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UK Conservative Party Leadership Election
- Thread starter Webzcas
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Energy companies in Sweden are trying to get out of having to honor the 'locked' price deals that people have signed with them.
Most dont take those fixed price deals because unless something unforseen happens that increases the price of energy a lot its just not a good deal.
Funny how they are ok with overcharging people but they dont like it now that the shoe is on the other foot
They are basically just saying 'wuaah, the locked price deals are not supposed to benefit the consumers' so we shouldnt have to honor the deals we made.
I really hope they are forced to honor the deals they have made, or go bankrupt trying to.
The big-brains that signed up for locked prices long term dont deserve to be screwed over.
Sadly im not one of those big-brains, but i do like watching companies lose against the consumers every now and again.
Especially when its their own greed that made it possible for consumers to win in the first place.
Most dont take those fixed price deals because unless something unforseen happens that increases the price of energy a lot its just not a good deal.
Funny how they are ok with overcharging people but they dont like it now that the shoe is on the other foot
They are basically just saying 'wuaah, the locked price deals are not supposed to benefit the consumers' so we shouldnt have to honor the deals we made.
I really hope they are forced to honor the deals they have made, or go bankrupt trying to.
The big-brains that signed up for locked prices long term dont deserve to be screwed over.
Sadly im not one of those big-brains, but i do like watching companies lose against the consumers every now and again.
Especially when its their own greed that made it possible for consumers to win in the first place.
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Well over here, they didn't really try to honour them - just immediately went bust.
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The way i understood it for the companies here is that it probably wont spell doom for most of them, since not many people are locked on to those sort of deals in the first place.
It will however be highly unprofitable&expensive to honor those deals, but that is sort of the point of those deals.
Consumers overpay to get the the added security that any sudden price increases will be taken on the chin by the energy company instead of them having to deal with it.
Its not like consumers can just pull out of the deal if energy suddenly becomes super cheap, same should apply to the companies now.
Its obviously not great if all energy companies go bankrupt, but the way i understood it from the little ive read about it is that most of them can pay for it, but doing it is not going to be very fun.
Its only fair, life is not supposed to be fun.
And that, my friends, is the biggest Cushon! of them all.
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As slot zombie said, here it became impossible for them to honour the deals and they did indeed go bankrupt. 29 of them. The wholesale prices increased by a factor of about 10x their profit margin so they simply folded in days. The UK govt. bailed some of them out.
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They probably shouldnt have promised to deliver energy for a certain price for serveral years without knowing how much said energy would cost them, they gambled and lost.
Going bankrupt from honoring the deals they themselves have made points to a pretty poor business model.
I assume fixed price deals have been a more popular thing in the UK, because from what im reading the saving grace for many energy companies here in Sweden is that not many people have those long term fixed price deals.
Guess we will see what happens, does not look like they will let the energy companies weasel their way out of this.
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They were all the rage here, I always had them, mine expired in February and of course that was when the wholesale prices were going mad, so all companies stopped them apart from some doing absolutely mental offers like BG for £8200 a year. To be fair, you can't expect the energy companies to be clairvoyants.
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Up to £170bn over the next two years. (I didn't make any claims on one year.)
UK gas producers and electricity generators may make excess profits totaling as much as £170 billion ($199 billion) over the next two years, according to Treasury estimates that lay bare the revenue-raising potential of a windfall tax.
Treasury officials will deliver the assessment to the next prime minister when they take office on Sept. 6, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing internal calculations.
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The problem is that the deals they were offering pretty much required them to be clairvoyants, at least that would be the only way to make it risk free.
Its like me promising a fixed price on apples for 5-10 years without knowing how good/bad the harvest will be the coming years, which of course i dont know, so i dont offer that deal to anyone.
That said i only use like 20% of the apples from my apple tree, so if you want some apples you can just come and pick some.
They are not very good, too sour, works in pies and stuff that have a lot of sugar but just eating them from the tree is no good.
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The problem was they had basically no capital or assets, they were just reselling and skimming their margin off the top whilst times were good, the second the market soured they ran away, kept the profits, and the taxpayer picked up the tab for their bankruptcies.
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The thing with a windfall tax you can set it where you want, doesn't have to be crippling, could be 25% or whatever. But just letting a load of investors, who may not even live here, make like bandits at the cost of the greater public [whose country's territory the energy resources come from] is mad.
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Yep and if what is reported is going to be believed, the govt will be borrowing £100bn plus over the next two years to cap the cap at £2,500 for the average household. One small problem though, we as the consumers will be paying this borrowing back over the next couple of decades via said energy bills.
