> Greg Jackson was speaking as UK households brace for average energy bills to reach a predicted £3,582 a year in October and £4,266 in January.
> He called for the government to double its financial support or freeze the amount suppliers can charge for energy.
Love it. Typical CEO asking the Government to bail out his company. If you’re that concerned about regular people, why don’t *you* commit to not increasing your prices when the price cap changes?
“Well, will you and your company carry it, Gregg?”
“Sorry, couldn’t hear you, have to leave, another meeting to go to”
>The government would borrow money from banks to pay the difference between the wholesale cost and the price to the consumer while energy prices were high.
This money would be paid back when energy prices came down, he said.
I’m not sure how to interpret this, whether it means the individual consumer would pay back what they owe over a longer period, or that the costs would in effect be socialised.
Along with all the other complexities we absolutely have to avoid a moral hazard scenario where people can be wasteful with energy because someone else is paying for it, the costs would spiral.
Engaging in a proxy war with Russia was never a wise move when they have such a large hold on the world’s energy supplies.
Everyone can wave their Ukraine flags though whilst they’re destitute, so there is that atleast.
Well sell up and let the government do it.
The public don’t owe you eternal shareholder profits.
The myth of endless growth needs to die.
Cost of energy in Europe has little to do with the Ukraine war, suppliers are making huge profits, I’m talking about billions of £ here, if it was due to Russias war they wouldn’t be making billions of extra £ profit.
Ok. Lower the bills so I don’t have to freeze this winter then.
Did Putin ever really care about Ukraine or did he just want to destabilise Europe?
Global gas prices yes.
The localised national problem is that the government cut our gas storage a long time ago, failed to implement anything to prevent against a crisis like this, and didn’t invest into any other form of energy to rely on other than gas.
Other countries in the EU don’t have that mix of problems, and had alot of checks and balances in place to avoid a crisis like this impacting consumers, and some where already heavily investing in other forms of energy generation.
You are right about a global crisis. But we as a nation are being fucked alot harder than others facing the same crisis.
And our government has been nowhere near as effective at managing the crisis once it got as bad as it has. Eg; nuclear power
On top of that UK has had a massive stagnation of wages and an in work poverty problem that was already hurting us before the gas crisis.
No. This is a total smokescreen.
The bills were going up long before the Ukraine war started, and are going up all over the world – even in places that are self sufficient in oil and gas.
This is a cost of lockdown crisis.
Have they tried cutting their profits 🤔
We won’t pay but we support the war. You will have to sort something out. You broke it.
Stuff happens. I vaguely recall this fact from political history class.
It’s all about preparation/investment so when the stuff happens the UK is prepared for the stuff happening.
Even 5 years ago action could have been taken that would have improved the UK situation a great deal. This is true of Brexit also.
We are not even *at* war
But boss’ bonuses can!
Except that with £9 fucking billion pound profits it’s not the customers or Ukrainians who should be held to account?
WTF we are putting up with this blatant profiteering and trying to off-set it with public money is beyond reason.
It’s easy, just STOP to energy (and oil) companies from trying to harvest vast profits and keep the prices reasonable and everyone will be fine.
Except no doubt those in the Commons and Lords have their snouts in the profit trough and can probably get their heating on expenses.
But bosses can carry the bonuses and record profits.
We’re not carrying the cost of the war now, they’re just being greedy
Forego some massive profits for acouple of years, you’ll still be loaded anyway, but no!
We aren’t, we’re carrying the cost of energy companies GREED
I mean as a nation we’ve chosen to back Ukraine, we knew that would have significant costs, militarily and financially so absolutely we should all be the carrying the cost
Everything you’ve mentioned is correct, and other countries have got it real bad.
The problem in the UK is the wage stagnation,(seeming) lack of governments intervention, and that we don’t have any gas storage which leads us to be vulnerable to price shifts.
Other countries have it bad, but for the UK it’s worse than alot of other places right now for the average Joe.
The fucking suppliers making millions can, why is it that France has been able to cap the rise at 4% and keep the lights on?
What a cunt. You mean you and your bastard shareholders can’t. People better not actually be believing this bollocks.
Bill hike nothing to do with Ukraine war,just the greed of the suppliers,the profits have increased by billions,you cant make massive profits like that if your charged huge amounts to buy, we arn’t all dickheads mate.
The fact that energy is privatised in the UK costs us a fortune as bill payers are extorted so that these private companies can earn profits and pay shareholders dividends.
Additionally, executives of these private companies are paid huge sums and whilst this isn’t a large cost to the bill payer in the scheme of things, why are we subsidising these incompetent cretins’ style of life?
Because when a private energy company fails, which they seem to be doing quite regularly, the taxpayer bears the cost, with apparently no redress to those incompetent companies’ management.
Remember 2008 when banks were too big to fail? When that happened the magic money trees were in full bloom and the banks continued to pay their executives and employees huge bonuses funded by taxpayer money.
But when there’s an energy crisis our government has been too stupid and short sighted to hedge against, the taxpayer and bill payer must stump up.
Tldr: Private energy companies don’t abide by the rules of a capitalist system any more than the banks do, so fuck this rigged game and nationalise the bastards.
But “we’re sticking out to Putin” (by giving him huge profits)
Translation: Please help the public pay our extortionate energy bills, by using their own tax-money to do it.
If these company bosses didn’t have friends in the highest places they wouldn’t be able to do this, the UK is utterly corrupt.
We are an oil/gas producing country, we should not be paying these prices. I don’t see how we should be affected by this.
