> Oil and gas giants including Shell and BP suffered tens of billions in losses when the COVID pandemic struck as raw energy prices stood at lows not seen in modern times.
Then check out the graph of profits earned by BP and Shell during 2020 and 2021 shown in this article posted today:
So it seems that the second article is correct and the earlier article was misinformation, right?
Phew, good job we privatised oil and gas exploration in our waters unlike dirty old Norway that set up a sovereign fund and uses the profits from it to pay 90% of citizens energy bills this winter.
Shareholders can sleep easy tonight.
Aww good for them, they must have worked twice as hard this year right?
That’s the way it works right? Capitalism rewards hard work?
Honest question. ELi5, what is, or has been, the justification of increasing the price cap?
As people sit cold and afraid to put the heating on, the cost cap is about to be raised again and we are saddling our children (and great grand children) with the cost of subsidising household energy bills.
Taken in the context of society today, this is fucking abhorrent.
I have just accepted the fact that big business, politicians and everyone else. Do not give a toss about anyone. I am sick of hearing all this depressing shit. I am just not going to pay attention to it and carry on in ignorance. I think that’s the best way forward. Getting wound up by something I literally have zero influence over or can control, I will just not pay attention. Better for my mental health
Literally beyond words. How is this allowed to happen while people are struggling so much and freezing?
Why can’t they just make less money… will it kill them to just make say £10bil profit and make our lives easier? Why is the Gov so spineless to tax them hard?
Nothing will change. Most of us will scoff in disgust, upvote this for visibility, and then carry on with our miserable grind until Friday where we have a bit of release, if you’re lucky.
You then go through the weekend dreading the upcoming work week. You don’t hate Mondays, you hate capitalism. You’ll probably encounter another headline of record profits that will make you rage, or maybe more tory corruption, but we’ll all take it up the arse and vote for Red Tory or Blue Tory in the next cycle.
The British are like hamsters in a wheel.
[removed]
Damn the employees from both BP and Shell must be feeling great with their increased wages from all that trickle down economics considering these huge profits, right? Right?
Sodd…. ….nts. I said, yeah, good business! How happy everyone is! Especially those who struggle. What was the saying this winter, it was tossed around all over….raise something, or was it struggle, or what was it…
Well people keep voting for Tories, so what do you expect?
It always has and always will be class war.
Fossil Fuels are way more profitable than regular crime..
But I thought the windfall tax was supposed to ruin them?
Every time I think my asshole can only get so wide, another corporation decides to prove me wrong.
Actually really depressing. Where does it end? We’re living in the most boring dystopia, at least if we had the cyberpunk aesthetic it’d take the edge off cos we’d look so cool.
Leave them alone you Jeremy Corbynistas. They only *DOUBLED* their profits. They are struggling, like you! 🤡
Hooray, it’s another energy politics and economics thread. Time for some educational madlibs. Try to pick the right answer to fill the gaps below!
When demand exceeds supply, prices go ______ (down, up).
Under a capitalist system, the means of production are controlled by _______ (the people, a class of unaccountable oligarchs).
Energy extraction companies and petro-states care most about ______ (you, profit).
Energy extraction companies and petro-states can increase their profits by _______ (increasing, decreasing) supply.
If demand exceeds supply, prices go up until someone can’t afford it. When grandma can’t afford to heat her home, this is ‘demand destruction’ that helps re-balance demand and supply. Meanwhile, Lord Fountlybottom can still afford to cover the essentials, like heating his stables. This form of rationing-by-price is highly ________ (inequitable, enjoyable).
With no accessible levers to increase supply, one way to resolve the supply demand mismatch and reduce prices is to implement societal change and policies that radically _______ (increase, decrease) demand.
Using this crisis to pull back on the already insufficient climate targets we were working to is ________ (criminal to the point of being genocidal, absolutely fine).