Sorry, but Truss is missing an open goal if she does this. Nationalise them, as after all it is the UK's own resources that they are profiting from. The govt bailed out the banks in 2008, the govt spent billions on furlough on the pandemic, I'd argue this is just as bad a crisis if not worse
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I was gonna say, but it's bit disingenous - like saying between them Shell and BP will make $140bn over 2 years. The govt. need to take over the purchase of domestically-produced energy and gas and impose a 10% profit margin over costs of production, so our supplies are insulated mostly (aside from imported) from this mad auction process.
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Ed Miliband on Sky News this morning, seems rather strange for a Labour shadow minister to be lecturing the Tories about fiscal responsibility, but there you go. He's repeating that £170bn figure for excess energy company profits over a two year period, which the Tories are choosing to allow to be squirrelled away into the pockets of the already super-rich, whilst loading £100bn of debt onto the UK taxpayer instead. (Remember, Labour's cap plan is paid for via windfall taxes on energy companies, not government borrowing.)
Also expect to see the ban on fracking lifted today (or soon), which was halted a few years ago because it was (a) Massively unpopular and (b) Caused, y'know, actual earthquakes and deemed to be unsafe. So much for England's green and pleasant lands eh?
As Miliband points out, fracking won't solve anything anyway, as not only will it take years to come online, the gas will just be sold on the same international markets as everything else, and in the meantime England will be getting literally cracked down the middle by rapacious energy companies eyeing yet more lucrative profits, safe in the knowledge that Truss will let them keep all of it.
Obviously what's ultimately needed here is nationalisation of the energy companies, so the UK can keep the energy it produces and generates, and sell it at a reasonable price to its people and businesses. The market isn't working, the market has failed, when government is going to spend ONE HUNDRED BILLION POUNDS of taxpayer money to stop people freezing to death, whilst 'the market' gets to keep all the profits, then capitalism isn't working as intended - that is a not a free market economy.
We also need a push for renewables, with massive investments into solar. nuclear and wind, but we also need to be pragmatic and accept that in the short-medium term, we will still be heavily dependent on fossil fuels, and that being the case, they should be the fossil fuels we can produce and generate ourselves, and we should do so for the benefit of the UK, not for the benefit of rapacious multinational corporations making out like bandits on the international markets - there's a far more important market that needs servicing, and that is the people and businesses of the UK.
Also expect to see the ban on fracking lifted today (or soon), which was halted a few years ago because it was (a) Massively unpopular and (b) Caused, y'know, actual earthquakes and deemed to be unsafe. So much for England's green and pleasant lands eh?
As Miliband points out, fracking won't solve anything anyway, as not only will it take years to come online, the gas will just be sold on the same international markets as everything else, and in the meantime England will be getting literally cracked down the middle by rapacious energy companies eyeing yet more lucrative profits, safe in the knowledge that Truss will let them keep all of it.
Obviously what's ultimately needed here is nationalisation of the energy companies, so the UK can keep the energy it produces and generates, and sell it at a reasonable price to its people and businesses. The market isn't working, the market has failed, when government is going to spend ONE HUNDRED BILLION POUNDS of taxpayer money to stop people freezing to death, whilst 'the market' gets to keep all the profits, then capitalism isn't working as intended - that is a not a free market economy.
We also need a push for renewables, with massive investments into solar. nuclear and wind, but we also need to be pragmatic and accept that in the short-medium term, we will still be heavily dependent on fossil fuels, and that being the case, they should be the fossil fuels we can produce and generate ourselves, and we should do so for the benefit of the UK, not for the benefit of rapacious multinational corporations making out like bandits on the international markets - there's a far more important market that needs servicing, and that is the people and businesses of the UK.
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It's entirely relevant though, especially since Truss is talking about loading debt onto UK taxpayers for the next 10-20 years.
Oh how the Tories normally rail against 'loading debt onto future generations' (one of their main attack lines on Labour), and yet here they are, doing exactly that to protect the moneyed interests of their funders and backers.
Corporations = Good.
Hard working Brits = Get fucked.
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Bingo! But they won't do it, as it goes against everything the Conservative Party stand for. It is however, common sense. Also no need for fracking either. Open more fields in the North Sea and restart coal power stations and god forbid ahhh coal mines, until such time we have enough Nuclear Power stations online alongside renewables to cover our requirements.
To put it bluntly, the UK has enough natural energy resources to ensure we are protected from the price volatility of the international energy markets.
