can someone please explain how me getting 100 quid off my next bill qualified as a bail out/bonus/paying 100 quid extra to my supplier? they're going to be charging me regardless, like.
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General election 2020 (2 Viewers)
- Thread starter xsteox
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p.s. i am not saying i agree with it - it should be means tested/only paid to social welfare recipients/OAPs/medical card holders or SOMETHING, rather than a blanket 100 quid off every bill regardless of the individual's ability to afford to pay their energy bill
It's a bail out for the companies in that they might not go broke when the government hands then 100 quid per customer.
You, well there'll probably be a form online that keeps crashing where you can apply to get it taken off your bill and it might go through or it might not who knows.
This is how we end up with privatized libraries though. "Rich people can afford their own books." Means testing is the great way to destabilize a society by pitting everyone against each other in the great competition of day to day living.
" there will be no application process for customers and the €100 will be deducted automatically from electricity bills."
it's literally in the second paragraph of the originally linked article.
it's literally in the second paragraph of the originally linked article.
Well I was exaggerating.
Ok, i'll try again, and take back my like because I misunderstood.
Well hopefully it'll all work out smoothly and there'll be a line on your bill that says "+€100 government bonus" or something. No issues, no mistakes, perfect sailing.
Ok i'll try.
So as detailed above (by me and the govt) - the energy market is a warzone at the minute. The only way to secure energy at present for the coming months is to outbid other entities - And you fucking KNOW the stock markets are having a party with this one.
So -
Money taken from general taxation is given directly to energy suppliers so they have cash to buy enough gas to supply energy because they don't actually have the cash to buy enough gas to supply energy.
Sorta like
Money taken from general taxation is given directly to banks to they have enough cash to service bondholders because they don't have enough cash to service bondholders.
So
A: It's not free money, it'll come out of your wages next budget or the tax you pay on your hippie go kart or whatever. You will pay for it, its just a new form of general taxation.
B: It is bad money after bad. Bigger players will be stockmarketing this shit all year, its the property boom except with electricity.
C: Suspect some 'European Energy Pact' will arise soon enough as an attempted buffer/bidding conglomerate.
D: it will get worse every time a data centre opens.
And I KNOW free 100eu sounds like fun. I want 100eu most of the time. But it's short money, emergency fixing a nations electricity deficit, free 100eu now, high bills 4 life + the tax we all owe now.
ann post. Bringer of no fun.
I really appreciate the post, I wasn't thinking correctly and was rightly called on it.
My doomer thoughts on it are that, much like the 2008 crisis, the alternative is to let the system fail, and the entire planet and everyone on it will burn to the ground before the system will be allowed to fail.
shitepipe
Well-Known Member
Alternative scenario: govt introduces legislation to cap energy prices/profit margins. Similar net effect for the customer but €210 million extra to spend on ICU beds, or tax rebates for comfortable middle class familes
Look I wouldn't be at all surprised if this was some screwball scheme that's been cooked up to work around EU restrictions on governments providing financial support for the energy sector or whatever, but do such rules exist and is there any evidence that this is actually the case? Do any energy suppliers actually need to be bailed out because they "don't actually have the cash to buy enough gas to supply energy"? I don't think Electric Ireland or whoever necessarily need the government to pass the hat around so that they have a big pile of 50p coins to put in the international gas meter to keep the valves open on the gas pipes. If wholesale gas prices go up, can't they borrow to cover the increased costs in the short term and increase prices in the medium to long term to cover the higher gas costs and to service their additional debt? If gas prices go down again: profit.
It's hardly surprising that Irish energy suppliers are going to increase their residential rates in line with increased supply costs in order to maintain their profit margins, and the vast majority of people will complain about it then pay their electricity bill. Or is the suggestion that the government are in fear of tens/hundreds of thousands of domestic customers defaulting on their bills and bankrupting the companies? Because that seems...unlikely. (Fully expect this one to be thrown back at me when Panda Power or whatever shuts down)
I don't think it's the same thing. What we're looking at now, with gas supply and demand forcing prices up (or suppliers putting the squeeze on and forcing prices up) is quite different to the bank bailout because in that situation a. the entire bank retail lending system was built on a house of cards that was about to collapse and take out the entire banking sector with it b. the banks had nowhere else to go to get the money to pay off their loan sharks, so the government/taxpayers ended up footing the bill.
