Cost of living squeeze in 2022

[Welshbeef]

PRTVR said:

xeny said:

That's paying for the bailouts of the various failed energy companies.

That the government via the regulator allowed to set up without sufficient capital to weather a financial storm.

You do know had they been then the rates everyone would have been paying would have been much more for so many many years.

[dmahon]

Once every 50 pages or so I like to point out that we wasted half a £trillion on an unwinnable war against a minor virus, and people generally supported it. All of that money could have taken the sting out of the leccy bill!

[Welshbeef]

Fundoreen said:

Curious how the obviously crafty brains of boris and sunak work. Seems there will be an across the board payment to everyone for energy bills.
Wont make much of a dent but why is it for everyone? The only people that will be suffering are the poorest. Im happy to get nothing if they get more.
We have this situation where work from homers are quids in saving tons of money without travelling to work. That would pay for any extra on a energy bill and they can have multiple holidays.
And they need help with costs?
We seem to live in a world where people that are accustomed to feeling well off have to be protected from feeling slightly less well off.
Tory voters I guess.

A few reasons
1 it’s not a case of you get nothing they get more - rather you get nothing and then have higher taxes to pay for those who receive it.
2. Universal credit is easy to adjust
3. It’s very very hard then to get those above UC who are in trouble - is it anyone who is classed in fuel poverty ? If so someone with a mansion and swimming pool may find their energy bills jump from £20k a year to £100k+
4. It costs money and time to assess 67m people as who needs it or not.

[Welshbeef]

dmahon said:

Once every 50 pages or so I like to point out that we wasted half a trillion on an unwinnable war against a minor virus, and people generally supported it. All of that money could have taken the sting out of the leccy bill!

And I point out on a similar frequency

Thank god your not in France they spent £500b vs UK £410b
Thank god your not in Italy they spend £750b v £410b
Thank god your not in Germany they spent £1.2t and are vastly more reliant on Russian gas and gas itself than UK due to them turning off all their nuclear power stations and still burning filthy coal.

[m3jappa]

dmahon said:

Once every 50 pages or so I like to point out that we wasted half a trillion on an unwinnable war against a minor virus, and people generally supported it. All of that money could have taken the sting out of the leccy bill!

The whole thing is simply unbelievable tbh.

All that money pumped out for what? something which has now been almost forgotten about. Something which for the vast majority was next to nothing.

Something that totally fked global supply chains and initiated the increase in costs.

total madness which gives rise to conspiracy theories.

Is this the great reset which was talked about all the time and now i don't see mentioned anywhere?

Whatever way you look at it the prices of everything are certainly being re set.....

[anonymous-user]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61584546

"UK households are set to have hundreds of pounds knocked off energy bills this winter as part of a £10bn package to help people cope with soaring prices."

A good start.

[MikeT66]

dmahon said:

Once every 50 pages or so I like to point out that we wasted half a trillion on an unwinnable war against a minor virus, and people generally supported it. All of that money could have taken the sting out of the leccy bill!

This is a major issue that few seem to be willing to talk about. Also, the likelihood that what we are now experiencing the long and lethal fallout from the covid 'nuclear bomb' - fallout that will cause damage for years.

As for a quick and relatively minor 'pay-off' for households against energy bills isn't good enough - the tax issue of energy needs addressing, but 'we' have to pay that half trillion back somehow, I suppose...

[Welshbeef]

MikeT66 said:

dmahon said:

Once every 50 pages or so I like to point out that we wasted half a trillion on an unwinnable war against a minor virus, and people generally supported it. All of that money could have taken the sting out of the leccy bill!

This is a major issue that few seem to be willing to talk about. Also, the likelihood that what we are now experiencing the long and lethal fallout from the covid 'nuclear bomb' - fallout that will cause damage for years.

As for a quick and relatively minor 'pay-off' for households against energy bills isn't good enough - the tax issue of energy needs addressing, but 'we' have to pay that half trillion back somehow, I suppose...

And yet the public were clamouring for Boris to lockdown sooner. Why were we last in the world why did we get it so wrong.

Why couldn’t we get PPE (hey you know Bojo was trying to save us some cash).

Kier wanted harder and longer lockdowns
Press did too
People kept asking are you following the science or not
People seem so concerned about cakes too.

[Welshbeef]

OnTheBreadline said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61584546

"UK households are set to have hundreds of pounds knocked off energy bills this winter as part of a 10bn package to help people cope with soaring prices."

A good start.

We should increase the tax free allowance to £16,000 this will give everyone the same handout but encourage working. 1.2m jobs to go for.

[Earthdweller]

Welshbeef said:

We should increase the tax free allowance to 16,000 this will give everyone the same handout but encourage working. 1.2m jobs to go for.

That would actually make sense ( to me )

[Frimley111R]

Welshbeef said:

OnTheBreadline said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61584546

"UK households are set to have hundreds of pounds knocked off energy bills this winter as part of a 10bn package to help people cope with soaring prices."

A good start.

We should increase the tax free allowance to 16,000 this will give everyone the same handout but encourage working. 1.2m jobs to go for.

But that won't buy votes in the same way as giving people money.

[Earthdweller]

Ultimately, whatever they do, they are just fiddling whilst Rome burns

They do not have the ability to make any meaningful difference and a one off payment now isn’t going to help next year or the year after

They’ve fiddled for years and depleted the U.K.’s energy independence and failed to replace old power sources and invest in reliable new ones

All politicians … not just the current ones are culpable

[Welshbeef]

Frimley111R said:

Welshbeef said:

OnTheBreadline said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61584546

"UK households are set to have hundreds of pounds knocked off energy bills this winter as part of a 10bn package to help people cope with soaring prices."