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Here is the Artist Taxi Driver's take on it!
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Got a feeling this could be labour's way back in, just this windfall tax issue alone. It feels like a common sense and fair measure, so average folk will start to wonder the wisdom of keeping MPs in power who are opposed to it.
You could take say 40 billion from this 170 and set it aside to build a nuclear power station, and another 45 towards the cap policy; the investors keep the other 85b as a compromise.
Now if the producers of the energy were the only suppliers to the public they wouldn't be able to justify 170 billion level of profits on the back of price rises to ofgem; similar to the area of water, you don't have 'middleman' billing companies buying water and reselling it to the public, there is just one water company in each area.
It is a phony market structure that doesn't lead to competition and lower prices, the billing firms competition to purchase enough energy raises the prices.
You could take say 40 billion from this 170 and set it aside to build a nuclear power station, and another 45 towards the cap policy; the investors keep the other 85b as a compromise.
Now if the producers of the energy were the only suppliers to the public they wouldn't be able to justify 170 billion level of profits on the back of price rises to ofgem; similar to the area of water, you don't have 'middleman' billing companies buying water and reselling it to the public, there is just one water company in each area.
It is a phony market structure that doesn't lead to competition and lower prices, the billing firms competition to purchase enough energy raises the prices.
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Right so prices will still rise this october, but by considerably less than if nothing had been done.
£1971 plus 80% equals £3547 - whereas £2500 is around a 25% increase on £1971.
I have a feeling come october it's not going to look a very good policy by Truss, she's spending a lot of money and people will be disappointed prices aren't frozen at the current rate, they won't realise how worse it could look, they'll just see another 25% increase.
£1971 plus 80% equals £3547 - whereas £2500 is around a 25% increase on £1971.
I have a feeling come october it's not going to look a very good policy by Truss, she's spending a lot of money and people will be disappointed prices aren't frozen at the current rate, they won't realise how worse it could look, they'll just see another 25% increase.
paul7388
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But given the fact everyone still gets the £400 payment means it has risen very slightly compared to nearly doubling.
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Yeah I was overlooking that!
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Hah, suck it energy companies.
This is the thread where we discuss UK&Swedish energy questions, right?
"Several electricity companies are investigating the possibility of terminating fixed electricity contracts with reference to force majeure, according to information to Ekot. But they have no reason to do that, the Swedish Consumer Agency believes.
- They are not prevented from delivering the electricity, says head of court Gabriella Fenger-Krog.
Several electricity companies are now investigating the possibility of terminating fixed contracts due to the cut-off of gas supplies from Russia, which is driving up electricity prices, Ekot reports.
Gabriella Fenger-Krog, head of legal affairs at the Swedish Consumer Agency, says that it is difficult to comment on the situation that has arisen because the information is still scarce.
But the authority's basic position is that the agreements should not be able to be torn up.
- In general, agreements must be kept, she says.
Since the electricity is mainly produced in Sweden, the Consumer Agency makes the assessment that the companies are not in any way prevented from delivering electricity to customers - even if they do not want to do so at the lower prices.
- Since the companies can deliver electricity, we judge that this is not a force majeure situation. You are not in any way prevented from doing so and there is no reason to cancel the agreement."
This is the thread where we discuss UK&Swedish energy questions, right?
"Several electricity companies are investigating the possibility of terminating fixed electricity contracts with reference to force majeure, according to information to Ekot. But they have no reason to do that, the Swedish Consumer Agency believes.
- They are not prevented from delivering the electricity, says head of court Gabriella Fenger-Krog.
Several electricity companies are now investigating the possibility of terminating fixed contracts due to the cut-off of gas supplies from Russia, which is driving up electricity prices, Ekot reports.
Gabriella Fenger-Krog, head of legal affairs at the Swedish Consumer Agency, says that it is difficult to comment on the situation that has arisen because the information is still scarce.
But the authority's basic position is that the agreements should not be able to be torn up.
- In general, agreements must be kept, she says.
Since the electricity is mainly produced in Sweden, the Consumer Agency makes the assessment that the companies are not in any way prevented from delivering electricity to customers - even if they do not want to do so at the lower prices.
- Since the companies can deliver electricity, we judge that this is not a force majeure situation. You are not in any way prevented from doing so and there is no reason to cancel the agreement."
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In general Kroffe do Swedes heat their homes via gas boilers and radiators or through electric heating panels/fires?
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Here's a useful quick guide by Martin Lewis.