And I am forced to pay £400 a month. Triple what I was paying last year
It’s a fucking joke
We love paying over the odds for energy and letting them rule over us like monarchs. But if the government raise taxes for services we all use and need then we don’t like that. Then if they privatise them because of lack of funding we won’t let them raise and they become expensive and less value for money we say “yeah but I remember what it was like in the 70’s”. So when businesses essentially does the same thing (taxes us/makes living more expensive for us)and the country is seeing very little for it? We say “Go for it.” This is why the UK is a dump. It’s people are just a little bit stupid.
So our bills more than doubling has just gone into gate holders pockets. The bullshitting bastard and the government for allowing it is just a piss take. Take away their subsidies and make them pay their full amount of tax, or drop the prices we pay by half.
I’m happy for them. Glad they’re doing well in this poor economic time where so many are struggling 😢.
I moved here and brought all my business only for UK to become the shithole I left behind. Christ.
But they will pay a load of tax on that profit, won’t they?
Oh wait, the UK government give them a 91% tax rebate if they invest in more oil discoveries to make them even richer.
Don’t ask how much their tax bill will be, ask how much they actually paid overall to the gov. allowing for all rebates. That’s 0 for some previous years!
Anyway, more oil and gas will mean cheaper prices won’t it? Oh wait, there is a cartel isn’t there and they can just cut supply whenever they want…
At least they don’t make large donations to the conservative party… Oh wait…
The amount of angry, ignorant comments in this thread is fucking amazing.
Half of the people making such comments seem to know nothing about global markets, commodities in general, basic economics or seem to recognise the fact that this headline £23bn is *global profit* – only £2.8bn of which was made in the UK.
Without even having the basic facts or understanding correct, a lot of people are more than happy to burn things down and resort to violence.
This knee-jerk extremism perfectly illustrates how easy it is for the government to deceive the people – rather then spend 5 minutes researching or trying to understand things, people are ready to kill because of a headline they don’t like the sound of.
27 comments
Cost of living crisis is good for business
Then the windfall tax isn’t high enough.
Check out this previous article on the windfall tax:
https://news.sky.com/story/windfall-tax-blamed-as-north-seas-biggest-oil-and-gas-producer-plans-job-cuts-12789496
> Oil and gas giants including Shell and BP suffered tens of billions in losses when the COVID pandemic struck as raw energy prices stood at lows not seen in modern times.
Then check out the graph of profits earned by BP and Shell during 2020 and 2021 shown in this article posted today:
https://news.sky.com/story/windfall-tax-debate-rages-as-bp-joins-shell-in-achieving-record-annual-profits-12804564
So it seems that the second article is correct and the earlier article was misinformation, right?
Phew, good job we privatised oil and gas exploration in our waters unlike dirty old Norway that set up a sovereign fund and uses the profits from it to pay 90% of citizens energy bills this winter.
Shareholders can sleep easy tonight.
Aww good for them, they must have worked twice as hard this year right?
That’s the way it works right? Capitalism rewards hard work?
Honest question. ELi5, what is, or has been, the justification of increasing the price cap?
As people sit cold and afraid to put the heating on, the cost cap is about to be raised again and we are saddling our children (and great grand children) with the cost of subsidising household energy bills.
Taken in the context of society today, this is fucking abhorrent.
I have just accepted the fact that big business, politicians and everyone else. Do not give a toss about anyone. I am sick of hearing all this depressing shit. I am just not going to pay attention to it and carry on in ignorance. I think that’s the best way forward. Getting wound up by something I literally have zero influence over or can control, I will just not pay attention. Better for my mental health
Literally beyond words. How is this allowed to happen while people are struggling so much and freezing?
Why can’t they just make less money… will it kill them to just make say £10bil profit and make our lives easier? Why is the Gov so spineless to tax them hard?
Nothing will change. Most of us will scoff in disgust, upvote this for visibility, and then carry on with our miserable grind until Friday where we have a bit of release, if you’re lucky.
You then go through the weekend dreading the upcoming work week. You don’t hate Mondays, you hate capitalism. You’ll probably encounter another headline of record profits that will make you rage, or maybe more tory corruption, but we’ll all take it up the arse and vote for Red Tory or Blue Tory in the next cycle.
The British are like hamsters in a wheel.
