and beyond. Just my gut feeling, not facts.
After 2014 I agree. And the role of Schröder will have to be scrutinized too. It is imho totally inacceptable that a German ex chancellor works (and still does) for the enemy.
russian-soldiers-phone-calls-ukraine.html
These calls can be heard all day on a telegram channel; you just need to understand Russian.
You can call all of this disturbance within the force what you wish, but it is real…..it is certainly no longer conspiracy.
A protest camp has been set up today, ironically in the middle of a small wind and rain storm, outside the HQ of Scottish Power in Glasgow. They are protesting at energy costs, but also about enforced disconnection for thousands of homes. Pre payment meters, where you put cash in to use power. It is the most expensive form of supply, generally to the poorest in our society. No money means no gas or electric supply. Children living in the dark and cold, in Central Scotland, and I assume all over the UK.
Is this right? Is this morally defensible? Whether we like it or not the ’’war’’ is causing real. lasting, and harm to UK residents. Not you and I who worry about insurance and fuel costs for our aeroplanes, but to many folks.
Scottish Power BTW have posted a 924.6 million profit in the first six months of 2022.
I am not by any means Jeremy Corbyn but something appears mightily wrong with the system, war or not.
BeechBaby wrote:
Lie 1: COVID is an incredibly dangerous disease that can kill anyone
Answer Lie 1: The only solution is to vaccinate the entire world with a new patented vaccine.
The scam: Obscene amounts of taxpayer money siphoned off to the health care industry.
It is people who spread FUD like this who are responsible for the millions of unnecessary deaths of people who refused the vaccination because of the lies spread by the anti vaxxer crowd. The mass of people killed totally unnecessarily because they believed a bunch of internet conspiracy theorists have paid the ultimate price. I hold people who spread this kind of stuff personally responsible for the massive and unnecessary suffering in places, where people are only all too gullible to listen to internet sewage.
BeechBaby wrote:
A protest camp has been set up today, ironically in the middle of a small wind and rain storm, outside the HQ of Scottish Power in Glasgow. They are protesting at energy costs, but also about enforced disconnection for thousands of homes. Pre payment meters, where you put cash in to use power. It is the most expensive form of supply, generally to the poorest in our society. No money means no gas or electric supply. Children living in the dark and cold, in Central Scotland, and I assume all over the UK.
What is going on in terms of energy politics and the consequences for the citizens is a total disgrace and also a total failure of governments to protect their citizens in times of crisis. It is not exactly new, the same total failure of governmental crisis management has also been responsible for the Covid crisis, but it is the consequence of privatisation without backup of essential infrastructure. It is high time that this kind of abuse gets stopped . Basic services are no commodity but a prime task of any government world wide to guarantee.
Privatisation of airports is killing our way of flying more and more. Privatisation of electrical power threatens our very society. Privatisation of railroads (particularly in the UK) have made them unreliable, expensive, partly unaffordable. When is this going to stop? Infrastructure can not be privatized with a license to ouprice and kill whoever can’t afford the horrendous profit margins these companies suck, together with governmental taxes which explode together with the fuel and electricity prices. If those infrastructures must be run privately, then the government has to put a cap onto the pricing and stand in for those who they let down. No, it’s not about entitlement but it is about a guarantee of a basic level of infrastructure.
We are currently sliding from one crisis into the next due to the failure of governments to be able to handle effective crisis management and to provide their people with the basic life necessities they are elected to protect. No wonder more and more countries fall to extremism.
Children living in the dark and cold, in Central Scotland, and I assume all over the UK.
That’s nonsense. We are back to Bill Gates and nanoparticles, the Rockefellers, etc.
When my family came to England, 1969, we spent some weeks in accommodation where we had a coin meter, which took the ten shilling coins. It wasn’t always easy to find it in darkness So I know what it is like to be poor as a rat. Even at univ, 7 years later, my room (a shared house in Brighton) would fall to 0C at night because, like a typical GA syndicate, nobody would agree on who pays the bills.
But this is not modern Britain – unless self inflicted / dropped out of the system / with mental health issues and dropped out of the system. Nowadays there is a ton of social security support. Sure your electricity gets cut off eventually but you have to seriously work at it. An ex GF worked in that department and it takes literally years to get cut off. Maybe Scotland should go independent and then Nicola can fix all this – I am sure N Ireland would happily fund them 
The only solution is to vaccinate the entire world with a new patented vaccine.
The vaccines, and the haste with which they were engineered, produced and distributed probably did save lives and I see no reason to criticise the private sector for patenting them and making profits.
The fast-track (lack of) testing is another matter. The drug companies would not have released such incompletely tested products without governments/taxpayers assuming all responsibility for product liability.
Anecdotally, my NHS rheumatologist and a private nutritionist have told me they’ve seen significant worsening of autoimmune symptoms (RA etc.) following Covid vaccination.
With hindsight, perhaps other measures could/should have been used to protect people already suffering or at risk from autoimmune diseases.
