UK Energy Costs

[huxley]

I'm not sure why their is not more of a fuss kicked up about standing charges. Electricity and gas prices have gone up yes but access to the grid hasn't so why are standing charges also going up on average by 50% per household? The same number of customers still require gas and electricity so the excuse that their are less company's in the market to look after the network is mathematical bull**** designed to placate idiots.

I asked an SSE rep at the energy show I went to. His answer was it had to be increased to cover the users they had to pick up due to other firms folding. I pointed out that these users would be paying the same fee anyway, They got extra customers and doubled their standing fees as well.
He didn’t really have a valid answer, probably because there was not one.

[fishbowlhead]

Not sure how energy companies are even legally allowed to take more money than your bill is anyway, its like me selling you something then deciding after i want to double down and take the payment again for s****s and giggles. Which crooked bent little politician pushed it through parliament for their mate?

[Asura]

Not sure how energy companies are even legally allowed to take more money than your bill is anyway, its like me selling you something then deciding after i want to double down and take the payment again for s****s and giggles. Which crooked bent little politician pushed it through parliament for their mate?

I think - though correct me here if I'm wrong - that the standing charge pre-dates the concept of metered bills.

It's like how for water, many people in the UK don't have a meter, you only pay a standing charge for each property. That reminds me of how at one my previous houses I kept getting pleading letters from the water board to ask if they could fit a meter, and eventually had someone come to my house to ask why I wasn't responding! I told them on the doorstep "because you'll use it to charge me more money for the same thing, as it doesn't benefit you in any way to save me money" before shooing them away.

[Neon Ignition]

https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2022/jun/08/uk-annual-house-price-growth-halifax-index-oil-economy-inflation-business-live?page=with:block-62a06e248f081aa930465520#block-62a06e248f081aa930465520

Petrol rose by its highest level in 17 years today, hitting 183.73p

[nakamura]

Can anyone understand why I'm becoming anti capitalist? This situation is ENTIRELY made by the rich.

[fallenangle]

I think the Czar Putin and his running dogs occupying the Kremlin have had a rather significant contribution to the energy crisis and consequent economic upheaval even if the situation that has created is being exploited by other parties.

[nakamura]

Rising energy of all types is nothing new. Yes this has made it worse but energy companies are making billions. The rich are getting significantly richer.

It's an utterly failed system of oppression and greed.

[Hirst]

If the companies were simply passing on the costs, they wouldn't have made record profits. Maybe there would be record turnover, but there's no reason for there to be record profits except pure greed. People are consuming less energy and they make more money? It's nonsense.

The other day the petrol was at 195.9p/litre at a place near me, that's for Super Unleaded. I don't have any choice but to use Super Unleaded because the government decided to put more ethanol in regular fuel and my car from 1996 isn't compatible with it - it will rot away my fuel lines. Supposedly it was done for the environment (I'm sure the fact ethanol is cheaper to make than petrol and the presence of lobbyists for the fuel producers had no bearing in it whatsoever).

Oh it's alright, I'll just buy a new car - with what??? My wages were long outpaced by inflation over the last 15 years. My tastes and responsibilities haven't changed much, but my buying power has gradually shrunk away to nothing. I'm sat here in a shirt I got from a charity shop, trousers from a closing down sale, worn-out Skechers with bald soles and two insoles so it doesn't feel like I'm walking on the bare floor. My lunch was a sandwich made from bread I got reduced at the petrol station two days ago, yellow-label chicken I put in the freezer late last year. My hobbies are all done by some sort of subsidy system, the majority of my games in the last few years were bought with traded-in charity shop junk and through the sale of other things. I also like to go to large shopping centres with the missus where I go really just to look and pretend I could buy things and spray aftershave samples around like I'm a big shot.

I did school, I did college, I even did bloody university. Lucky enough to have never claimed a penny of dole in my life. Never been in any real trouble, no dodgy past. Don't gamble, don't smoke, don't even drink nowadays really. Sat here with my white-collar job and my wages, wondering how the hell I'm going to pay everything if it stays the same. And if it goes up? Well, probably just sell everything I own until it's all gone I guess. Hooray for capitalism! It all worked out!

[Colin]

I feel sorry really for people prior to this who were scraping by as it was, their lives must be absolutely ****ed now. I'm not talking about the keeping up with the neighbours types who are up to their eyeballs in debt so that they can live the facade of being flash, but the genuine hard working families on low incomes.

We're in the lucky position due to age that we're mortgage free and we have no other debt, but I still baulk at the power and fuel bills we're paying at the moment both at home and for the businesses. Scary times ahead.

[Lebowski]

When you think about it we had Ten years of austerity and recession, so we could cut our way out of a National Debt caused by a global recession (we abandoned this and its now apparently no longer a problem despite national debt being higher than ever). Public sector jobs where given a pay freeze at the start of this, and the private sector used this as an excuse to also stagnate wages over the next ten years too.

You'd think the UK would have had enough hardship but we followed this up by cutting ourselves off from our biggest trade partner with brexit giving Jhonson the biggest vote share of the last 40 years. Id say the people at the bottom don't deserve this but a vast number of them voted for this the old saying "turkeys voting for Christmas" is very apt here.

I'm amazed its taken this long to reach this point, the global fuel shortage is all its taken to break us and we are currently left with a goverment that is now enacting policy's and changes to our national infrastructure championed by Jeremy Corbyn that the opposition and media ridiculed!!! the only reason their doing this is to save their own skin.

[Asura]

"turkeys voting for Christmas" is very apt here.

This sums up perfectly why every day I'm nearing closer and closer to the line of "oh just **** this country".

[fishbowlhead]

Record profits = no need to raise anything. So the whole thing is just an excuse to milk the population further.

[nakamura]

Ultimately, society has been manipulated beautifully by the rich and the poor are paying for it dearly. Yes you can say some deserve it etc, but ultimately, society should never be where we are now. We have a shocking class system with others are literally seen as better than each other. It's mental.

Money, wealth, control, it's all man made. It's not real. But it's used to control people. Life is not remotely fair or equal. It's a fundamentally broken society.

[Asura]

Record profits = no need to raise anything. So the whole thing is just an excuse to milk the population further.

That's poorly regulated capitalism, baby! See also: It being legal to have layoffs in a quarter where you make a profit.

[Lebowski]

Ultimately, society has been manipulated beautifully by the rich and the poor are paying for it dearly. Yes you can say some deserve it etc, but ultimately, society should never be where we are now. We have a shocking class system with others are literally seen as better than each other. It's mental.

Money, wealth, control, it's all man made. It's not real. But it's used to control people. Life is not remotely fair or equal. It's a fundamentally broken society.

with the big lie that anyone can make it to the top when the truth is 99.99999% of people wont. We live in a world where one man is rich enough to have a super yacht so large that it needs a smaller yacht to fuel and stock it, individuals so powerful they control governments, individuals with bank balance's larger than major countries.

I often wonder what the point of a company like Amazon is and how they get away with what they do, they have cannibalized and swallowed up large parts of the retail sector, and offer less benefit than the stores they have put out of business. A small specialist shop has to pay taxes and contribute to councils with rents and rates. Amazon have found a way to avoid this while also employing massive tax avoidance schemes on other parts of their business and you wonder why this is aloud?

You then remember that in just the last few weeks that both Rishi Sunak, and Sajid Javid have been caught benefiting from tax avoidance schemes and past Prime Minsters like Cameron and Blair where implicated in the panama papers for having offshore accounts.

On the flip side you've got people choosing over heating and eating.