Can't do that. It would be inflationary.
Cost of living crisis: Lets pay more to water companies so they can invest more in their shareholders.
- Thread starter Ekkie Thump
- Start date
Not if you're a boss though
Weren't they not actually essential, desirable yes but people could live perfectly well without them?
Also, it's a bit ridiculous to include "flatscreen TVs" when listing luxuries the plebs dare to buy. As in it's practically impossible to buy a non-flat screen, and that's because it's 2023, not 1998.
For anyone that’s interested - there’s tariffs out there that currently are about 40% cheaper than price cap. Have a look at the Octopus tracker tariff. DM if anyone wants more info, I’ve been on it since January and saved a small fortune.
OK the latest OLED, ultra 4K 90" screen or whatever they are these days
The Tories love this mantra being pushed.
That's the right kind of inflation. It's the poor getting more to spend that's the real danger.
I can sell you one.
fecking disgusting profiteering in a cost of living crisis. I dread to see what it’ll be like this winter.
cnuts.
cnuts.
It's like that Fox News statistic "99% of poor households own a refrigerator" or something. The poor and the unemployed aren't allowed to own nice things, so as to motivate them not to be poor and unemployed.
Things like electricity, gas, internet, public transport …… can’t think of any more but I’m sure there are probably some should be run by the government as not for profit organisations.
I get the argument that govt will feck things up worse than a private company and with even less oversight and that may well be true but I think the current obscene profits will probably offset any inefficiencies?
Does that make me a Labour voter? I have never been that in the past.
NHS should also be included I know it’s govt run at the moment (probably with severe ineffectiveness at senior levels) but it seems like it needs more money right now.
I get the argument that govt will feck things up worse than a private company and with even less oversight and that may well be true but I think the current obscene profits will probably offset any inefficiencies?
Does that make me a Labour voter? I have never been that in the past.
NHS should also be included I know it’s govt run at the moment (probably with severe ineffectiveness at senior levels) but it seems like it needs more money right now.
Don't forget the water companies with their profits, while they pump sewage straight into our rivers and then ask us to foot the bill for cleaning up the mess we were already paying them to clean up in the first place.
Yep and water, nobody should profit from that.
Damned plebs thinking they should be able to live the high life with all these fancy extravagant purchases like *checks notes*… a mobile phone and a TV…
Don’t they realise that CEOs want to see more zeros in their investment portfolios?
Ungrateful lot.
Don’t they realise that CEOs want to see more zeros in their investment portfolios?
Ungrateful lot.
The key problem is housing (buy and rent) and energy. Electrucity and gas. All of them necessary to have quality of living
And then of course reducing your existence to have food and clothing and not being able to enjoy your life when we advanced in 20 years what we never did before and only dome reaped the benefits
And NatWest with just the £3.6bn profit in six months.
Great news. Just think about how many flat screen TVs they've stopped being frivolously purchased by their greedy customers.
Excellent work from the BBC as well making sure that the focus of the story is about Nigel Farage, and not this minor detail about these companies being the main driver of soaring inflation.
The money will trickle down soon I’m sure.
What is this? Who can afford to go on a 2 week holiday every year and get a new car?
I earn above the national average for the UK and can’t afford to do either of those things.
I'd like to see more of the haves and have-nots rhetoric enter the public consciousness again. I'm not sure why people/media stopped using that phrase as it's entirely appropriate to describe the marked difference between people who are doing well currently against people who are not, which is a great deal more than when the term was first applied. I sometimes think the pandemic had the unfortunate consequence of making everybody feel equal in their misery.
I suppose it's harder when you're forced to use an abstraction like company shareholder vs. normal person, rather than talking about silly things like the metropolitan elite, etc.
I suppose it's harder when you're forced to use an abstraction like company shareholder vs. normal person, rather than talking about silly things like the metropolitan elite, etc.
They've never been more unequal than during the pandemic though, and, in particular, during the strict lockdowns, which were for obvious reasons the toughest part of the whole thing for millions. I live in a small city, just on the "border" between the "regular" city where the vast majority of housing is blocks of flats, and a suburb made up entirely of detached houses with gardens, swimming pools, etc. When access to outdoor spaces was such a luxury guess who had as much access to outdoor spaces as they wanted while millions of children didn't feel the sun on their skins for weeks.
Yeah, it's insane. I think everybody just went into their bubble and ignored how there was this huge disparity between those with space vs. those who didn't have it. I'd like to think we'd be having more thorough conversations about how to improve things across the board and using the pandemic as a marker for what happens when there's an exceptional situation.
So what's the perfectly plausible capitalist reason that it's totally fair that they make 1000% profit while people struggle to pay their gas bill? (Sorry I'm too lazy to read the whole thread and I'm too dense for economics).
Part of the argument is that last year the industry regulators (OFGEM) were instructed to institute a price cap in order to stop customers from having to face the full increase in fuel prices all at once. Instead British Gas was forced to swallow a large portion of the increase in wholesale gas prices itself. OFGEM has since intimated that the price cap was too low to fully appreciate the increased costs that British Gas faced in relation to this wholesale price. Therefore this year OFGEM relaxed the cap to the extent that it allowed British Gas to recoup some of these losses from its customers. OFGEM estimates that this accounts for about half of British Gas' profit.
