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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

#81

Post by Latty »

LatteLazy wrote: post #3

A Mix of Brexit, an aging population, massive underinvestment in basically everything, covid mishandling and huge debt means the UK is around year 0 of a lost decade. I will leave if I can.

I recently went to a small event for a friend, and among the 30-40 young professionals there, this was the resounding mood: the country is fucked and only getting worse, is there a way out? Just generally no one expects things to get better. Standard of living is going down the drain, building stability by buying a house comes with absurd cost.

I think we are heading for a tipping point. Public services are probably already past a point where staff quitting is piling more work on those left, resulting in more people quitting. I suspect there will be a terminal snowball which guts the NHS at least and leaves it unable to function (by design of the Tories, of course).

I suspect the brain drain will be similar. Young people don't want to live in some tax haven, they want a country that functions. Brexit has made it harder, but people will find a way eventually. People were talking Canada, the Netherlands, etc... (Notably for here, very much not the US which is seen as having all of the same problems the UK has).

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

#82

Post by tankenmate »

jdkee wrote: post #7

“ It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grams a week. And only yesterday […] it had been announced that the ration was to be reduced to twenty grams a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it. [...] The eyeless crature at the other table swallowed it fanatically. passionately,…

Hope is in such short supply in large parts of the UK that false hope, demonstrably false hope, and even doublespeak-esque cynically lying false hope can take hold.

And so a chunk of the masses vacillate between "I believe virtually everything I read, and I think that is what makes me more of a selective human than someone who doesn't believe anything."[0] and "Game over man, Game Over."[1]

[0] This is Spinal Tap

[1] Aliens

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

#83

Post by mathverse »

Latty wrote: post #61
azangru wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and the government is doing nothing. What do you think the government should do?

Tax those who can afford it to help those that can't. At some point if the rich continue to demand sacrifice of the poor to prop up their gathering of wealth, it'll be guillotines in the streets. Historically Britain's upper class has been sensible at offering compromise to avoid extreme change, but it appears the current crop think their control of the media is enough to keep the population placid while they suffer.…

The problem with the approach of "tax this and tax that" is that it often ends up hurting the lower and middle classes the most.

I am very skeptical about any new taxes aiming for wealth distribution that are not very explicit about who should pay that tax.

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

#84

Post by rob_c »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #77
rob_c wrote: post #35

Quoted post unavailable.

Meanwhile: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/08/18/silent-crisis-so...

Yes the 5% of mostly under 50s in the UK who refused any jab are all secretly dying... Oh wait, im still here...

Edit: there will be much more to come when gran can't afford to heat herself at winter. The marginal "200k we think we maybe saved" will be shadowed by the damage of the next 2-5 years I fear. I would love to be wrong.

Edit2: apologies I was trying to be whitty, unlike those in charge of policy.

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

#85

Post by LatteLazy »

twelfthnight wrote: post #16
LatteLazy wrote: post #3

A Mix of Brexit, an aging population, massive underinvestment in basically everything, covid mishandling and huge debt means the UK is around year 0 of a lost decade. I will leave if I can.

Honest question: Where would you go?

Most places. I wouldn't work in the Middle East for moral reasons.

I'd go to the US or Canada happily. I'd go to the EU. Singapore has a company office and Australia is great from what I saw on holiday.

I have a chat scheduled with my boss in Sept, I might start sounding out a transfer.

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

#86

Post by minimaul »

bko wrote: post #59
CommanderData wrote: post #9

We have a corrupt government and media that itch each others back. There's still a complete lack of urgency. A potential new prime minister trying to defend profits of energy companies recently on TV just shows you the Modus operandi of the political class. It might push people to riots in the streets.

From the article: >The investment bank predicted that the country’s retail energy price cap — which limits how much households pay for heating and electricity — would be raised to £4,567 in January and then £5,816 in April, compared with the current level of £1,971 a year.... Nabarro said Citi’s new forecasts had taken account of a 25 per cent increase in wholesale gas prices last week and a 7 per cent rise in wholes…

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.

We already don’t have AC in summers which are growing more and more extreme (regularly over 90F, and sometimes over 100F) - there’s nothing there to turn off.

Edit: Big power retail companies in the UK are making record profits, and so is generation.

Tax that aggressively to start with.

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

#87

Post by viraptor »

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.

> Hopefully the current energy crisis (in Europe) will further accelerate development in renewable energy.

Or investment into basic insulation and house upgrades. Single glazing and simple brick is still very common in the UK. Many houses could use much less energy if they didn't lose lots of it through the windows and ceilings in the first place.

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

#88

Post by gspetr »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #62
rvieira wrote: post #18

I live in the north of England where temperature varies from 38F in Jan to 57F in August. It's pretty chilly for me, so I tend to spend a considerable amount of gas throughout the year. I'm renting a house, so deep work like insulation gets complicated. My point is that even with a comfortable salary, I will feel ~£600/month in energy. I can only fear for people that earn much less than me.

> I live in the north of England where temperature varies from 38F in Jan to 57F in August 38F = 3½C 57F = 14C Not sure why you used Farenheit, but I live in the north too and it's colder and warmer than that. Currently 22C (61F) here in rainy Manchester.

>Not sure why you used Farenheit

People from Europe likely already have a vague idea of what the temp is like in northern parts of it, and 45% of HN is from US according to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3298905

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

#89

Post by spaceman_2020 »

rob_c wrote: post #84
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/08/18/silent-crisis-so...

Yes the 5% of mostly under 50s in the UK who refused any jab are all secretly dying... Oh wait, im still here... Edit: there will be much more to come when gran can't afford to heat herself at winter. The marginal "200k we think we maybe saved" will be shadowed by the damage of the next 2-5 years I fear. I would love to be wrong. Edit2: apologies I was trying to be whitty, unlike those in charge of policy.

I’m with you - I just wanted to point out that despite the lockdowns, we’ve likely ended up killing even more people.

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

#90

Post by mvc »

bko wrote: post #59
CommanderData wrote: post #9

We have a corrupt government and media that itch each others back. There's still a complete lack of urgency. A potential new prime minister trying to defend profits of energy companies recently on TV just shows you the Modus operandi of the political class. It might push people to riots in the streets.

From the article: >The investment bank predicted that the country’s retail energy price cap — which limits how much households pay for heating and electricity — would be raised to £4,567 in January and then £5,816 in April, compared with the current level of £1,971 a year.... Nabarro said Citi’s new forecasts had taken account of a 25 per cent increase in wholesale gas prices last week and a 7 per cent rise in wholes…

> No price controls can account for the fact that energy prices are up a lot globally.

Sure, but how would these energy companies fancy being under the thumb of Putin.

If they want to benefit from the spoils of free markets with consumers who haven't died from covid then they must pay their fair share to maintain them. So whether it's a cap on the prices they can make, or a tax on their profits. Doesn't really matter. The burden cannot be met only by energy consumers.

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