Most liked posts in thread: Cost of Living Crisis

Mines gone up from £110 a month to £260 and a predicted £467 in October. Absolutely ridiculous when companies are posting these sort of profits.

 

Isn't it funny we have people telling us the problems with regards global warming and the burning of fossil fuel, yet countries are now talking about the possibility re introducing the burning of fossil fuel because they are so reliant on Russian oil
Well done Maggie for selling our resources to privately owned companies in turn some sold out to foreign investors.

 

I think this will turn the publics opinion towards nationalisation of gas, electric and water companies. Id go for rail as well but Id make those private companies owned by the public. So as to keep the competitiveness for bonus's and jobs.

 

I personally believe public services and utilities should be owned by the populace.

They are far too important to be owned by commercial enterprises who have only one driving force...............profit.

The decisions made on behalf of this type of "company" should be for the benefit of the people, not the shareholders.

 

Information is mixed on the state of the Russian economy, depending on which reports you read (see below). It's clear that the Russian economy has not collapsed overnight due to sanctions, but that was never going to happen. The loss of oil and gas exports to its biggest customer - Europe - may be hurting us more than Russia at present, but that's a temporary phenomenon which will finally push Europe into developing other, non fossil, sources of energy. The loss of this market is a massive mid/long term economic blow which cannot be easily or quickly replaced. The exceptional measures being utilised by Russia central bank to shore up the economy cannot go on forever.
It's clear that Putin did not envisage a long drawn out conflict, nor that his army would perform so terribly and suffer such huge losses of troops and expensive ordinance. There are now credible reports of Russian troops running short of ammunition and other kit. The longer the war goes on the more the technologically superior western weaponry will prevail; the harder it will become for Russia to replenish its (often unwilling) troops with necessary equipment and the greater the drain on the economy. This is not what Putin envisaged at all when he set off to annexe Ukraine back into his dreams of a new Russian Empire/USSR.

https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/8/29/did-sanctions-really-hurt-the-russian-economy

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/12/business/russia-economy-gdp.html

https://www.ft.com/content/eebc166b-0ab3-4a69-b61c-62908ee984e5

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/07/22/russia-economy-sanctions-myths-ruble-business/

I have some sympathy with what you say about our inaction in other conflicts and I accept that there is an element of hypocrisy, particularly given the colonial history of the west in most of those countries.
However, there is a hugely significant point of difference. In geographical terms, Russia is on our doorstep compared to those other countries. It is also inextricably bound up with the history and culture of Europe. It directly borders several countries that are part of the European family of modern democratic Western nations. Several of those countries used to be subservient elements of the Russian Empire/USSR and have made a considered democratic choice to be free of Russian domination and part of the western European family.

Democracy undoubtedly has its faults but, as Churchill (amongst others) once said, "Democracy is the worst form of government - except for all those others that have been tried from time to time". Putin has no interest in democracy. He believes it is weak and decadent. He is only interested in power. He wants to be remembered in history as the man who reconstituted the Russian Empire, regardless of whether any of those former colonies wish to be slaves to Russia again. He openly states that Ukraine is a region of Russia, not an independent state with its own history and the right to elect its own government.

The reason that the west is so involved in Ukraine is because it's not just about Ukraine. It's about the right of sovereign democracies to maintain their self determination as independent states. Putin has already illegally annexed Crimea, installed puppet regimes in Belarus and parts of Donbas. If the West does not help Ukraine to stop him, it would be Moldova, the Baltic States and Poland next. And he would go on and on until he recaptures everything he believes is 'rightfully' part of Russia's empire.

You may be too young to have lived through the Cold War years, but I'm not. Putin wants to take us back to those times, when Russia was a superpower and all of Eastern Europe was subjugated in poverty, uniformity and state surveillance. For all the West's faults, and they are many, the world is a safer place without a Russian dictator dominating half of Europe.

 

It's pure economic madness, driven by ideological extremists who believe, as an article of faith, that the market will solve everything.

I'm a dyed in the wool Keynesian. Governments borrowing to fund direct investment in industry and infrastructure to pump prime the economy and create jobs and wealth - bang on.
Governments borrowing to fund tax cuts in the (fingers crossed) hope that the rich and powerful will do the investment for them - laughably inept and unrealistic.
There's not a shred of evidence that making the rich richer will create the conditions for economic growth. 'Trickle down economics' is a myth that has never once been shown to work.

 

agreed - I just dont see why they cant be private companies owned solely by the taxpayer. That way profits go into the exchequer and due to not needing to pay tax etc this could be offset in prices.

Then those companies could setup in the EU and take cash from europe into our pockets. Win win

 

This really boils my p***s more than anything, even perhaps more than Putin.

How dare the managements of these two companies steal this amount of money from the British public.

There are laws, but I feel the punishment should fit the crime, I cannot belittle these management teams enough.

They are sub-human.

(rant over. Lets please ensure these companies are not allowed to get away with this.)

 

A rich person going on telly trying to tell people who have nothing how to save a few pennies here and there, is the height of condescension. She can go *@?$ herself.

 

Liz Truss was as convincing this morning on the media rounds as Harry Maguire has been has recently been at center back for England.

She seems done for before she has even started, a chancer without a plan who found herself at the top.

I said the Tories needed a clean break but the MPs put forward 2 MPs who were front and centre as the choices and boy it that being exposed.

I think the best thing I have seen these who thing described as is a "Trussterfuck".

 

Many people who were living it up on furlough and wanted it last forever would possibly have had a different mindset if they had to pay it back via their own taxes, however everyone has to pay it back, even those of us who worked throughout Covid and never received a penny.

 

Scientists can accurately measure atmospheric carbon levels from the last few hundred thousand years. You are correct that carbon levels fluctuate over time naturally with a fairly regular pattern from 180 parts per million (ppm) carbon to 280ppm. These swings usually take approximately 100000 years to go up and down. The highest historical carbon reading was 300ppm around half a million years ago.

We are currently in a natural upward trend of carbon following the last ice age 20000 years ago. This upward trend has not stopped at 280ppm as is the norm. It hasn't stopped at 300ppm which was the previously recorded peak. It's currently recorded at 419 ppm and seems to still be on the rise.

There is more carbon in the atmosphere now than there ever has been before and I don't think the amount of carbon we create is a coincidence. I agree that if the UK went carbon neutral tomorrow it wouldn't make much difference overall, it's a global problem that requires a global solution.

 

Other European countries have made the increase to consumers much, much lower with caps. That's one way to deal with the immediate problem.

Longer term, privatisation is an option but a more sensible route would be to take a serious step towards renewables providing the vast majority of residential energy. I watched a video about a street in the UK, think it was London way and they're working as a collective to provide all of their own energy with solar and wind power. They're doing that independently so why couldn't government facilitate it.

The cynic in me thinks that a project that extends beyond the life of a government's stint in power is too much of a risk for them to contemplate. The legacy for a government that made energy virtually free would be on a par with the introduction of the NHS, education for all, welfare state etc. Enormous.

 

I see Edwina Currie is telling people to decorate their homes with what looks like tinfoil wallpaper to help keep their homes warm.

I'm not sure how I will spend the savings I will make along with the savings from the new kettle.