Omg 18%

bostonerimus

I'm old enough now to regularly think that things were better when I was young. I miss the UK's mixed economy and progressive social policies of the post WWII years up to the 1970s which reduced income inequity and gave many people opportunities for education and well paying jobs.

There is room for private and nationalized industry...there is a strong argument for things like utilities, railways and heath care to be nationalize and then the rest of the economy can be run on capitalist principles. Progressive taxation and a long term commitment to "leveling up" through public services and education was used by the UK once before - I'd do it again.

Also there's a massive free trade zone called the EEC just offshore, maybe it would be a good idea to make trade with that easier to grow the UK's economy...said Ted Heath.

Moby

zagfles said:

Moby said:

I can't help feeling that what we are seeing is the end point of the neo-liberal orthodoxy that has dominated economic and political thinking for far too long now.

  No we really aren't. Really. Every time there's any sort of economic turbulance or social unrest the revolutionaries get all excited. The inner city riots in the early 80's, the miner's strike, the poll tax riots, black Wednesday, the global financial crisis, the 2011 riots, the occupy protests, the yellow jackets, Corbyn. Yeah, man, this time it's real! The age of neo-liberalism is over! We'll overthrow the system!

Err....no. Some minor tweaks are made, a few lessons are learnt, but the system survives. Because people aren't stupid, they've seen the result of revolutions all over the world. They don't buy the ridiculous "well they did it wrong" or "the rest of the world conspired against them" arguments.

When inflation hits, 'common sense' dictates that working men and women should accept below inflation pay rises, otherwise inflation bites. When the banks crash and the government bails them out, working men and women have to accept lower public spending and higher taxes, because reducing public debt is 'common sense'. In an external energy price shock, if the government wants to keep prices down, then it's 'common sense' that the costs should ultimately be borne by consumers through higher future bills and through some complex tax on profits that allows multiple loopholes to reduce the cost to business owners.

At no point in any of this is the legitimacy of the market pricing mechanism questioned, as neo-liberal orthodoxy dictates that market mechanisms are sacrosanct. Putin's actions has shifted thinking on such issues in ways that Jeremy Corbyn was never going to do....sometimes it takes a war to change the way we do things.

Have you read the energy board recently? That's the trouble with living in a "neo-liberal" democracy, you're allowed to question what your leaders do, and people do. Come the revolution, that neo-liberal idea will be consigned to the scrapheap of history.

You're right that Putin's actions have shifted thinking though. Who'd have thought Europe would because so united, even in the face of the severe pain being inflicted on us? Who'd have thought the UK's standing in the Europe would improve so much after the lows of Brexit, we even came second in Eurovision after several years of finishing at or near the bottom! They're actually starting to like us after Brexit!

I never said anything about revolution . Your clichéd narrative is definitely complacent though, the same sort of unquestioning complacency resulted in the election of a corrupt PM. His replacement Truss is completely out of her depth and appears confused. Apparently she is rejecting further general help with energy bills as these would be insufficiently targeted, while simultaneously briefing the possibility of an completely un-targeted across the board cut in VAT.

I guess she needs to create a distinction between the idea of a tax cut and a handout, but the tautological definitions are meaningless once you explore the actual effects and set these against the justifications given.

I get the feeling we'll see a good deal more of these philosophically meaningless confusions under a Truss premiership. What I'm not seeing here is any kind of forensic examination of why we are seeing price gouging on a massive scale in the domestic energy production market. I heard one analyst suggest that because domestic renewable generators have not seen their costs rise, the government should negotiate lower price contracts with them, but this is a weak response, based on conventional market operations.

Logically, domestic renewable energy and UK oil and gas production has not experienced excessive input cost inflation, (some cost pressures, but not huge) yet they are selling their output at the massively inflated unit costs set by global commodity markets. I can't see any reason why a sovereign government doesn't legislate to cap wholesale energy prices for UK produced energy to benchmark levels based on 2021 prices plus a modest inflation uplift to take account of the general inflation rise. This would keep consumers and businesses from bankruptcy and destitution, keep general inflation down, and would not require high costs to the government or to future bill payers. It would affect energy producers profits, which would be forced to remain normal, and so shareholders wouldn't be in for such an unwarranted bonanza, and it just seems such a simple, 'common sense' thing to do.

That neither Labour or Tories are talking about capping wholesale prices is a sign of how deep the neo-liberalism now runs. Approaches that were previously considered perfectly acceptable in certain circumstances are now deemed beyond the pale, and this is something I really think we need to fight very hard against. One of the greatest mistakes of Thatcherism was to confuse the completely acceptable business motivation of profit seeking with a mantra of profit maximisation, something that can be counter productive and which should, in a functioning democratic system, be controlled.