Obviously it's good that Truss has done something, but there was almost literally no way she could have done nothing, so the bone of contention here is how she's chosen to pay for it, which means that this is essentially just a 'buy now, pay later' scheme for the UK taxpayer, since it's all going back via taxes (plus interest, as government debt is interest bearing). That £170bn in excess profits the privatised energy companies are projected to make? They get to keep the lot. Whereas the UK taxpayer gets a bill for £100bn, plus interest.
Obviously it's good that Truss has done something, but there was almost literally no way she could have done nothing, so the bone of contention here is how she's chosen to pay for it, which means that this is essentially just a 'buy now, pay later' scheme for the UK taxpayer, since it's all going back via taxes (plus interest, as government debt is interest bearing). That £170bn in excess profits the privatised energy companies are projected to make? They get to keep the lot. Whereas the UK taxpayer gets a bill for £100bn, plus interest.
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I think it varies a lot depending on where in the country you are.
In the small village i live in a lot of people burn wood to heat their homes, mostly 'normal' firewood but there are also some i know that use those compressed pellet thingys.
I have geothermal heating that is somewhat recently installed and that seems to be somethning that is catching on, but i can also swap back to heating using firewood since i still have all the necessary equipment still in the basement, would probably need a plumber to re-route the pipes&tubes and stuff back to the old water tanks tho.
When i grew up we used firewood to heat our house, id bet that is probably the cheapest option available if you own land like we do.
I think electricity and geothermal are the most common heating solutions in the Southern parts of Sweden.
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Has to be said Liz Truss's in-tray is pretty much unenviable. What with the cost of living crisis, rampant inflation, energy crisis and the war raging in Ukraine, the Queen is now seriously ill. :-(
There is this talk about privatisation. How much will that cost because you surely can't go to these Companies and say, hey I own you now without handing a large wedge of money over.
Is privatisation the long term answer for what may well be a short term crisis?
Is privatisation the long term answer for what may well be a short term crisis?
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Can't speak for that, but i know (not sure how it went as not kept up to date) a similar (ish) plan was mooting for 'buying' out the PFI deals for things like Schools up here. Huge amount of money up front to buy it back/out, with a payback period of something like 10-20 years, so i would say it would be hard for such types of thing to bring a short term yield....who knows.
Other things to factor in when taking assets back is what state they're in? Because that's going to require additional investment/running costs moving forward as well if they haven't maintained their infrastructure when you take it on....either way, very pricey.
Be interesting to see the Scottish Government numbers regarding their recent nationalisation programme up here
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The Casinomeister Forum's favourite economist, GARY, explains why Liz Truss's plan will not work. It's not a long video, but I'll do a TL: DW summary anyway.
Basically, it's repeating the mistake of the Covid support schemes, in that it will ultimately channel money directly from the government (to be repaid by Johnny Taxpayer) into the pockets of the rich (the energy companies and their shareholders). The scheme is estimated to have a cost of around £150bn, and that £150bn won't disappear, someone will end up with the £150bn, and it will be the rich.
And what do the rich do when they get more cash than they have already? They buy assets (i.e. houses and suchlike) and are able to overpay for scarce resources, fuelling inflation.
Everyone's energy bills will be capped, the wealthy will not reduce their energy usage and they'll still benefit from the cap, ultimately leaving more cash in their pockets to buy stuff with, whereas those on more modest incomes will still feel the pain.
This is a scheme that will further increase inequality, make the rich richer, make the poor poorer, and will also be inflationary, feeding into higher interest rates which also benefits the rich (savings do well) whilst hurting everyone else (mortgages and other interest bearing debts become more expensive).
Nice one Lizzy!
Basically, it's repeating the mistake of the Covid support schemes, in that it will ultimately channel money directly from the government (to be repaid by Johnny Taxpayer) into the pockets of the rich (the energy companies and their shareholders). The scheme is estimated to have a cost of around £150bn, and that £150bn won't disappear, someone will end up with the £150bn, and it will be the rich.
And what do the rich do when they get more cash than they have already? They buy assets (i.e. houses and suchlike) and are able to overpay for scarce resources, fuelling inflation.
Everyone's energy bills will be capped, the wealthy will not reduce their energy usage and they'll still benefit from the cap, ultimately leaving more cash in their pockets to buy stuff with, whereas those on more modest incomes will still feel the pain.
This is a scheme that will further increase inequality, make the rich richer, make the poor poorer, and will also be inflationary, feeding into higher interest rates which also benefits the rich (savings do well) whilst hurting everyone else (mortgages and other interest bearing debts become more expensive).
