Energy prices predicted to rise to £3,850 in January...

Tried using the "chat" on the website but fell into a coma waiting....

 

1) This would continue to perpetuate Putin's lie that "they all hate us in the West and they were going to attack us anyway so we had to get in first". It would be completely counter-productive.

2) China, South America, India and others will continue to trade with Russia, so while the Russian economy will stagnate and certain products will become quite expensive, total economic collapse is very unlikely. The Russian economy has been very well managed on a macro level for years, and is extremely shock-resistant.

3) Most of the last six months for me have been spent helping Russian businesses to move their operations abroad. Some of these are longstanding clients, but many of the people I've been assisting are close personal friends. Do not underestimate how traumatized a lot of Russians are by current events. People's entire lives are being destroyed, as they are forced to suddenly sell up and move to countries where they don't know the market or the language, just to keep their jobs or keep their businesses viable. Obviously this is hugely preferable to being bombed, but people are still being displaced on a large scale, children are having to suddenly move schools, and have social bonds broken. These are mostly people in their 30's and 40's, who are having to leave ageing parents behind, and in some cases abandon businesses they've spent years building. Some businesses are no longer viable, but others just morally feel unable to carry on living in their home country any longer.

4) As you're probably aware, overthrowing a government is not an easy task. Even in Belarus, where Lukashenko is opposed by 70%+ of his own population across the whole country and people were out on the streets when he faked the election results, they didn't manage to get rid of him. Yes, Putin is unpopular in Moscow and St Petersburg, but as anyone challenging him ends up in jail, what would you do? Especially if you've got school aged children who rely on you to bring them up and put food on the table. What good are you to them if you're behind bars?

I fully agree that Putin needs taking out in some way or other, for the good of Ukraine, Russia and the rest of the world. But any Western ideas of pushing Russia into poverty and triggering an uprising are pure fantasy.

 

I can feel the anger and frustration in your post.
Punishing innocent civilians wouldn't help the situation anyway.
We may aswell force Ukraine to surrender if we want to Punishing innocents.

 

I'll wait and see. Martin Lewis is all but recommending a mass movement to not pay bills.

BTW what price would your bill have to go to before you don't pay?

 

Its a good question mate. I’m at the same point as you, I have contemplated not paying but the fall out is so significant it’s inevitable I’ll have to pay it. That’s why I said if you can afford it, my advice would be to pay it.

Until the government ditch this stupid policy Firstly but then deliver a proper windfall tax on all energy companies then we are destined for this to be a long term issue.

Labours plans a few years ago to nationalise the energy market would be a great idea. Other countries with that system aren’t seeing anywhere near the same level of price hikes.

It’s sick what we are being asked to pay.

I do think we need some action from the people though. We need to pressure the government into scrapping price capping, bring back competition or nationalise the entire system. Obviously the Tories won’t consider the latter.

 

Agreed, while this is going on Russia are busy forming alliances to create a credible reserve currency rival to the dollar.
https://markets.businessinsider.com...le-yuan-brics-reserve-currency-imf-2022-6?amp
They have been building up their gold reserves for years - the currency, backed by oil and gas isn’t going anywhere.
Russian gas supplies to the west count for 1% of their GDP, they could stop all supplies tomorrow and not care. You are never going to create a world wide embargo on Russian oil and gas, economically there’s no much else that can be done that hasn’t already been done. I said this at the start, Ukraine ain’t winning this war, and to prevent years of stalemate and death they need to agree some kind of Russian annexation of the Russian speaking regions of Ukraine.
Strategically it makes sense for the Americans to prelong the conflict - Europe will have to buy more and more LPG from America, they will continue to sell sht loads of weapons- Russia is tied down to a long conflict - they don’t care about European people struggling to heat their homes this winter or people in the world starving thanks to the conflict - it’s just another chess piece for them.

