Is it time to re-nationalise energy firms?

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  • C_Mababejive
    C_Mababejive Posts: 11,646
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    d-b wrote: »
    Sour grapes - you 'own' part of the utility companies but are not happy that others own land?! (according to your signature line). So it's OK to privatise utilities but land should be state owned? - like in Zimbabwe - previously breadbasket of Africa.
    What has "happiness" got to do with it?

    I only care about myself,my family and friends.
    Feudal Britain needs land reform. 70% of the land is "owned" by 1 % of the population and at least 50% is unregistered (inherited by landed gentry). Thats why your slave box costs so much..
  • tagq2
    tagq2 Posts: 382 Forumite
    I only care about myself,my family and friends.
    At least you're honest about the premise used to form your opinion and why it's irrelevant in any decision-making process.

    At worst, nationalised energy (and water) companies would deliver as efficiently as the current crop but pass all profits to HM Treasury. The only reason for the utility privatisations was so that a few useless leeches could collect a cut for doing nothing with something that they have no moral right to own in the first place.

    We have competition in what? Quality of bill layout? Ability to predict the market and buy energy in advance, so more scrounging brokers take a cut? The only reason for the variation in prices is because there's so much apathy that you can keep the majority on expensive tariffs and offer cheaper deals to win the remainder. Otherwise we'd have precisely the same problem as supermarkets, where people move between them at will and no-one notices how equally absurd the mark-up is among all of them (unless they buy direct from farms or from independent suppliers).

    The French state has the right idea: laugh at the British then profit from their needless privatisation drive.

    The only people who want to keep privatised energy companies are those with shares who know what an easy-money maker they are, and the Thatcher babies who honestly don't know any better.
  • Why do people think they are entitled to cheap energy? The energy companies are there to make a profit, no doubt, but why shouldn't they?

    As a country we are so addicted to cheap imported gas and oil. With or without Global Warming, we have to stop our dependency on undesirable, politically unstable and despotic foreign countries that have us over a barrel.

    High energy prices increase the incentive for us to produce renewable and sustainable energy and increase our energy efficiency to use the resources we do have more wisely.

    Yes increasing energy costs hurt us short term, but long term we would do far better to do something about it than sit and whinge and hope the government fix it for us.
  • I don't think its that we feel we are entitled to cheap energy, it is the fact that energy prices as a proportion of average income are increasing exponentially, along with housing costs, fuel costs, food costs etc etc, even when we weren't in recession people's salaries would rise on average 3% per year, when energy costs rise by 10-12% pa, council tax by 8% etc etc etc it's not sustainable.

    Of course companies are there to make a profit, however, these kinds of increases are just not sustainable for the average man in the street to continue to afford, we're now paying pensioners an annual fuel allowance to help with energy costs, surely this money then would be better spent in trying to reduce energy costs across the board or at least keep them stable rather than giving handouts to certain parts of society whilst energy prices continue to rise?

    There is only so much cutting back people can do.
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