Crunch Time (The Unwanted Revolution – By pricing!) (Or is it more of a Coup D’etat than a Revolution?) (By the Energy Companies? The new rulers of western (or is it just lap dog Britain?) society?) by Alfred N.Muggins Part 3

Part 3

7/9/22

   Now Alfred wonders, how is it that Russia is responsible for the price rise, when Russia is not the only supplier of gas? Big western companies such as Shell, BP, and ESSO (?) produce gas in the North Sea, and Norway, and in other places. The Americans have been selling more gas, and oil to Europe to deny the Russians some of their market. These big multinational suppliers are benefiting from the higher prices of gas, and oil. The profits of gas and oil producers have been very high recently. The prices have been going up and larger than normal profits declared. What follows is wage and remuneration rises to the Directors, and generous payouts to the shareholders, while bills for ordinary households, and businesses threaten to go through the roof, doubling, and expected worse to come. So the question remains who is it that has put the prices up? Is it merely that supply has diminished or demand increased?

    We can see who is benefiting, that much seems clear? The energy companies are growing rich, at our expense. Is supply and demand not working any more, or can these colluding cartels just shove the prices up when they feel like it. They are multinationals, so maybe they feel the Governments have no control over them!

   Why is it that governments do not own the gas and oil companies? Labour say that the government could place windfall taxes on the profits of the major gas suppliers. That money could be used to reduce the bills of the general population or businesses, instead of borrowing large sums of Public Debt to cap gas bills and pay the gas providers, and expecting taxpayers to pay it back over many years. Alfred was not suggesting that windfall taxes would necessarily replace all borrowing, but, the new Prime Minister, Liz doesn’t seem too bothered just yet. Apparently she has no plans to chase the profits of the suppliers, but she’s quite happy to pay them all the money they want for their gas, and get the state and its people to pay it back in the future! Is this really the kind of leadership we want, or is she just an agent of the energy interest groups?

   Perhaps our government should be telling them we will only pay so much for gas? Don’t give them more than they deserve, or we will tax your windfalls! Or maybe the customers at the end of the line, the households and the businesses should just refuse to handover the price increases to the gas producers. Who would they sell it to then? Don’t they need us, as much as we need them?

15/9/22

Obviously there was a massive Gulf (Oil!!) in his own understanding of why they were to face this sudden crisis. So he imagined that most people were in the same boat too, not understanding why the economic balance was soon to be tipped up and the whole country, and probably other countries too, to be tipped into the choppy seas of (North sea?!) Gas and oil (and even Electricity) Pricing!