There is no excuse for UK wind energy prices to be rising alongside global gas prices, and this is basic price gouging. We are inventing all manner of complex initiatives to sidestep these price rises, the cost of which will ultimately fall on consumers and taxpayers, except for the one simple measure of forcing limits to price gouging on the parts of the wholesale energy market that we can control.

sgx2000

Andy_L said:

sgx2000 said:

Prism said:

sgx2000 said:

Grumpy_chap said:

sgx2000 said:

Tony Blair was the most successful PM im the last 50 years..

Electorally no more successful than Maggie.

Both succeeded in their time to address the challenges of the era.
Both implemented policies that were unpopular while carrying the populace with them.
Both set a vision and led (rather than managed) the country.

Maggie was only suceeded by, selling off all the family silver.... to the wealthy tory voters ....
We owned all the utilities
Now foreign companies own them

Who wants to own and run the utilities? We already control them pretty well with policy without having to run them. 

We control them?  Hahaha

Before the tories sold them off. 
We all paid the same price per unit......
We had large stockpiles of gas  ... remember all those gas towers?
And utility managememt didnt give themselves bonuses in the millions....

Gasometers weren't for stockpiling, there were a pressure regulating mechanism 

Yes pressure regulator.... But.... also millions and millions of cubic meters of gas storage....  all gone....

MallyGirl

sgx2000 said:

Andy_L said:

sgx2000 said:

Prism said:

sgx2000 said:

Grumpy_chap said:

sgx2000 said:

Tony Blair was the most successful PM im the last 50 years..

Electorally no more successful than Maggie.

Both succeeded in their time to address the challenges of the era.
Both implemented policies that were unpopular while carrying the populace with them.
Both set a vision and led (rather than managed) the country.

Maggie was only suceeded by, selling off all the family silver.... to the wealthy tory voters ....
We owned all the utilities
Now foreign companies own them

Who wants to own and run the utilities? We already control them pretty well with policy without having to run them. 

We control them?  Hahaha

Before the tories sold them off. 
We all paid the same price per unit......
We had large stockpiles of gas  ... remember all those gas towers?
And utility managememt didnt give themselves bonuses in the millions....

Gasometers weren't for stockpiling, there were a pressure regulating mechanism 

Yes pressure regulator.... But.... also millions and millions of cubic meters of gas storage....  all gone....

The last one in our area went this year despite a campaign to save it as a local landmark!

Grumpy_chap

Moby said:

Logically, domestic renewable energy and UK oil and gas production has not experienced excessive input cost inflation, (some cost pressures, but not huge) yet they are selling their output at the massively inflated unit costs set by global commodity markets. I can't see any reason why a sovereign government doesn't legislate to cap wholesale energy prices for UK produced energy to benchmark levels based on 2021 prices plus a modest inflation uplift 

I am not sure that would work.  Happy to understand if it would.

A company extracts oil from North Sea and will try to sell that for best price, which is the international price.  
If UK said we will only pay X fraction of international price, company would sell to international market and no oil to UK.

Then UK would have to impose some further constraint that compels the oil to be sold to UK.  Export limits or something.
Company may chose to simply not operate the North Sea extraction if they cannot sell at market rate unless the market rate is low.

It would certainly be more complex than the idea initially seems, however attractive the idea may be on the face of it.

[Deleted User]

ComicGeek said:

Deleted_User said:

ComicGeek said:

Deleted_User said:

ComicGeek said:

Prism said:

sgx2000 said:

Grumpy_chap said:

sgx2000 said:

Tony Blair was the most successful PM im the last 50 years..

Electorally no more successful than Maggie.

Both succeeded in their time to address the challenges of the era.
Both implemented policies that were unpopular while carrying the populace with them.
Both set a vision and led (rather than managed) the country.

Maggie was only suceeded by, selling off all the family silver.... to the wealthy tory voters ....
We owned all the utilities
Now foreign companies own them

Who wants to own and run the utilities? We already control them pretty well with policy without having to run them. 

All profits are stripped from the utility companies and paid to executives and shareholders. Very small amount is reinvested into network maintenance and improvements, which is why 20-25% of water is lost through network leaks.

We have an ageing distribution system for all utilities - power outages and water supply issues are more to do with low network investment than anything else. 

I am always curious why people would be visiting a retirement/investment forum if they are  ideologically opposed to profits and shareholders.  

I'm not ideologically opposed - I just believe that certain things are too important to allow private investors to control for personal profit, utility companies being the main one. Security of energy supply is critical for any country, and the lack of investment in infrastructure is dangerous.

Part of my work is dealing with large scale utility infrastructure connections - people would be shocked to see how much of the current infrastructure is held together by temporary fixes, with major issues to come in the immediate future.

So no, I don't believe that people should profit from dividends that should clearly be used for national security investment.

The model you so desire has been implemented in Venezuela. Formally the richest country in South America. So beloved by the former Labour leader (currently suspended).  Worked great.  You should experience it in person. 