A good start.

We should increase the tax free allowance to 16,000 this will give everyone the same handout but encourage working. 1.2m jobs to go for.

But that won't buy votes in the same way as giving people money.

Don’t think Bojo gives too shoots really after party gate and PPE issue and failing to lockdown early and initially highest death rate in the world (but now near identical to France Italy Spain and marginally worse than Germany/all much of a much mess but the frothers seemed to care)

[dmahon]

Welshbeef said:

And yet the public were clamouring for Boris to lockdown sooner. Why were we last in the world why did we get it so wrong.

Why couldn’t we get PPE (hey you know Bojo was trying to save us some cash).

Kier wanted harder and longer lockdowns
Press did too
People kept asking are you following the science or not
People seem so concerned about cakes too.

Which is why governing based on Twitter is a terrible idea. They needed to be straight with people on the low risks of Covid, the slim likelihood of ever controlling it, and the downsides of restrictions. Instead they were more concerned with looking good for the media and social media. It’s weak leadership.

[Welshbeef]

dmahon said:

Welshbeef said:

And yet the public were clamouring for Boris to lockdown sooner. Why were we last in the world why did we get it so wrong.

Why couldn’t we get PPE (hey you know Bojo was trying to save us some cash).

Kier wanted harder and longer lockdowns
Press did too
People kept asking are you following the science or not
People seem so concerned about cakes too.

Which is why governing based on Twitter is a terrible idea. They needed to be straight with people on the low risks of Covid, the slim likelihood of ever controlling it, and the downsides of restrictions. Instead they were more concerned with looking good for the media and social media. It’s weak leadership.

It’s kind of what I said above

[gotoPzero]

Welshbeef said:

dmahon said:

Once every 50 pages or so I like to point out that we wasted half a trillion on an unwinnable war against a minor virus, and people generally supported it. All of that money could have taken the sting out of the leccy bill!

And I point out on a similar frequency

Thank god your not in France they spent 500b vs UK 410b
Thank god your not in Italy they spend 750b v 410b
Thank god your not in Germany they spent 1.2t and are vastly more reliant on Russian gas and gas itself than UK due to them turning off all their nuclear power stations and still burning filthy coal.

Honestly, the more I think about it the more I think the war in Ukraine and COVID are linked.

Tin foil hat stuff but I find it odd that we go from pretty good economic situation to global pandemic and as soon as the pandemic ends Russia basically go to war with NATO in all but name. Then we get world wide recession and it all goes pete tong. I find it hard to believe they are not in some way linked.

[FiF]

MG CHRIS said:

PRTVR said:

xeny said:

That's paying for the bailouts of the various failed energy companies.

That the government via the regulator allowed to set up without sufficient capital to weather a financial storm.

And then people like Martin Lewis told people to use them to save a few quid backfired now.

Trouble was ML's advice was correct in a broad brush way, yet people when switching didn't do due diligence, for want of a better description, and look a bit more closely at the offers and the outfit behind them. It does need a bit of work which I'm sure for years many would consider a waste of their time, and for years got away with it.

Equally to be fair there are some where saving a few pounds a month is crucial.

[ARHarh]

Earthdweller said:

Welshbeef said:

We should increase the tax free allowance to 16,000 this will give everyone the same handout but encourage working. 1.2m jobs to go for.

That would actually make sense ( to me )

Not sure an extra £57 a month would make the people who don't want to work find work. Only good thing is there will be no way they will be able to work out where the £57 came from, so might be convinced to work.

[xeny]

gotoPzero said:

Honestly, the more I think about it the more I think the war in Ukraine and COVID are linked.

Tin foil hat stuff but I find it odd that we go from pretty good economic situation to global pandemic and as soon as the pandemic ends Russia basically go to war with NATO in all but name. Then we get world wide recession and it all goes pete tong. I find it hard to believe they are not in some way linked.

They are.

Russia wanted a short victorious war to improve public opinion after a poor pandemic experience.

The combination of that, China continuing to lock cities down and financial choices that seemed a good idea at the time give us the high level of inflation we're now experiencing.

It is a matter of choice by multiple central banks to choose a possible recession as a lesser evil than high inflation.

Have you ever steered a narrowboat into a lock when there's a nearby weir? The turbulence of the flow from the weir and the lag in the steering response means that if your course to the lock is stable you can get away with small tiller movements to keep on course. If you get significantly off course, then they make getting back to the steady stable correct course is very hard. The economy is rather like that, but the lag is unpredictable, and as is the boat's throttle response.

My guess is that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Moderation has definitely come to an end.

Edited by xeny on Thursday 26th May 09:58

[xeny]

FiF said:

Trouble was ML's advice was correct in a broad brush way, yet people when switching didn't do due diligence, for want of a better description, and look a bit more closely at the offers and the outfit behind them. It does need a bit of work which I'm sure for years many would consider a waste of their time, and for years got away with it.

I am also of the opinion that due diligence was appropriate.

I rather think that it should have been done by ofgem, they are the government's appointed regulator who say they are responsible for "stamping out sharp and bad practice, ensuring fair treatment for all consumers, especially the vulnerable" . I don't think it is unreasonable for a prospective customer to expect that to cover if a firm has any business selling energy to the consumer.