The problem with this argument is that British Gas is not a stand alone company. It is, in fact, the retail arm of Centrica. Centrica doesn't just retail gas, it produces it and sells it on the wholesale market. It owns and runs gas fields, gas storage and gas distribution. When British Gas faced higher wholesale prices, those prices were largely set by other arms of its parent company. When it paid it ultimately amounted to a reallocation of funds within the umbrella organisation. Essentially Centrica was paying itself by proxy; shifting its profit from the retail to the wholesale side of its business. This is why it still managed to announce record profits last year despite British Gas "underperforming".
It's a charade.
Either way Centrica wins.
Dunno about cars but given the huge expansion in air travel it's quite clear that people are taking more holidays abroad
About 3 million people a year get a new car, and air travel is already back to pre Covid levels and climbing rapidly. So the answer is most people.
I see, thanks for the insight.
Did some more reading on it. This guy does a rather good "dummies" explanation.
The thing is, the oil and gas producers can influence the price of oil/gas by changing the amount they extract, although the price is intimately set by the market. If the price of oil/gas goes up, they can't help making more money.
The suppliers have to pass these price increases on to the consumer, but the only way they can increase their profits is by increasing their margins. So, we're getting ripped off.
Same with the banks, if it costs them more to borrow the money they lend, then they have to increase lending rates. If they don't maintain margins between lending and savings rates, then they're going to make more profits and they'll be ripping us off.
The suppliers have to pass these price increases on to the consumer, but the only way they can increase their profits is by increasing their margins. So, we're getting ripped off.
Same with the banks, if it costs them more to borrow the money they lend, then they have to increase lending rates. If they don't maintain margins between lending and savings rates, then they're going to make more profits and they'll be ripping us off.
Also, how come when the price of a barrel of oil goes up, or down, the price at the pumps changes the next day. Yet, when it comes to gas, they say they buy wholesale and we have to wait 6 months to get the benefit of price reductions.
I'm fairly sure they don't extract, refine and deliver fuel to petrol stations all in one day. There must be enough stocks of oil to last months and months.
I'm fairly sure they don't extract, refine and deliver fuel to petrol stations all in one day. There must be enough stocks of oil to last months and months.
It isn't.
I don't think it's back there yet is it? Maybe it's got there this summer but Europe was tracking 70-80% of pre-covid late last year and the start of this and the US slightly higher. The blame for that had been put on businesses continuing to use online meetings post-covid though.
At some point we should all call their bluff, see how much they like it when businesses go the wall in record numbers.
I’m talking about in the uk for a 2 week holiday, I personally don’t know many people who have been abroad for that period whos kids aren’t at school anymore.
As far as I can see it’s estimated 1.7 million new cars sold, which out of 34 million drivers which seems like 5% of people.
Not right now it isn’t. Most folk are skint right now. Coming off their 2% mortgages, bills through the roof, food prices are ridiculous, and childcare eats up almost 50% of household income. I’m 30 and this is what I see around me.
People are making it work, but there’s little left in the bank for that nice new pair of trainers you’re after towards the end of the month. Who the feck wants to work their arses off, pull in what should be considered decent money (e.g 40k+) and have to hold back on buying a pair of bloody trainers? This may be construed as a middle class whinge (probably unfairly), but these are the folk who are going to determine the next election. I haven’t even got on to the poor folk who genuinely have feck all.
You do the right thing in the UK and you get shafted for doing so. The country is in the skip.
On a side note, I honestly can’t believe I’m still reading things like ‘who needs a smart phone’ in 2023. Get a fecking hold.
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That is not… most people?
Are you aware of how many people there actually are…?
And also of the definition of the word ‘most’?
Project Mayhem doesn't seem like a bad idea right now, burn the whole thing down and start again.
People were getting fed up with being ripped off, it's cheaper to go abroad and spend 2 weeks in Spain or Portugal than it is to spend 2 weeks in Cornwall or Blackpool and it'll probably not rain for most of it either
I can only go off my own experience as a kid in the 70's, I never had a 2 week holiday to anywhere outside of spending summers at my Grandparents house in Scotland and that wasn't every year
Are you aware of how many people fly?
British people flew out of the UK 126 million times in 2018. The numbers in 2023 are now matching and surpassing 2019. 50% of the population flies in a given year aka most.
Re: buying cars. It will usually require an outlay that is backed by the trade/sell-on value of your old car, making it cheaper if, like the housing market, you were on the car market already. Especially now as used cars are retaining their value.
It is ergo disproportionately more expensive to those in a car-less state, much like deposits are crazy expensive to people in a house-less state. If you hold those assets already then you hold more cards (or in this case, cars) than others.
Again, it's why this cost-of-living crisis isn't equal. It hits the poorer hardest.
It is ergo disproportionately more expensive to those in a car-less state, much like deposits are crazy expensive to people in a house-less state. If you hold those assets already then you hold more cards (or in this case, cars) than others.
Again, it's why this cost-of-living crisis isn't equal. It hits the poorer hardest.