What's happening now is the government saying "Things are getting pricey out there so because it's good for the optics we (or rather you, the taxpayer) will cover the first €88.11* of everyone's electricity costs in 2022, whether you need us to or not" and it's that last bit that I have a problem with.
* they keep the 13.5% VAT paid by the customer, not sure how much tax they take off the suppliers end too
Electricity prices are going up BECAUSE THE MARKET and it's completely outside the control of domestic customers and no change to domestic customer behaviour will have any effect on it, so - rightly or wrongly - the government has taken a political decision to blanket cover 100 quid of everyone's next electricity bill as a targeted measure to tackle the impact of increased electricity prices or more likely as a way to be seen DOING SOMETHING for the voters. This is €210m (or €185m - see above) that'll have to be funded. I don't think anyone's suggesting that this is free money from the magic money tree or that it doesn't have to be paid out of general taxation? Not sure what the argument is there.
Market magic and means testing has gotten us into this mess so goddamit it'll get us out of it as well.
Also I don’t know what I’m talking about so you know yourself like.
Cormcolash
Well-Known Member
I heard Thumped uses €10000000 of electricity every hour
as it happens the bills are going up in february. again.
thumped is an NFT though?
The voice of reason here (applauds). Not everything is part of a vast capitalist/patriarchal plot to destroy the world
i don't think this is some ham-fisted way of subsidising the utility companies, i think it's more likely that many TDs are hearing grumblings about the carbon tax and wanted a way to tell the average joe that they *do* have their interests at heart (and undermine the point of carbon taxes, in a way), but they needed some way of doing it that as many people can benefit from, and consuming electricity is the most widespread way in which they do that. it wouldn't work for other utilities like gas, etc.
from a utility company POV, it's not a subsidy as such anyway in a direct sense, electricity is very price inelastic, i'd hazard, so people will still use the same amount they would have and the electricity companies will issue the same bills and get the same money, just from two sources instead of one.
but if they'd been trying to decide when to next raise prices, this will likely change that calculation for them.
weirdly, you could possibly argue this is a progressive move from a taxation POV; everyone gets the same amount of money from the pot, regardless of how much they have paid into the pot. why should my tax dollars be used to pay for some layabout in darndale to play his PS5, yadda yadda.
and low leccy users will benefit more than large ones; someone living on their own could be using one third the amount a large family does, so effectively has triple the relative bill reduction, for example.
maybe that's why the government went for the one off payment though - i'd been trying to consider what a 'here's €200m, we want to pay for 10% of all electricity bills across the year' approach would have resulted in, but that'd have given the utility companies far more space and wiggle room to use it to their advantage.
again, i just think it's a populist bag of shite, an 'electorate are grumbling, lets shake the free money tree and hope they remember at the next election' move.
from a utility company POV, it's not a subsidy as such anyway in a direct sense, electricity is very price inelastic, i'd hazard, so people will still use the same amount they would have and the electricity companies will issue the same bills and get the same money, just from two sources instead of one.
but if they'd been trying to decide when to next raise prices, this will likely change that calculation for them.
weirdly, you could possibly argue this is a progressive move from a taxation POV; everyone gets the same amount of money from the pot, regardless of how much they have paid into the pot. why should my tax dollars be used to pay for some layabout in darndale to play his PS5, yadda yadda.
and low leccy users will benefit more than large ones; someone living on their own could be using one third the amount a large family does, so effectively has triple the relative bill reduction, for example.
maybe that's why the government went for the one off payment though - i'd been trying to consider what a 'here's €200m, we want to pay for 10% of all electricity bills across the year' approach would have resulted in, but that'd have given the utility companies far more space and wiggle room to use it to their advantage.
again, i just think it's a populist bag of shite, an 'electorate are grumbling, lets shake the free money tree and hope they remember at the next election' move.
yeah - everyone seemed to see through this straight away.
typical response - "why didn't they just lower electricity prices?"
typical response - "why didn't they just lower electricity prices?"
I didn't say that, I said it was a pre bailout for electricity companies. As it says in the govt press release this is about gas prices. Don't tack your fantasy on to disprove something I didn't say.
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