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I actually think this isnt a bad deal, especially as it helps the poorest most
For me theres a real opportunity missed , the exemption for O&G companies if they invest means a lot of tax will be dodged, plenty of ways to creatively label something 'investment', but for me the real missed opportunity was that the exemption wasnt for investing in renewables, which would help break our dependency on O&G
Norway is a country an order of magnitude smaller than United Kingdom (5.4 vs. 67.2 million people) with roughly similar volumes of oil production to date (40+ bn bbl). So it’s not exactly a fair comparison.
Great excuse. Its OK for the UK to have pissed our money up the wall because there's more of us who failed to give it any serious thought and plan ahead.
Great.
Energy production/distribution companies profits will go to energy retailers to pay consumers bills.
It's not all the same companies, why don't people get this?
Great excuse. Its OK for the UK to have pissed our money up the wall because there’s more of us who failed to give it any serious thought and plan ahead.
I guess my point was more it would be a significantly smaller percentage wise as a balance sheet surplus here. Whether the government put the revenue to good use is a different question.
Norway is a country an order of magnitude smaller than United Kingdom (5.4 vs. 67.2 million people) with roughly similar volumes of oil production to date (40+ bn bbl). So it’s not exactly a fair comparison.
It's a comparison of what government sets out to do. The Norwegians (afaik) saw the oil as something belonging to the country and hence the people, so they created a national industry to extract it and ploughed the profits back into the country to make it a better place.
We started that but then sold everything off so a much smaller number of people got very very rich, pissed off with the money, and the rest of us were left struggling as always.
That's the important distinction here. It comes down to what you think a government should do, and what life should be like.
The Norwegians (afaik) saw the oil as something belonging to the country and hence the people, so they created a national industry to extract it and ploughed the profits back into the country to make it a better place.
That sounds like God Damn Socialism to me!
We won't be having any of that for the poor (just the rich).
If Thatcher-worshipping rich Tory yahoos are now into the idea of state intervention in the Market to drive economic redistribution, rather than it happening by it's own magic (their belief until now), are we now getting closer to the point where a sensible discussion around a universal basic income has a chance?
There'll always be devil in the detail with a move like this, but I'm slightly astounded-of-forehead to see the tories going ahead with it. Whether it's driven by a desire to ride out the Grey report and what follows, or its a resigned belief that they've probably not got long left so may as well hammer the public purse, but it flies firmly in the face of the Thatcher-Reagan free-market dogma that's been at their black, black heart for so long.
We live in interesting times.
are we now getting closer to the point where a sensible discussion around a universal basic income has a chance?
I doubt it, that's a U-turn too far.
Plus its well proven that trickle down economics are the best way to help the poor - give all the money to the rich and let it trickle down (to offshore bank accounts mainly).
Government step in to help out economy by giving adults £1 a day towards increasing costs of living.
This is for the gas, electricity, food and petroleum products mostly.
Its not alot for a family of 3 or 4 or 5 who are probably £5 to £10 a day worse off than they were this time last year.
When the mortgage rates go up to" never been experienced by most home owner levels " and you suddenly need another say £700 a month to cover that payment is the magic money tree going to be given another shake.
Going to be tough few years for millions of people. I am old enough to remember double digits interest and people working 2 or 3 jobs to try to keep their houses. The 30 something £200k mortgage folk are going to have to watch the pennies.
The situation wasn't helped by a vacillating Labour Government. In 2003 they didn't want nuclear, in 2006 they did, but it wasn't until 2011 that the Conservatives identified the sites and signed contracts in 2013, by which time UK-based talent had given up on the whole idea.
Had labour pulled its finger out we'd have reduced CO2 emissions, reduced costs and reduced reliance on fossil fuels with nuclear power stations by 2018. We also wouldn't have gone for diesel cars so heavily (thanks, G. Brown)
A coherent strategy for power generation with domestic (and industrial) planning and building regs, transport, etc has been a mess for more than twenty years and continues to be so...plus ca change as EDF might say
If I were to guess, it’s to avoid driving inflation, already at 9% this year, by effectively reducing the cost of energy, reducing inflation, rather than injecting billions into the economy driving it up
It's not likely to affect inflation like that given there's a somewhat increase in the average bill of around £1200-1500
The actual anti-inflationary measure is the tax itself. The tax will remove money from the higher end of 'earners' and thus control their ability to take excess resources. Slightly messy as we're talking about corporations.
Injecting money into the economy doesn't drive inflation alone -providing the cash goes to the appropriate resources/Labour force.
BTW American might have turned a corner on inflation - keep an eye on that and look out for the dreaded deflationary pressure.
The questionable thing is not the support but how it's implemented. This is a subsidy to energy companies ultimately and that is the wrong way to shape the economy/climate - long term.
The energy companies do need taxing - but the support for consumers perhaps needs to be a different methodology, one that doesn't include giving money back to energy companies to generate more profits.
The questionable thing is not the support but how it’s implemented. This is a subsidy to energy companies ultimately and that is the wrong way to shape the economy/climate – long term
There's no other way to fix it in the short term, the UK Government doesn't have a strategic gas supply etc it can tap to provide cheap fuel, so subsidising fuel is the only option in the short term.
High prices for carbon based fuels are good for renewable investment, so it will make it even more cost effective to build wind farms / solar farms etc - which is the only long term fix.
The energy companies do need taxing – but the support for consumers perhaps needs to be a different methodology, one that doesn’t include giving money back to energy companies to generate more profits.
Still a net loss to the energy companies - take their profits as an extra tax and use that to subsidise fuel costs. Especially if it's a rolling thing and not a one off, as you just tax next year's profits as well...