Cost of living squeeze in 2022
Discussion
oyster said:
There are hundreds of thousands who switched to some of the very small providers on his advice (he even had a switching tool which was a revenue earner to facilitate this) for some very cheap rates. Rates which back fired on people as they went bust and ended up on variable rates. He deliberately appeared to steer people away from fixes with the big energy providers as their deals weren't as generous (and no doubt his commission was smaller). If people had been on these less generous fixes, they'd be paying less now.
To be fair to ML, his website gave details about customer service scores and even flagged up firms that were new or had limited feedback so an informed decision could be made. Like others here, I avoided some of the less-established ones.Even the government were telling people to switch to save money a few years back:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/switch-to-save-...
The fault of those firms going under doesn't lie with ML - it lies with a framework laid down by government that lacked the necessary regulatory checks. Once again, a 'light touch' approach that was always doomed to fail, and yet again with the taxpayer ending up bailing out poorly run firms who didn't hedge as they should.
gotoPzero said:
pghstochaj said:
So we take 7B from the energy companies to pay 5B in subsidies and in return, presumably energy prices will rise to maintain the same absolute profit? I am sure there is a circular problem in this...
+1I would sooner the companies used the money for prespecting in the north sea (and other places) to see if we can find some reserves. Theres no gurantees on that of course but at least we can try.
Strategic planning for the next 10 years is not something this government is good at but it will look good in the papers for today and tomorrow........
Mark Benson said:
Gecko1978 said:
Harry H said:
xeny said:
J210 said:
So we print more money to stem the issue created by printing more money....
Surely an actual cut in VAT/green levies off fuel would be better rather than just giving a hand out.
The article goes on to say:Surely an actual cut in VAT/green levies off fuel would be better rather than just giving a hand out.
"The support, to be announced by Chancellor Rishi Sunak later, is expected to be largely funded by a windfall tax on oil and gas firms that could raise 7bn."
which doesn't read like money printing?
HS2, foreign aid, crossrail, travel subsidies, civil service, in-work benefits (by raising the burden on employers to compensate), more civil service, consoldate local councils (now so much is administered centrally).
Edited by Mark Benson on Thursday 26th May 10:44
Let’s look at this list in order shall we
- HS2: Already spent £14bn out of £44bn for phase 1. The remaining £30bn will be spent over the next 8 years, so £3.5bn per year…about 0.3% of the government’s budget.
- Foreign aid: Cut the lot, saves £12bn. Whoop-di-do, you’ve cut government spending by a grand 1%.
- Crossrail: Already built, too late. No money to be saved.
- Travel subsidies: £1-2bn saved. Pat yourself on the back for the incredible change you’ve made to government finances.
- Civil service: Total cost of civil service is ~£13bn. Half of civil service employment are operational delivery (prison officers, job centre employees, HMRC call centre workers etc.). Total cost of “Whitehall” salaries is c.£1.5bn. Even taking very aggressive cuts you could perhaps save £5bn…0.5% of government spending.
- In-work benefits (raising the burden on employers to compensate): This works almost identically to a tax (because either way employers pay).
- Consolidate local councils: Total council spending is £106bn; 75% of this goes straight out the door in just 3 areas: education, social care, and ‘blue light’ (police and fire). If you cut council “central services” completely, you’d save £4bn.
So all Mark’s wonderful ideas add up to a grand total of (generously) £25bn, which is <2.5% of government spending. Our budget deficit for this year is >£100bn!
Probably missing something basic here as don't really understand how it all works but why are they putting the price cap up by £800 then giving everyone back £400? Why not just increase the price cap by £400 and save all the admin/hassle of getting the money back off the energy companies and putting it back in peoples accounts?
chrisga said:
Probably missing something basic here as don't really understand how it all works but why are they putting the price cap up by 800 then giving everyone back 400? Why not just increase the price cap by 400 and save all the admin/hassle of getting the money back off the energy companies and putting it back in peoples accounts?
The price cap is not a fixed amount.chrisga said:
Probably missing something basic here as don't really understand how it all works but why are they putting the price cap up by 800 then giving everyone back 400? Why not just increase the price cap by 400 and save all the admin/hassle of getting the money back off the energy companies and putting it back in peoples accounts?
The price cap is not going up by £800. Unit prices for electricity and gas are going up by c.40%, which equates to £800 for the average bill. Whereas the grant is a straight £400 to everyone.
If you live in a massive mansion your energy bill will be going up by a lot more than £800 and the grant will be noise on the signal, if you live in an ultra efficient 1-bed then you could be quids in on the grant.
If they distributed the money via the price cap instead, the biggest beneficiaries would be those with the biggest energy bills to start with. (Which tends to be those with the biggest houses)
brickwall said:
chrisga said:
Probably missing something basic here as don't really understand how it all works but why are they putting the price cap up by 800 then giving everyone back 400? Why not just increase the price cap by 400 and save all the admin/hassle of getting the money back off the energy companies and putting it back in peoples accounts?
The price cap is not going up by 800. Unit prices for electricity and gas are going up by c.40%, which equates to 800 for the average bill. Whereas the grant is a straight 400 to everyone.
If you live in a massive mansion your energy bill will be going up by a lot more than 800 and the grant will be noise on the signal, if you live in an ultra efficient 1-bed then you could be quids in on the grant.
If they distributed the money via the price cap instead, the biggest beneficiaries would be those with the biggest energy bills to start with. (Which tends to be those with the biggest houses)
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