Funny how it doesn’t work the other way eh?
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Inflation is when the price of everything goes up… apart from our labour.
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Which is fucking bollocks really, what other markets are allowed to do that? 
I bought X at £x but its worth much less now but I still want £x for it. Fucking wankers.
As far as I’m concerned they decided to take the risk and buy gas in advance for record prices they should also take the hit as they then also rake it in if prices go up further and they charge more regardless of what price they bought it at. Fucking shysters.
Why does this government even allow this, but instead what they’ve decided is to just give them more fucking money 
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What can they do? As much as I dislike these companies profiting from this, I think I dislike more the idea that the government can tell a private company what they can charge for their product.
Why?
Besides, the government already places a cap on how much these companies can charge per unit, so it’s not like this isn’t something that already happens.
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Inflation doesn’t have to lead to higher prices, but it sure is a good excuse for some companies.
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Yep. The problem is they haven’t recalibrated on the basis of the wholesale price of Gas being dramatically reduced. The companies can look for an increase on the basis of that wholesale price increasing, there is no such mechanism to revert it as far as I can tell. What a load of shite that is.
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I agree, but surely a cap is different to telling companies what they must charge?
For me the problem seems to be that the cap doesn’t change when the markets change.
You said you don’t like the idea that the government could tell private companies what they can charge for their product, the cap literally tells energy companies what they can charge per unit.
Fine, change ‘can’ with ‘have to’.
Aren’t these the same private companies that beg the government for subsidies, have their profits protected in the event of strike action and get bailed out by the government when they collapse
Seems reasonable to me that with all that state help that’s available to so many of these companies they should accept a bit of state intervention when it’s essential to protecting the interests of the public
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Love it fascism
Fascism is a bit of a stretch.
Is anybody saying that we should dictate what they must, or have to, charge? I think the suggestion is that there should be an upper limit to what they can charge, a maximum amount, like a cap, if you will.
I don’t really see your change of wording as providing much of a relevant distinction. I dont think anybody is saying “you have to charge X amount for energy”, but instead “you can’t charge more than a maximum of X”.
Energy, like water and some other things, is one of the bare essentials, I don’t see why a small handful of gigantic companies should have free reign to charge whatever they want when we don’t really have the option to simply not buy their product.
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What a lot of people don’t realize the price cap put all the small gas suppliers out of business. That’s government intervention the end product is never what was desired
Especially when those companies used to be owned by the tax payer but were sold off cheap by Thatcher with the profits going to shareholders and tax cuts for the rich.
Would you really want this shower of shit in control of your gas/electric?
You saw with PPE that they cannot be trusted.
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Is your objection this specific government telling private entities what they can charge for their products, or governments in general doing so? It seemed like the latter.
That’s a comforting theory but in the real world large corporations crush smaller businesses by purposefully cutting prices and selling products at a loss to where smaller companies can’t compete.
Once they’ve created a monopoly they jack prices up knowing consumers have no other option. This is especially true with energy, health and other infrastructure.
Monopoly is the logical conclusion of capitalism. Facism is it’s eventual political outcome.
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In the Netherlands, anytime utility companies become privatised it leads to an increase in cost.
I don’t like it.
They hike prices because of inflation and then report record profits the following quarter. Illustrating that the amount they increased their prices with is disproportionate.
Anyone does anything about it? Nope.
Meanwhile workers get compensated a little but not enough.
As a self employed person, I am keeping my fees kind of level which has seen an increase in business for me. Whereas most around me increase their fees. Funnily enough, I earn more now without increasing my fees than those who increase and lost contracts because of it.
Different ways of combatting inflation…
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