Nice one Lizzy!
I thought that acording to GARY the furlough scheme resulted in it going into the rich pockets that they were not putting it back in the economy by not buying stuff.
How come GARY is now saying that the rich will get richer and will buy more stuff putting the extra money into the economy
How come GARY is now saying that the rich will get richer and will buy more stuff putting the extra money into the economy
If anybody thought 0% interest were there for life, then more fool on them
When I bought my property all those years ago, I was told to work out what my current interest payment is and then put some 3% on top of the interest rate and see if I could still afford it
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Snap. When we bought our house, fixed rate stepping up to 7.59% in the 3rd and final year of the fixed term. We have for over a decade enjoyed historically low rates and even if they go up to 3% will still be very low.
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That's not what GARY has ever said, or me either, as per this post here - General Election 2019 thread - Page 43 - Casinomeister Forum
His line has always been that the rich buy assets when they have extra money, they don't spend (much of) it into the productive economy, they just acquire things like houses and stocks and shares, in the case of houses, for example, this makes them massively more unaffordable for normal people.
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But why immediately go to the extreme of '0% was never going to last forever'? Mortgages can still be affordable whilst also still costing more, it just means that people with mortgages have less money at the end of the month, whilst those who benefit from interest rate rises tend to be those who already have a wedge of cash behind them - which feeds into growing wealth inequality.
It is the low interest rates that made debt affordable. Had the interest rates not dropped to such low levels, people wouldn't have been able to afford to pay the interest on the debt that they created, the debt being lower and a subsequent interest rate increase much more easier to cope with.
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Lots of people who still have mortgages would have taken them out pre-2008 crash, so they'll have been used to paying reasonably high interest rates prior to the crash. It's just a simple statement of fact that anyone on an SVR will be paying more in interest as interest rates go up, leaving them with less ready cash at the end of the month. (And of course fixes are more expensive now, and only getting more so.)
You've also got to remember that mortgages are just bigger these days as a proportion of debt to income, thanks to house prices going crackers. People living in relatively modest houses can have large mortgages and be vulnerable to interest rate rises.
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According to some posts I read on twitter, [that's the height of my research these days!] the 170 billion profit relates to worldwide sales etc..whereas the uk element is forecast to be around 14 billion profit.
Would this change the ethics [for want of a better word] of a windfall tax that would target a big chunk of the 170 rather than the more modest 14 [from where we've paid inflated out of control boom prices]
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Well they're still making money on the international markets, the same international markets that are dictating UK consumers get charged eye-watering amounts for their energy, rather than something more inline with the fact that the UK is capable of meeting a lot of its own energy needs - so I'd say the whole lot is fair game.
The alternative, which is what's actually happening, is Truss is going to load £150bn of new government debt onto the UK taxpayer, and channel it to the rich, as it will end up in the pockets of the energy companies.
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Not good enough. Need to nationalise and sell all oil and gas extracted from UK fields to the UK domestic market at close to cost price.
Any excess can then be sold on the international market at wholesale prices.
Instead we will be paying for this over the next twenty years on our energy bills.
Whilst shareholders of BP et al get rich on the back of a UK owned resource, at the expense of all UK residents that have gas or electric piped into their homes and businesses
Any excess can then be sold on the international market at wholesale prices.
Instead we will be paying for this over the next twenty years on our energy bills.
Whilst shareholders of BP et al get rich on the back of a UK owned resource, at the expense of all UK residents that have gas or electric piped into their homes and businesses
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I wonder if in some circumstances they sell energy abroad and then we end up rebuying it from that source after the middleman has added his margin.
There's defintely been some nests feathered from the various uk sell offs; govt nationalised firms weren't necessarily the best run, similar to the nhs, so there would always be that problem to solve though.
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The North Sea oil fields are geographically and equally divided between the UK and Norway. In 1990, when we were spending the windfall, Norway began to tuck away its cash into a rainy-day fund – what we would call nowadays a sovereign wealth fund –called the Oljefondet, more formally the Government Pension Fund Global. It began to invest in international markets, in property – a wedge of Regent Street in London and some of the best property in Paris.
The $1.3 trillion fund
IT is now the largest such fund in the world, with over $1.3 trillion in assets, holding 1.4% of the world’s stocks and shares, worth about $248,000 for each of the 5.3 million Norwegian citizens. Depending on which metric you choose, Norway is either the second-most wealthy country in the world, per capita, or fifth. Britain, if you choose the most favourable measurement, might just scrape into the top 20. The reason is that while Britain squandered the profits, the Norwegians banked theirs.
