Energy Bills

[jetpilot]

Slightly shocked to see on Sky this morning, forecasts for the big 6 energy companies to now be making roughly £125 per customer up from £15 per customer in June!

A 700% rise!!

No wonder this country is on its knees when this is allowed to happen!!

[grinder]

Hummm not a good sign is it

same old thing ... lets cut jobs , payrises etc..

then just up everything to non substainable levels ( energy / food / fuel )

The just as its about to go :censored::censored::censored::censored: up - they drop the prices to help the public and we all think they are great !

Quick example

1 - they have fuel at £1 a litre
2 - they put it up to £1.10
3 - public goes mad
4 - we suffer this for a few months
5 - governemnt decide to drop it to £1.05
6 - we love that idea .. cheaper fuel
7 - errrr but its STILL gone up from what it was

[David Nock (RIP)]

£125 per customer is about 10% profit on typical bills.

All grotesque stuff I know but £15 per customer is clearly not sustainable.

The whole thing is all a load of tosh compared to the investments made into the Gas and Electricity industries in the 40\'s/50\'s/60\'s. How much does each company spend trying to pinch market share from it\'s rivals I wonder?

[jetpilot]

£125 per customer is about 10% profit on typical bills.

All grotesque stuff I know but £15 per customer is clearly not sustainable.

The whole thing is all a load of tosh compared to the investments made into the Gas and Electricity industries in the 40\'s/50\'s/60\'s. How much does each company spend trying to pinch market share from it\'s rivals I wonder?

Sorry, you may have to explain this to me.

So @ £125 you are saying they make £12.50 per customer?

So @ £15 they were loosing £97.50 per customer?

[lockwood77]

No, the average bill is £1250 @10% profit = £125.

This is what you get with privatisation - we invest as taxpayers in the infrastructure, it then gets sold off at a discount for considerably less than that investment, so that private companies can squeeze more and more out of users who have no choice because it\'s a monopoly (despite supposed "competition" - how can you compete with an incumbent that owns all the infrastructure!? It\'s all smoke and mirrors to line the pockets of Tory cronies and funders).

Just watch what happens to the NHS, in 10-15 years time it will be like the US and anyone who can\'t afford ever-increasing health insurance premiums will be left to die. All taxpayers have invested in that infrastructure over the last 70 years and it will be sold off and "deregulated" so that a few large companies can make massive profits out of every single resident of the UK. We won\'t even get any money back into the public coffers as a result.

Don\'t ever, ever believe that anything this government does is for the good of the people and the "free market" - it\'s for the rich few and screw everybody else. I hope we take up the Occupy Wall Street concept soon in this country.

[jetpilot]

My bad, thanks for the heads up!

However, im sure its not just the Tories who have benefited, it doesnt seem to me any gov is honest and trustworthy.

Please can we not turn this is into a political debate!

[lockwood77]

OK, my point was simply that the reason the bills are so high is because it has been allowed to happen as a result of privatisation. Nationalised services don\'t need to profit to pay shareholder dividends and keep executives in their jobs...

You said the country is on its knees because things like this are allowed to happen - this is why. You can trace the roots back to Thatcher, in the same way the disenfranchised workless oiks that were rioting are the product of her economic policies, the likes of which we are now seeing again (I refer to the youth unemployment figures of Wednesday).

I\'m afraid that bringing up energy prices is entirely political - of course prices have gone up over time, but the net increase in wholesale prices over the last two years has actually been 20%, even though you hear the companies whinging about them "doubling" - in a short space of time, yes, but you don\'t hear them whinging when the prices fall again (same as the petrol companies). It happens because our political elite in the 80s decided that getting a bit of cash to shore up their failed monetary policies pre-Falklands and sweeten their friends and funders in big business was more important than the future energy security and fair pricing for the people that voted them in.

So, the direct effect of a political decision = high prices. You can\'t get away from it.

[David Nock (RIP)]

Lockwood has the calculation right as I saw it Jet.

I\'m interested in history. In the Victorian days a new company like GWR (Brunel and all that) got loads of private investors to fund the new infrastructure. Then they charged people to ride for a profit.....fair enough I say.....you rode by the new train or the old horse...you paid your groat and made your choice.

These new energy companies (and particularly the crazy monopoly water companies with their leaky pipes) all want us to pay in to renew the insfrastucture up front. Where\'s the risk to them?....which is what profit is all about. I don\'t think that\'s right at all.

[jetpilot]

I agree Lockwood, just dont want this to become a Tories did this, labour did that etc Thanks for your input!

Maybe you think the Labour idea of just spending money we didnt have was a better solution buts lets leave that for another thread

[lockwood77]

Haha, not quite, but as you say that\'s a different debate.

[wolfie1]

your telling me electric bills are getting steep! when i bought my house last year it has gas and electric meters and i put in £60 electric every month, this month it run out yesterday so thats just over 2 1/2 weeks for the same amout of electric!

[B.Martin]

It\'s not much better over here, I\'ve just had a €200 water bill and I can\'t even drink the stuff! I mean that\'s for 3 months but it\'s still a lot to say it\'s not drink-able!

[wolfie1]

paying for water! in scotland i reckons we could pay you to take away some of our water/rain! :yes

[B.Martin]

Yeah water/electric is expensive here, but apparently it\'s the governments fault for failure to invest. The big energy company sent a massive letter round when I first moved here. More political bantha poodoo!

[TiddlesRX7]

I know your water bills seem expensive and to be fair it ain\'t cheap but  trust me there is a lot more that goes on in the industry than most people give credit for. It doesn\'t just fall out of the sky into a pipe and then comes out of your tap. Plus most people never even consider the fact of waste water treatment, yet all of us use the facility.