UK Conservative Party Leadership Election

In general Kroffe do Swedes heat their homes via gas boilers and radiators or through electric heating panels/fires?
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.
 
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?
 
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?
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
 
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!

 
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
 
mortgages and other interest bearing debts become more expensive

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
 
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
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.
 
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

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.
 
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

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.
 
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.
 
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.

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.
 
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!



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]
 
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]

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.
 
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
 
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.

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.

You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.


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.
 
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

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!

You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.
 
Last edited:
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.

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.
 
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.
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.
 
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 at the moment, such is the timidity of politics at the moment.

Dear old Uncle Jeremy would have got it done though!

You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.

And the price of nationalisation is what exactly? If 170bn profits are predicted next year, buying those Companies is going to cost surely at least 170bn and some......
 
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.

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.....)
 
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.....)

Yes, low interest to boost the economy. Not just here in Blighty but across the globe.

But it came without the caveat that it was never going to stay like that.......
 
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.

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.
 
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.

You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.


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.

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.
 
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.

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..
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Meister Ratings

Back
Top