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UK inflation forecast to hit 18.6% next year, energy bills may rise to £6000

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Re: UK inflation forecast to hit 18.6% next year, energy bills may rise to £6000

#191

Post by yrgulation »

blitzar wrote: post #137
ak_111 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to factor in the cost of training them and their quality of service. For example European drivers usually have better English skills or have worked in similar coffee shops before, used to driving in Europe, familiar with cleaning and construction regulations, ...

"Of course foreigners steal your job, but maybe, if someone without contacts, money, or speaking the language steals your job, you're shit." ~ Louis C. K. But sadly yes, Europeans tend to have better English than the English.

There are no more europeans coming in. Ye know, low wage and visa restrictions don't work when it comes to people moving in from high income economies.

Re: UK inflation forecast to hit 18.6% next year, energy bills may rise to £6000

#192

Post by tomjen3 »

trgn wrote: post #71
TrackerFF wrote: post #20

Hopefully the current energy crisis (in Europe) will further accelerate development in renewable energy. Seems much of Europe is still chained to LNG, and that demand is even wreaking havoc in countries which have been previously quite self-sustained, or really don't use LNG much themselves - with Norway being a good example.

Europe is going to come out strong out of this whole mess. The political unity so quickly after the start of the war was unexpected (and admirable). Ten years from now, Europeans will drive electric (if they'll drive at all), solar panels will be everywhere, and the continued flex-work-from-home revolution will have created an enormous amount of extra time for everybody. They'll be comfy in their sustainable homes an…

The price to drive an electric car has spiked recently.

We are in this shit because of Putins war (75% of the blame), Europes general hatred of having a military (15%, say), and finaly Biden not being willing to use military force directly to stop Russia.

We can't do anything about the first, it will take decades to solve the second, but if Biden was willing to take of the gloves, Donbas and Crimera + a good chunk of Southern Russia could be in Ukranian hands come spring.

Then we could open up for their gas fields and end the problem.

Russia will try to push the narrative that this will mean a direct confrontation between them and NATO, but having seen how they do in Ukraine, this hardly matters.

Yes Russia have nukes, and some of their rockets no doubt work, but this scenarios does not trigger their criteria for use of nukes.

Re: UK inflation forecast to hit 18.6% next year, energy bills may rise to £6000

#193

Post by slater »

happymellon wrote: post #165
rob_c wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Which basic human right did they take away? I've been able to go out, see anyone I've wanted to, write whatever I want. I can even be guaranteed to drink the tap water regardless of where I am in the country. If I accidentally wander off a path I won't get shot. If I have the wrong coloured skin it can still be dangerous to be in the wrong neighborhoods in the USA. American have a very strange perspective on "basic h…

No post body was provided.

Re: UK inflation forecast to hit 18.6% next year, energy bills may rise to £6000

#194

Post by bko »

minimaul wrote: post #169
bko wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Edit: Big power retail companies in the UK are making record profits, and so is generation. The largest gas provider in UK (British Gas) profits in millions of pounds: 2009 147 2010 226 2011 258 2012 291 2013 153 2014 96 2015 73 2016 43 2017 11 2018 8 2019 -5 2020 27 I couldn't find more recent data but please provide it if you have it. These are in millions of pounds. Suppose their profit jumped to 100 million pou…

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-28/profit-bo... As an example for more recent information.

I would look at the company's financial statements. The article doesn't really provide much insight. I took Centrica, which was mentioned in the article and looked at their 2022 results ending on June 30th 2022:

> British Gas Services & Solutions adjusted operating profit fell by 88% to £7m.

> The reversal of a £50m Covid-19 and industrial action impact from H1 2021 was partially offset by an increase in customer compensation following disappointing service levels over the past winter, continued higher absence rates earlier in the year, and increased workload, which we believe is a function of customers choosing to have non-urgent jobs they had been delaying during the Interim Results | Group Overview (continued) Centrica plc Interim Results for the six months ended 30 June 2022 7 Covid-19 pandemic completed. These temporary factors negatively impacted adjusted operating profit by approximately £25m

It's difficult to tease out, but the profit numbers are so tiny compared to the aggregate increase in price experienced by consumers. I think focusing on profit makes for good headlines but underlying issues are a lot bigger. Taking away the tiny sliver of profit these companies have will reduce innovation and new entrants while doing absolutely nothing to alleviate higher consumer prices.

https://www.centrica.com/media/5723/centrica-2022-interim-re...

Re: UK inflation forecast to hit 18.6% next year, energy bills may rise to £6000

#195

Post by throwaway6734 »

data_maan wrote: post #63
throwaway6734 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand where you're coming from, but try not to get too pessimistic. The UK has made i through much worse and come out the other end.

Past success is not a good predictor. Probably the Roman senators at the end of the Roman Empire also thought "oh well, we've been dragging our feet lately, but somehow things will work out". I would say the most likely outcome is a further diminishing of the UKs international importance, together with some risk of Scotland breaking apart.