Not really, not sure why people have to work so hard to twist things on here. 

The Netherlands would be a better example of publicly owned infrastructure, although renewable energy provision is lagging behind.

There is a problem here.  I own shares in companies which own Dutch utilities. Like Eneco which produces and supplies natural gas and heat (owned by Mitsubishi). Or PWN water.  

They do have state ownership of gas storage facilities.  So? Right now Netherlands are experiencing soaring energy prices.  

Blaming energy inflation on shareholders is ludicrous. Energy policy in  the UK and the Netherlands is  determined by the governments.  It were successive governments who destroyed  diversity and security of energy supply by making themselves heavily reliant on Russian gas.  

You are just pushing your ideology even though the thread has nothing to do with it and energy prices are up everywhere. 

zagfles

Moby said:

zagfles said:

Moby said:

I can't help feeling that what we are seeing is the end point of the neo-liberal orthodoxy that has dominated economic and political thinking for far too long now.

  No we really aren't. Really. Every time there's any sort of economic turbulance or social unrest the revolutionaries get all excited. The inner city riots in the early 80's, the miner's strike, the poll tax riots, black Wednesday, the global financial crisis, the 2011 riots, the occupy protests, the yellow jackets, Corbyn. Yeah, man, this time it's real! The age of neo-liberalism is over! We'll overthrow the system!

Err....no. Some minor tweaks are made, a few lessons are learnt, but the system survives. Because people aren't stupid, they've seen the result of revolutions all over the world. They don't buy the ridiculous "well they did it wrong" or "the rest of the world conspired against them" arguments.

When inflation hits, 'common sense' dictates that working men and women should accept below inflation pay rises, otherwise inflation bites. When the banks crash and the government bails them out, working men and women have to accept lower public spending and higher taxes, because reducing public debt is 'common sense'. In an external energy price shock, if the government wants to keep prices down, then it's 'common sense' that the costs should ultimately be borne by consumers through higher future bills and through some complex tax on profits that allows multiple loopholes to reduce the cost to business owners.

At no point in any of this is the legitimacy of the market pricing mechanism questioned, as neo-liberal orthodoxy dictates that market mechanisms are sacrosanct. Putin's actions has shifted thinking on such issues in ways that Jeremy Corbyn was never going to do....sometimes it takes a war to change the way we do things.

Have you read the energy board recently? That's the trouble with living in a "neo-liberal" democracy, you're allowed to question what your leaders do, and people do. Come the revolution, that neo-liberal idea will be consigned to the scrapheap of history.

You're right that Putin's actions have shifted thinking though. Who'd have thought Europe would because so united, even in the face of the severe pain being inflicted on us? Who'd have thought the UK's standing in the Europe would improve so much after the lows of Brexit, we even came second in Eurovision after several years of finishing at or near the bottom! They're actually starting to like us after Brexit!

That neither Labour or Tories are talking about capping wholesale prices is a sign of how deep the neo-liberalism now runs. Approaches that were previously considered perfectly acceptable in certain circumstances are now deemed beyond the pale, and this is something I really think we need to fight very hard against. One of the greatest mistakes of Thatcherism was to confuse the completely acceptable business motivation of profit seeking with a mantra of profit maximisation, something that can be counter productive and which should, in a functioning democratic system, be controlled.

There is no excuse for UK wind energy prices to be rising alongside global gas prices, and this is basic price gouging. We are inventing all manner of complex initiatives to sidestep these price rises, the cost of which will ultimately fall on consumers and taxpayers, except for the one simple measure of forcing limits to price gouging on the parts of the wholesale energy market that we can control.

Make your mind up. First you say "I can't help feeling that what we are seeing is the end point of the neo-liberal orthodoxy..." Now you saying it's firmly entrenched

If we were self sufficient in energy, we could potentially do stuff like cap wholesale prices. But we're not, thanks to all those who object to fracking, new gasfields, new coal mines etc, and despite the massive subsidies for renewables and FITs we've all been paying through our bills.

[Deleted User]

Capping prices at unsustainable levels = 1 of 3 options:

1. government subsidy
2. shortages
3. both

Take your pick. 

bluenose1

What I don’t understand is who is currently making the massive profits on energy? Someone must be. The public are told we all have to pay more because of Ukraine war yet nothing is said about those who are profiteering. 

There again I wouldn’t trust this Govt to do anything efficiently in the interests of those who need it most. The NI cuts Liz Truss is proposing hardly helps those on low income, think it was something like 67p a month whereas the top 10% of earners will be  £97 a month better off.  
I think the EU are more likely to act to do something re energy than the UK. 

Andy_L

bluenose1 said:

What I don’t understand is who is currently making the massive profits on energy? . 

The people who are drilling/mining stuff out of the ground. Which may be the same companies who are generating electricity and/or distributing about the country or may not be