 

I'll cancel mine **** them. It's disgusting. A reasonable excuse to tell them to ram it is if your bills have more or less doubled

 

How do I cause them as much aggro as possible whilst stopping just short of the point at which they fit a prepayment meter? I don't care if I get sued, I know enough to make that process as painful and costly for them as possible.

 

I presume you do realise that you will have to pay one way or another though? There’s never going to be a point where they just write it off. When it does happen you will have a CCJ against your name affecting you for years, you’ll be on a 20% more expensive pre-payment meter and they’ll have their money. Like it or not (obviously not), you did use the energy at the price advertised and to not pay them is theft.

I wouldn’t not pay my bill but I would support an energy using equivalent of ‘working to rule’. Similarly to the action proposed a while ago about not using energy (or a very limited amount to allow for essentials) between certain times but if it was way more organised, better communicated and for a prolonged period of time. I’d need someone cleverer than me to figure out if it could be effective or not but limiting my business with an expensive company sits better with me than continuing to use them as normal and then refusing to pay up. Obviously it’d be impossible and extremely unpleasant these days to cut off all use but there’s definitely scope for people to cut back during set times, especially in summer (put the light on later, or a smaller light or use candles; rewear clothes around the house before washing; limit tv/gadget time; take shorter showers; batch cook and reheat/eat meals that require a shorter, or no, cooking time).

 

I don’t know the answer to that at this moment. It’s incredibly costly for them to fit a PP meter and the same for them to take one out.

I’d probably hazard a guess these days that missing 2 consecutive quarterly bills and you’ll be getting court letters. You’ll then end up with a CCJ about a month later, then they’ll be arriving to fit a PP meter.

All told you’ll probably get 6 months before they get serious.

If you leave it 6 months, you could be staring down the barrel of a 2k+ bill.

 

I'd probably put the money aside, draw out the court proceedings as long as possible and then pay it before it gets to a hearing.

 

The absolute f****** state of it...

 

Poor lambs.... a pittance in comparison to Shells £9.5bn quarterly profits.

 

This is exactly what I have been saying. The lack of competition in pricing means that OFGEM set the rates and all the companies have the same offer.

Then we don’t tax the companies enough and there you have it, government sponsored profiteering at the detriment of customers.

 

It's not about not paying period, it's about not paying what they're asking. I mean using your own logic, you'd just pay whatever they asked and when you eventually couldn't afford it you'd default and get a ccj anyway...

 

A day after millions of households were warned that average annual energy bills could hit £3,850 from January, triple the level at the beginning of this year, two of the UK’s biggest energy companies sparked outrage with their bumper profits.


Shell posted record earnings of $11.4bn (nearly £10bn) for the three-month period from April to June and promised to give shareholders payouts worth £6.5bn.

Asked about the stark contrast with the punishingly high bills faced by households already struggling amid sky-high inflation, Shell’s chief executive, Ben van Beurden, said the company could not “perform miracles”.

At the same time, Centrica, the owner of British Gas, reinstated its dividend, handing investors £59m, after reporting operating profits of £1.3bn during the first half of 2022.

 

And we constantly have it rammed down our throats about Russia and wholesale prices.....

Aye, and my nobs 2 foot long

Those profits are obscene

 

I'd happily pay double my electricity on my TV for a day to watch the upper echelons of the energy companies and their helpers in government suffocate in a vat of their own faeces live on itv2

 

Ukraine and Russia have nothing to do with the current energy market pricing.

We are now paying for Energy that the energy companies were buying Jan-March. Well before Russia invaded Ukraine.

This is a Tory lie that the papers are peddling.

 

The current holder of PM is busy organising his party at Chequers .
The rest are oblivious to the woes of the country, basking in show ponyism for the successor and dragging along the media who for some reason are fascinated by something 99.9% of the country have no say in whilst allowing their pet four horseman of the apocalypse ,the mega rich no consequences to answer Board members of utilities ride rough shot and unchallenged over a captive clientele.