Rise of the SNP
IN 1970, the SNP were still, politically, on the margins. They took just one seat in the June General Election with an 11.4% share of the vote. But that was more than 6% up on 1966 and the rise was beginning.
The party grasped the importance of the political heft of oil. The SNP slogan became “It’s Scotland’s Oil”.
But, of course, it wasn’t. It was, and is, owned by the oil companies and their investors. In 1975, Harold Wilson’s Labour government had set up the nationalised British National Oil Corporation but when Margaret Thatcher’s Conservatives took over in 1979, she began a swathe of privatisations. Britoil, the exploration and production arm of BNOC, ended up in the hands of BP, in a fire sale, for £434 million.
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I agree that nationalisation is ultimately the answer, but there is precisely zero chance of a Tory government going down that route, the best we can possibly hope for is windfall taxes on profits. (FUN FACT - Thatcher imposed a windfall tax on the banks in 1981, because they were making massive profits off the back of high interest rates.)
I mean, crikey, even Labour aren't advocating for nationalisation, such is the timidity of politics at the moment.
Dear old Uncle Jeremy would have got it done though!
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And equally there are plenty that bought houses or released equity when the rates were at their lowest. Something they wouldn't have been able to do if they were at levels they are going to be at.
It precisely is the low levels of interest that aided the rise in house prices.
Add to that the cheap credit elsewhere (loans for expensive cars and other luxuries) and no foresight that interest rates were never going to stay low, and it is a recipe for a personal financial crisis.
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Are you taking the piss? Without going into details I know for a fact that a good chunk of cash is yielding me enough monthly to buy approximately 8 loaves of supermarket own-brand white bread. It's a fucking joke. Do you honestly think these banks pass on the increased base rate to savers? Part of it they do at a snail's pace.
Let me tell you that so far in 2022 my Premium Bonds have yielded me £575 in prizes. A slightly smaller amount in a bank's 'premium' savings account has yielded me, wait for it, £36.72.
Premium Bond prizes are tax-free, and so is bank interest up to £1000. You'd have to be a bloody rich man to get enough interest to start paying tax on it.
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I don't particularly disagree, but the reason interest rates had to remain so low is that the fundamentals of the economy have been weak since the 2008 crash. Twelve years of (entirely unnecessary) austerity haven't helped either.
Real wage growth over the last decade has been almost non-existent for many people (and is now declining rapidly against raging inflation), so it's no surprise people have had to borrow more versus their wages if they want to buy a home. (Rather than pay someone else's mortgage for them via rent.....)
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Oh for sure the banks take the piss when it comes to this stuff, interest rate rises turn into your mortgage payments increasing by the full amount within 27 seconds, and you get a fraction of it onto your savings rate a few weeks later.
Remember though, I'm not talking about people with what would be considered a decent amount of money in the bank for 'normal people' (I know my in-laws routinely bemoan how little their savings are yielding for them), and neither is GARY, we're talking about properly wealthy people, folks worth millions, tens of millions, or billions - and specifically people who have huge amounts of untaxed wealth and assets, rather than income.
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- Location
- IOM
Alas mack, Norway is what happens when a country protects its natural assets for the benefit of its citizens, the UK is what happens when you sell off the family silver on the cheap to rapacious capitalist interests because 'the market knows best'.
The fact that the UK's abundant energy is being sold at massively inflated prices on the international markets for the benefit of the already rich, whilst our government borrows £150bn (to be paid back by the taxpayer), and many UK folks face a winter of cold and massive bills (even after Truss's enrichment of the rich via her 'rescue plan'), encapsulates everything that is wrong with privatisation.
- Joined
- May 8, 2018
- Location
- south east england
You could have a hybrid 50/50 arrangement as a compromise.
What the price inflation of energy does also is make green energy (artificially) viable and more efficient, it's been relying on subsidy, now suddenly the energy a wind turbine creates carries a much greater value £.
Which does make me wonder is this all part of the 'great reset', which was based on the general public cutting back the western lifestyle, carbon footprints etc..the timing is very convenient.
Forcing austerity onto millions, which is what it is when folk cannot afford to heat their homes or restricted to counting nearly every penny when they visit the supermarket, doesn't seem right when at the same time huge firms are announcing record profits or very healthy, amazon etc...
Truss is kicking the can down the road, hopefully there is some sort of bigger plan to secure enough energy supply for future winters at reasonable prices etc..
