Guest 716- Registered: 9 Jun 2011
- Posts: 4,010
Time for another `Windfall` Tax.?
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
No, why? - your solution to everything is to tax them more, to you we are all serfs to the state, there to do the state's bidding and woe betide you if you are successful and make money because Reg's all powerful state will take it off you. How dare anyone be a success and make money, how shocking that anyone would do such a thing.
I remember when people like you were saying that about banks and then what happened.... bail out. Things can turn around very quickly in business.
This is very good news for the Chancellor as it will help HMRC revenues without any extra taxes being stolen from companies just because they are successful. Energy is a volatile and risky business that requires a lot of ongoing capital investment. No doubt the energy regulator will look at this from an informed point of view and making a judgement accordingly in respect of tarrifs but a windfall tax would be plain daft.
Guest 725- Registered: 7 Oct 2011
- Posts: 1,418
We already have a windfall tax only it's called a windmill tax but it's one of those things politicians refuse to own up to. A vast proportion of our energy bills consist of subsidies to build useless windmills and pay the rich for putting equally useless solar panels on their houses. It's the poor that pay and it's the poor elderly who die every winter because they have to make a choice to either heat or eat.
So I agree no to a windfall tax. All they would do is put their prices up even further.
Guest 640- Registered: 21 Apr 2007
- Posts: 7,819
Outrageous profits at a time when most people are expecting heavy hikes in prices, reaching all our doormats in the winter months ahead. Most people cannot afford these rises, and are already struggling, yet on the other hand the profits per household these people are making have soared to the highest ever level.
They have you by the proverbial shot n curlies too, because shopping around produces nothing as research has found. They have a captivated market which is a license to print money. The government I believe are huffing and puffing about this and are looking at the situation on monday.
I suspect however that that's just a ploy to keep the grumbling masses at heel, or to satisfy the grumbling masses, as chances are these companies are too big and too powerful for the government to admonish them with sufficient enough weight to get them to reduce their bills. The profits are excessive. The government should do something.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
no doubt we will be treated to the sight of some buffoon from brutish gas telling us all to wear more jumpers.
it is nothing less than criminal that a public essential utility is used as a cash cow.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
There is nothing outrageous about profits. Profit can turn to a loss in an instant. Be thankful.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
barry
i will try very hard to be thankful when i get the next obscene bill from them.
Guest 670- Registered: 23 Apr 2008
- Posts: 573
My old mum is 89 years of age. She in the last year has seen her heating allowance reduced and her energy costs soar. Fortunately she can manage but many old people can't and will be suffering this winter.
Energy companies are making £125.00 per year out of every consumer, even the most vulnerable in our society.
Barry all you think of is profit, profit and more profit, try being a little human and think of people for a change before you congratulate energy companies on their obscene profits.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
How can profit be obscene, Dave1, it means more much needed tax revenues for HMRC, it means that energy companies have money in invest in energy supplies, it means that there should be a decent dividend for people's pensions at a time when they have been particularly hard hit, it means that we have successful companies that can grow and be more successful. It means secure jobs as well.
Pricing is a complex business, it is not a simple process, a fraction of a percentage wrong and this profit would turn into a loss in an instant. You seem to think that energy companies can foresee event and price accordingly as if they have crystal balls with perfect vision - life is not that in the real world.
Profit needs to be celebrated not whinged about.
You complain about me being all about profit and say 'try being a little human', well take your assumed moral authority and place it where the sun does not shine because it is no use to man or beast. It may make you feel all good about yourself and for many people that is what their so called compassion is really all about. Real compassion requires the cash to do something practical and that always come from profit. I do not have to make myself feel all warm and cuddly because I do something practical for those causes that I care about and that takes cash, all derived from what you so easily dismiss as profit. Rant over.
Guest 670- Registered: 23 Apr 2008
- Posts: 573
Not so much a rant as a whimper Barry. Of course profits are good for the revenue and of course they are good for jobs so please don't patronise me.
Profit that causes hardship, maybe even death through hypothermia is obscene profit, now tell me the energy companies have a conscience.
Barry you really need to get out more and go and see some poor pensioners who are afraid to switch their heating on in case they get in debt with the bill.
Ilook forward to another of your little whimpers.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
there is something very sick in our society when older people can only turn their heating on in one room or miss meals in order to keep warm.
profiting out of the vulnerable is very different from profiting over selling things that are not the necessities of life.
Guest 716- Registered: 9 Jun 2011
- Posts: 4,010
Coming soon a posting saying its all Gordon Browns fault.
Jan Higgins
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,883
The profit per head has gone from £15 to £125, there is justified profit and then there is greed.
My dual fuel bill has gone up by £20 a month to £130 and that may not be enough to cover this winters bill if it is very cold again.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
No Reg - Your fault, just got to work out how...
Jan - That is just a good newspaper headline and if those businesses could just decide a price based on a 'profit per customer' you may have a point but life is not like that. Pricing, as I have said, is a very complex matter. If they made a mistake of a fraction of a percentage in calculations that massive profit could have turned into a loss. In fact the calculations made assume a whole range of different factors any one of which could have a massive impact on the margin and it could have so very easily have gone the other way with the result a large price increase next year. We live in uncertain and volatile times and this profit level may well mean no rise, a lower rise or with some companies maybe a price fall next year. It is not only what is charged to customer that determines the profit, it is also contract prices and administrative costs. These change during the year while the price you pay may only change once a year.
No-one should be naive enough to think that in some magical way a state system would somehow defy the same market forces and produce cheaper power. Life is not like that and lacking the profit motive and competition, prices would be a lot higher. Experience of state monopolies bears this out. Oil suppliers dealing with State monopolies can demand higher prices and State monopolies can charge whatever they like.
Guest 725- Registered: 7 Oct 2011
- Posts: 1,418
This winter don't forget to check up on the vulnerable in your street. Check their thermostat and turn it down a degree or two. The planet is in peril and every little we do can help to save it.
One in four are now classed as being in fuel poverty in the UK. Personally I think that to confuse a political or economic ideology which defends the profit motive over people's lives is muddled headed. If, in the end, it impacts the lives of those who are the most vulnerable but enriches the few who stand make billions then there is something very, very wrong with that ideology.
DT1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 15 Apr 2008
- Posts: 1,116
"Life is not like that and lacking the profit motive and competition, prices would be a lot higher. Experience of state monopolies bears this out."
Just like the railways...
We have the only privatised 'national' railway in europe. FACT
We heavily susidise that 'private' enterprise to the same extent as when it was run by the state FACT
Our railways are the most expensive in Europe FACT
Train fares in the country increase at a rate higher than inflation FACT
Train operators still report profit FACT
Market forces are really great for the consumer aren't they?
What is even more hilarious is when the likes of IDS is telling people that they can find work in the next town (Shock horror, what a clever man). With pay freezes the wonderful private sector actually reduces the money you take home. If we scrap the minimum wage, we could even get to the point where we have to start paying employers to give us a job.
Guest 716- Registered: 9 Jun 2011
- Posts: 4,010
Energy companies are as close as they be to being a cartel.
The complex system of tariffs stifles competition.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
What rubbish Reg.
DT1 - The old British Rail was a beacon of how to run railways then, cheap, always on time..... No far from it, they were dreadful and we moaned then in exactly the same way as we do now.
That said, I do think that the rail privatisation was not done well but it is nevertheless far better than what we had before.
Guest 716- Registered: 9 Jun 2011
- Posts: 4,010
Flashman meets `Big Six` to say enough is enough.The `Big Six` are sailing very close to a latent cartel.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
There is plenty of competition. I do not use one of the 'big six' myself.