The poor will freeze to death in the UK.

a reply to: anonentity

Oh, please... Rayburn, dahling?

They want everyone to beg for Charter Cities and Free Ports. If people are cold enough and hungry enough they'll beg for them.

a reply to: Maya00a
Interesting. Never heard of these. Micro Hong Kong's?

a reply to: teapot

unpicking national identities make that somewhat easier as local identities flow into the fill the void, the ones down here on the southern coast have always been smuggler at the core from the likes of the Hawkhurst gang to the more modern booze cruises its why the most common flag you'll see down here is the skull in crossbones rather than Union or English flags.

a reply to: Freeborn

I would argue that ceiling came into being after the ECW to block the leveller manifesto, the agreement of the people and has been blocking any change in the status quo since that point, where we are feels a continuation of that only this time people vs grandees.. as regardless of coloured tie or rosette they represent the exact same forces.

the sad part is the US appears to have gone from embracing the agreement as "we the people" only now to adopt a similar strata of grandees doing the same in terms of maintaining the status quo regardless of the path it sets them on..

a reply to: anonentity
All households that pay for their energy, regardless of their income (around 29 million households in England, Scotland and Wales) will benefit from a £400 energy grant.

originally posted by: Itisnowagain
a reply to: anonentity
All households that pay for their energy, regardless of their income (around 29 million households in England, Scotland and Wales) will benefit from a £400 energy grant.

That £400 of taxpayers' money will go straight into the hands of the oil and gas companies/shareholders' pockets. Considering the increase in prices will be 10x that for most households I don't see much of a benefit.

a reply to: Itisnowagain

not going to touch the sides of this self inflicted crisis.. nor make any difference to DDs, my estimate is already double my use, the dd is a way for them to take money and when they cease trading keep the excess they've taken.. its a zombie market

a reply to: Soloprotocol

its a zombie market filled with fake competition, its beyond broken..

a reply to: nickyw
Stop the direct debit.

I recently did and I got £500 returned to me. They had £500 stacked away but were still upping my monthly payments.

a reply to: Itisnowagain

It's a paltry sum of monies that amounts to a token gesture given the increase in costs.

Nothing more than a band-aid for a brain tumor really.

Stick a zero on the end of that £400 and they might actually put a dent in the debt some poor sods will have accumulated with their energy providers.

a reply to: Itisnowagain

the only way i have ever found that works is switching companies the most I've got back was £1500 but it has been the trend since they pushed dds that they overcharge..

a reply to: andy06shake
Where are the government getting their money?
Do they have a money tree?

Even rich people are going to get £400.

29 million × £400 = 11 billion 600 million.
29 million × £4000= 100 billion 16 million.

a reply to: anonentity

a reply to: Itisnowagain

Where are the government getting their money?

Same place they get it any other time?

Most of its income comes from taxes.

Do they have a money tree?

They might if they began to tax the corporations and superrich appropriately.

Even rich people are going to get £400.

What good is £400 to rich people?

That's a night out, a meal, and a few bottles of wine, if that.

Rich people won't have much of a problem covering electricity bills, at least not in any sort of similar manner to say some poor old age pensioner living on a council estate.

29 million × £400 = 11 billion 600 million.
29 million × £4000= 100 billion 16 million.

Funny how they have money to send abroad for war.

Money to bail out the bankers.

But they cannot help cover the increased cost of the average joe's lecky bill in any sort of meaningful manner.

a reply to: Soloprotocol

Welcome to Capitalism.

You want the government to pay for your utility bills, then you want that other lot.

a reply to: AaarghZombies

"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings.

The inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries." Winston Churchill

The energy companies are experiencing record profits AaarghZombies whilst some of the poorest people in the nation are forced to pay through the nose.

That's not so much capitalism but extortion, especially so when you consider electricity is like a drug people cannot live without.

a reply to: AaarghZombies

its not capitalism its 3rd way fake free market competition that is the core issue and not just in the UK leaving zombie economies in there wake.

where you have captive monopolies like water, electric gas and 1 set of infrastructure, to create competition they've ended up creating a game of exchanging paper ious as to who owns what bit of the the water/gas/electric that gets used even to a point of claiming some of it is Russian..

its more evident to those countries that extract ND export more gas than they import but this trading paper game means anyone can own the gas even though it in that case none is imported from anywhere else..

an interesting one to wrap your head around is the Netherlands in terms of extract/use vs import/export

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: AaarghZombies

"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings.

The inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries." Winston Churchill

The energy companies are experiencing record profits AaarghZombies whilst some of the poorest people in the nation are forced to pay through the nose.

That's not so much capitalism but extortion, especially so when you consider electricity is like a drug people cannot live without.

I lived under communism. We literally had free heating, and in the UK the reason that the poorest pay the most is that they typically live in rented accommodation with pre-paid meters. Which are more expensive than direct debit meters. This is due to the landlords not wanting to take the risk of people running out on their bills, and has nothing to do with utility companies making profit or government policy.

originally posted by: nickyw
a reply to: AaarghZombies

its not capitalism its 3rd way fake free market competition that is the core issue and not just in the UK leaving zombie economies in there wake.

where you have captive monopolies like water, electric gas and 1 set of infrastructure, to create competition they've ended up creating a game of exchanging paper ious as to who owns what bit of the the water/gas/electric that gets used even to a point of claiming some of it is Russian..

its more evident to those countries that extract ND export more gas than they import but this trading paper game means anyone can own the gas even though it in that case none is imported from anywhere else..

an interesting one to wrap your head around is the Netherlands in terms of extract/use vs import/export

The UK has a pretty deregulated energy sector, and up until about 2 years ago, and there was a lot of competition from small nimble companies who offered people cheap deals.

Unfortunately, most of those companies operated on the futures market, and had little or no cash reserves and absolutely zero gas storage facilities. Their business models became unsustainable when the cost of gas on the market became greater than the money that they were allowed to charge customers (Because of government energy price caps in place at that time). So a lot of these companies went under.