[removed]
Damn the employees from both BP and Shell must be feeling great with their increased wages from all that trickle down economics considering these huge profits, right? Right?
Sodd…. ….nts. I said, yeah, good business! How happy everyone is! Especially those who struggle. What was the saying this winter, it was tossed around all over….raise something, or was it struggle, or what was it…
Well people keep voting for Tories, so what do you expect?
It always has and always will be class war.
Fossil Fuels are way more profitable than regular crime..
But I thought the windfall tax was supposed to ruin them?
Every time I think my asshole can only get so wide, another corporation decides to prove me wrong.
Actually really depressing. Where does it end? We’re living in the most boring dystopia, at least if we had the cyberpunk aesthetic it’d take the edge off cos we’d look so cool.
Leave them alone you Jeremy Corbynistas. They only *DOUBLED* their profits. They are struggling, like you! 🤡
Hooray, it’s another energy politics and economics thread. Time for some educational madlibs. Try to pick the right answer to fill the gaps below!
When demand exceeds supply, prices go ______ (down, up).
Subsidising consumption keeps demand ______ (high, low).
Under a capitalist system, the means of production are controlled by _______ (the people, a class of unaccountable oligarchs).
Energy extraction companies and petro-states care most about ______ (you, profit).
Energy extraction companies and petro-states can increase their profits by _______ (increasing, decreasing) supply.
If demand exceeds supply, prices go up until someone can’t afford it. When grandma can’t afford to heat her home, this is ‘demand destruction’ that helps re-balance demand and supply. Meanwhile, Lord Fountlybottom can still afford to cover the essentials, like heating his stables. This form of rationing-by-price is highly ________ (inequitable, enjoyable).
With no accessible levers to increase supply, one way to resolve the supply demand mismatch and reduce prices is to implement societal change and policies that radically _______ (increase, decrease) demand.
Using this crisis to pull back on the already insufficient climate targets we were working to is ________ (criminal to the point of being genocidal, absolutely fine).
And I am forced to pay £400 a month. Triple what I was paying last year
It’s a fucking joke
We love paying over the odds for energy and letting them rule over us like monarchs. But if the government raise taxes for services we all use and need then we don’t like that. Then if they privatise them because of lack of funding we won’t let them raise and they become expensive and less value for money we say “yeah but I remember what it was like in the 70’s”. So when businesses essentially does the same thing (taxes us/makes living more expensive for us)and the country is seeing very little for it? We say “Go for it.” This is why the UK is a dump. It’s people are just a little bit stupid.
So our bills more than doubling has just gone into gate holders pockets. The bullshitting bastard and the government for allowing it is just a piss take. Take away their subsidies and make them pay their full amount of tax, or drop the prices we pay by half.
I’m happy for them. Glad they’re doing well in this poor economic time where so many are struggling 😢.
I moved here and brought all my business only for UK to become the shithole I left behind. Christ.
But they will pay a load of tax on that profit, won’t they?
Oh wait, the UK government give them a 91% tax rebate if they invest in more oil discoveries to make them even richer.
https://labourlist.org/2022/08/government-tax-breaks-for-oil-and-gas-companies-totally-wrong-reeves-says/
Don’t ask how much their tax bill will be, ask how much they actually paid overall to the gov. allowing for all rebates. That’s 0 for some previous years!
Anyway, more oil and gas will mean cheaper prices won’t it? Oh wait, there is a cartel isn’t there and they can just cut supply whenever they want…
At least they don’t make large donations to the conservative party… Oh wait…
The amount of angry, ignorant comments in this thread is fucking amazing.
Half of the people making such comments seem to know nothing about global markets, commodities in general, basic economics or seem to recognise the fact that this headline £23bn is *global profit* – only £2.8bn of which was made in the UK.
Without even having the basic facts or understanding correct, a lot of people are more than happy to burn things down and resort to violence.
This knee-jerk extremism perfectly illustrates how easy it is for the government to deceive the people – rather then spend 5 minutes researching or trying to understand things, people are ready to kill because of a headline they don’t like the sound of.