None of the situations we face today are remotely close to the difficulty to those faced by the Romans at the end of the western empire

Re: UK inflation forecast to hit 18.6% next year, energy bills may rise to £6000

#196

Post by yrgulation »

ak_111 wrote: post #114
yrgulation wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"ban loads of our low paid workers" wait until you learn how much lower people are getting paid now that they depend on a work visa. hint: a lot less than europeans coming in pre-brexit.

You need to factor in the cost of training them and their quality of service. For example European drivers usually have better English skills or have worked in similar coffee shops before, used to driving in Europe, familiar with cleaning and construction regulations, ...

It's not about training, it's about control and low pay. Much like US' h1b, but with a clearer path to citizenship and better rights for workers.

Re: UK inflation forecast to hit 18.6% next year, energy bills may rise to £6000

#197

Post by pydry »

sofixa wrote: post #190
pydry wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like this was an earthquake that we idly knew would come one day that just suddenly hit us out of the blue. NATO made a deliberate decision to bring Ukraine into the fold in 2019 and Russia reacted predictably, but not before giving us an opportunity to back down first: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/02/world/europe/us-nato-resp... We dove into this knowing full well the dire energy risks that escalation po…

Russian war crimes apologists are the worst. Nobody forced Russia to invade a sovereign country (or to consider itself the rightful owner of those lands for that matter), that's entirely their fault. And it was mind bogglingly stupid, as we can see a few months in, with the massive losses to their army and economy. It wasn't something to prepare for because it was unthinkable. It was still a huge risk to prepare for…

Nobody forced NATO to expand to Ukraine either. Or to invade Libya. Or to invade Iraq/Afghanistan.

Whataboutism as a rationale for war escalation with a nuclear power is insane.

To consider reining in NATO expansion war to be equivalent to war crime apologetics is beyond absurd.

If we get to winter and the Russian economy fares better than ours (and at first glance it looks like it will) then a lot of people should be eating a lot of humble pie.

Alas I suspect theyll just call for escalation.

Re: UK inflation forecast to hit 18.6% next year, energy bills may rise to £6000

#198

Post by NickRandom »

cirrus-clouds wrote: post #65
gyre007 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t believe Brits are capable of revolting against this. They did hit the streets in anti-lockdown protests though, which is ironic because in the grand scheme of things that (lockdown) was temporary, but this inflation wave will be madly felt for quite long.

Imagine if French citizens were facing energy bills as high as the UK (£5,816, €6850). French citizens would never tolerate such levels. From Reuters: " France has committed to capping an increase on regulated electricity costs at 4%. To help do this the government has ordered utility EDF (EDF.PA), which is 80% state owned, to sell more cheap nuclear power to rivals " (Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/…

Ah, but what many might not grasp about (British) politics is that when the S.H.T.F it is traditional for the UK to vote in the 'other lot' (be that Labour or Conservatives) since the current lot 'are a useless bunch of twats'. This has the advantage of the 'new' government being able to blame all the current problems on the 'old lot'.

Rinse and Repeat ad infinitum

Re: UK inflation forecast to hit 18.6% next year, energy bills may rise to £6000

#199

Post by ak_111 »

yrgulation wrote: post #196
ak_111 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to factor in the cost of training them and their quality of service. For example European drivers usually have better English skills or have worked in similar coffee shops before, used to driving in Europe, familiar with cleaning and construction regulations, ...

It's not about training, it's about control and low pay. Much like US' h1b, but with a clearer path to citizenship and better rights for workers.

the context of this quote is that the UK economy shot itself in the foot by getting rid of cheap European labour, then someone responded actually no because they got even cheaper labour from outside Europe, I was pointing out that they are not cheap as they seem due to training cost and decline in quality of service.

Re: UK inflation forecast to hit 18.6% next year, energy bills may rise to £6000

#200

Post by gruez »

AlexandrB wrote: post #163
gruez wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is well beyond ‘market prices will fix this’ - market prices will mean a very large chunk of the population will literally be unable to afford to cook dinner and heat their houses. Advocating for "market prices" doesn't necessarily mean letting everyone fend for themselves. You can provide grants/subsidies for the poor, while still keeping market prices so everyone is still incentivized to save as much energy…

Why bother investing at all when you can just buy back stock and make the owners/CEO rich[1]? If you think these companies are sinking their profits into investing for the future, you're dreaming. [1] https://financialpost.com/investing/energy-firms-pay-record-...

1. As per BP's Q12022 reports, their capital expenditure was $2.9B compared to $1.6B of buybacks. Is that too much? Too little? I don't know. However, I do think your characterization is way too simplistic.

2. the boom-bust cycle is exactly the reason not to reinvest all the surplus profits now. You might intuitively think that investing now will help lower oil prices, but it takes years for an oil project to be online so by the time the project is complete there will be an oil glut.

https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/business-sites/en/global/c...

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