29 comments
> Greg Jackson was speaking as UK households brace for average energy bills to reach a predicted £3,582 a year in October and £4,266 in January.
> He called for the government to double its financial support or freeze the amount suppliers can charge for energy.
Love it. Typical CEO asking the Government to bail out his company. If you’re that concerned about regular people, why don’t *you* commit to not increasing your prices when the price cap changes?
“Well, will you and your company carry it, Gregg?”
“Sorry, couldn’t hear you, have to leave, another meeting to go to”
>The government would borrow money from banks to pay the difference between the wholesale cost and the price to the consumer while energy prices were high.
This money would be paid back when energy prices came down, he said.
I’m not sure how to interpret this, whether it means the individual consumer would pay back what they owe over a longer period, or that the costs would in effect be socialised.
Along with all the other complexities we absolutely have to avoid a moral hazard scenario where people can be wasteful with energy because someone else is paying for it, the costs would spiral.
Engaging in a proxy war with Russia was never a wise move when they have such a large hold on the world’s energy supplies.
Everyone can wave their Ukraine flags though whilst they’re destitute, so there is that atleast.
Well sell up and let the government do it.
The public don’t owe you eternal shareholder profits.
The myth of endless growth needs to die.
Cost of energy in Europe has little to do with the Ukraine war, suppliers are making huge profits, I’m talking about billions of £ here, if it was due to Russias war they wouldn’t be making billions of extra £ profit.
Ok. Lower the bills so I don’t have to freeze this winter then.
Did Putin ever really care about Ukraine or did he just want to destabilise Europe?
Global gas prices yes.
The localised national problem is that the government cut our gas storage a long time ago, failed to implement anything to prevent against a crisis like this, and didn’t invest into any other form of energy to rely on other than gas.
Other countries in the EU don’t have that mix of problems, and had alot of checks and balances in place to avoid a crisis like this impacting consumers, and some where already heavily investing in other forms of energy generation.
You are right about a global crisis. But we as a nation are being fucked alot harder than others facing the same crisis.
And our government has been nowhere near as effective at managing the crisis once it got as bad as it has. Eg; nuclear power
On top of that UK has had a massive stagnation of wages and an in work poverty problem that was already hurting us before the gas crisis.
No. This is a total smokescreen.
The bills were going up long before the Ukraine war started, and are going up all over the world – even in places that are self sufficient in oil and gas.
This is a cost of lockdown crisis.
Have they tried cutting their profits 🤔
We won’t pay but we support the war. You will have to sort something out. You broke it.
Stuff happens. I vaguely recall this fact from political history class.
It’s all about preparation/investment so when the stuff happens the UK is prepared for the stuff happening.
Even 5 years ago action could have been taken that would have improved the UK situation a great deal. This is true of Brexit also.
We are not even *at* war
But boss’ bonuses can!
Except that with £9 fucking billion pound profits it’s not the customers or Ukrainians who should be held to account?
WTF we are putting up with this blatant profiteering and trying to off-set it with public money is beyond reason.
It’s easy, just STOP to energy (and oil) companies from trying to harvest vast profits and keep the prices reasonable and everyone will be fine.
Except no doubt those in the Commons and Lords have their snouts in the profit trough and can probably get their heating on expenses.
But bosses can carry the bonuses and record profits.
We’re not carrying the cost of the war now, they’re just being greedy
Forego some massive profits for acouple of years, you’ll still be loaded anyway, but no!
We aren’t, we’re carrying the cost of energy companies GREED
I mean as a nation we’ve chosen to back Ukraine, we knew that would have significant costs, militarily and financially so absolutely we should all be the carrying the cost
Everything you’ve mentioned is correct, and other countries have got it real bad.
The problem in the UK is the wage stagnation,(seeming) lack of governments intervention, and that we don’t have any gas storage which leads us to be vulnerable to price shifts.
Other countries have it bad, but for the UK it’s worse than alot of other places right now for the average Joe.
The fucking suppliers making millions can, why is it that France has been able to cap the rise at 4% and keep the lights on?
What a cunt. You mean you and your bastard shareholders can’t. People better not actually be believing this bollocks.
Bill hike nothing to do with Ukraine war,just the greed of the suppliers,the profits have increased by billions,you cant make massive profits like that if your charged huge amounts to buy, we arn’t all dickheads mate.
The fact that energy is privatised in the UK costs us a fortune as bill payers are extorted so that these private companies can earn profits and pay shareholders dividends.
Additionally, executives of these private companies are paid huge sums and whilst this isn’t a large cost to the bill payer in the scheme of things, why are we subsidising these incompetent cretins’ style of life?
Because when a private energy company fails, which they seem to be doing quite regularly, the taxpayer bears the cost, with apparently no redress to those incompetent companies’ management.
Remember 2008 when banks were too big to fail? When that happened the magic money trees were in full bloom and the banks continued to pay their executives and employees huge bonuses funded by taxpayer money.
But when there’s an energy crisis our government has been too stupid and short sighted to hedge against, the taxpayer and bill payer must stump up.
Tldr: Private energy companies don’t abide by the rules of a capitalist system any more than the banks do, so fuck this rigged game and nationalise the bastards.
But “we’re sticking out to Putin” (by giving him huge profits)
Translation: Please help the public pay our extortionate energy bills, by using their own tax-money to do it.
If these company bosses didn’t have friends in the highest places they wouldn’t be able to do this, the UK is utterly corrupt.
We are an oil/gas producing country, we should not be paying these prices. I don’t see how we should be affected by this.