Politicians and the Energy Companies Monopoly Profiteering
You’re getting ripped off.
Oil and gas giant Shell has reported record annual profits after energy prices surged.
Profits hit £32.2bn ($39.9bn)in 2022, double last year’s total and the highest in its 115-year history.
The energy companies have a stranglehold on the market. They have been able to hike prices to extortionate levels, and the knock-on effect is that every other sector of society has been forced to raise their prices. The government is too weak to take on the energy companies, and MPs and politicians are often in the pocket of these corporations.
This corrupt system is an attack on the common people. We are being ripped off, and the government is too afraid or too in cohorts to do anything about it.
Energy costs are the root cause of inflation, strikes and a declining economy.
Inflation didn’t just happen. It’s a direct result of the energy companies hiking prices to an extortionate level. Under the Energy price guarantee, the average annual gas and electricity bill for a direct debit customer with ‘typical’ levels of consumption is £2,500 from October 2022 to March 2023.
This is 27% higher than the summer 2022 price cap and 96% higher than the winter 2021/22 price cap. Gas has increased by more over this period; up by 141% since winter 2021/22 compared to a 65% increase for electricity.
As a result, every other sector has been forced to raise their prices to cover their bills.
And it’s no good blaming the war in Ukraine unless of course, you want to point the finger at the US for stopping Nord Stream 2 and then blowing it up.
This started way before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This started when wholesale energy prices increased rapidly from the second half of 2021 onwards. Many consumers were protected, at least initially, by the energy price cap. It was increased by 12% in October 2021, but rising wholesale prices led to a much larger increase of 54% in April 2022.
In October, the price cap was due to go up 80%, but the actual price we paid went up by 27%, with the new energy price guarantee – which is state subsidised.
Now we are in a position where wholesale prices have plummeted yet greedy energy companies are keeping prices hiked, they’re even using strong-arm tactics. Bailiffs are acting like enforces breaking into people’s homes and fitting prepayment meters to ensure people have no choice but to pay or be cut off no matter how vulnerable these people are.
The Energy companies are acting like the Robber Barons of old and the government is too weak and corrupt to take them on. This is an outright attack from the oligarchy at the cost to the people and every other industry. Government refuse to regulate the market allowing the so-called market forces to dominate the economy. Politicians have been allowed to forget their place, they are there to represent and protect the people, not the oligarchy or the market.
And is there any wonder MPs pretend impotent to this attack on us all? We are in a situation where MPs and politicians are beholden to the Energy companies through lobbying, donations and the golden ticket that comes with entrance to the revolving door, where politicians are rewarded for their servitude by exchanging their seats in parliament for seats on the board or executive positions within the corporations, Banks and multinationals. This corrupt system is an attack on the common people, and it needs to be stopped.
Pretending it’s just a natural occurrence of market forces is to belittle the intelligence of the people.
The government is failing in its responsibilities by not taking on the energy companies.
The power of the energy companies comes from their ability to manipulate energy prices, often with impunity. They have a monopoly on what should be a publicly owned industry. In fact, it should be in our national interest and for the sake of our national security that they are state-owned. Instead, we witnessed the treachery of Thatcher who sold off our wealth and natural resources.
For those that still claim she opened them up so even the common people could own a part of our resources, from Rail, Mail, Gas and Electricity, even your local busses are owned by the oligarchy or foreign countries, yet we still subside them at the cost of billions a year.
This collective now uses its wealth and political connections to tilt the market in its favour, leading to higher energy prices and less competition. They have also used their lobby connections to prevent regulation, which has allowed them to continue to raise prices with little to no accountability.
This is an untannable situation, the effects on the economy are far-reaching if left unchecked it’s not just a big bill consumers face and a race to the bottom in their living standards but a collapse in the economy and system as we know it.
In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it does, you can bet it was planned that way.
— Franklin D Roosevelt
It’s a rigged system
Knowing nothing in nature happens by chance and nothing in politics happens without outside manipulation helps us understand that just like the financial crash of 2007 this is the oligarchy and their greed creating another point of disaster capitalism, a period of indiscriminate plundering of public wealth, a period where money taken from our pockets and that of the public purse, goes directly into their pockets, funnelled and facilitated by a government of kleptocracy.
It is this oligarchy that has severely weakened our political system and it is getting harder and harder to challenge them.
We are now in a situation where both mainstream parties are economically right wing. The Labour Party under Sir Keir Starmer has adopted a globalist neoliberal economic stance abandoning nationalisation and supporting austerity.
Labour no longer offers an alternative to the Tory Party, but an alternative Tory Party.
In my opinion, Starmer’s membership of the Trilateral Commission gives us a clear insight into any future where he is prime minister. The Trilateral Commission has an antidemocratic, anti-union anti-working class agenda, and under Starmer’s tenure, we would be subject to an international rules-based system that allows the globalists to move in as if the UK were an asset for corporate takeover, again another race to the bottom on living standards and more so democracy.
Only a new political party truly representing the people can make a difference. Until then, the people of the UK will continue to be at the mercy of the energy companies and others to come with their unscrupulous practices.
What we need is a party that will challenge and dismantle the Oligarchy and put into place a system that benefits the people, by utilising the best of socialism and capitalism. We need to ensure companies are held to account if they take advantage of the public and subject them to fair competition, regulations and tax. We have to take a stance and challenge these corporations, or else they will continue to prey on us.
This is class war
What we are seeing is nothing less than a full-blown assault on the people of this country.
This is class war. It’s the rich and powerful using the monopoly industries, industries that should be UK state owned to their own benefit, leaving the poorer members of society paying extortionate prices. The energy companies have created a monopoly industry that allows them to profiteer and hike prices at will. Governments are unwilling to tackle them and MPs have been bought with promises of money or jobs. This cronyism means people are left without representation, leaving citizens paying exorbitant prices for their energy needs.
The energy companies are price-gouging to an outrageous degree, and the government is too afraid to take them on. This is a blatant example of corruption, and the people are being screwed over every step of the way.
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