The Economy

The funny part to me is the windfall profits populist blather with regard to the UK and Shell. ... is that the UK represents a miniscule portion of Shell's profits. Those huge profits boiled down to Shell's gas trading business. Liquified natural gas. I traded quite a bit of nat gas last year. ... basically, between the beginning of last year and September, if you were consistently long nat gas, it was incredibly profitable, as the price shot through the roof. The price didn't shoot through the roof because of Shell, or any other trader (even big traders like Shell). It shot up because of obvious supply and demand factors. Even if people want to be ignorant and make it like Shell is setting prices and people can't heat their homes because of Shell. ... none of that income is taxable by the UK. The UK taxes UK business. They don't stake a claim on everyone everywhere on the planet.

Also, the price of nat gas has plummeted since late August (down more than 75 percent in a very short period of time, and it has been a very peristent drop). Shell's trading business made an insane amount of money last year (as did a lot of people speculating in the nat gas market). It is NOT killing it this year. If the idea is to look at their earnings and retroactively punish them for success, what happens this year? They legitimately could lose money in their trading business if things continue the way they have since mid December (the price has collapsed). Do the same people yell about giving them a "windfall giveback" because their trading business suffers?

 

They derive a tiny portion of their profits from UK business. This whole conversation is everything wrong with the world. Even with the windfall profits thing (which discourages investment and has a NEGATIVE effect on everyone), even the UK doesn't try to stake a claim to anything anyone earns anywhere in the world.

 

It's a multinational company. It's doing business in what, 75, 100 countries? It's headquartered in London, but it has subsidiaries all over the place. A substantial part of its business comes from what used to be Royal Dutch Petroleum. ... based in the Netherlands.

The UK can't impose a special tax on a company where they stake a claim to profits earned elsewhere, just because the company is headquarted in the UK. You realize that Shell would move its headquarters if that was ever something that can happen, and the UK would be worse off in a number of ways for it?

 

I understand that a lot of people are idiots. But no, I don't understand it in the sense that it is just or right.

Nat gas is a trillion dollar global market. *I* participate in it. To the extent that I profited last year from buying and selling nat gas, I was profiting off a VERY liquid market (no pun meant) of buyers and sellers arriving at prices VOLUNTARILY.

If people start talking about stealing from me, as some form of punishment because they are having trouble make ends meet. ... all the nonsensical "gouging" rationales in the world don't make it right.