Why are we paying everybody else's debt?

A gross oversimplification.

Why is the USA happier than France and Germany?

The Australian bank Macquarie basically did a number on Thames water, asset stripped it, didn't pay corporation tax but took billions in loans against it. We should not be selling public services off to foreign companies so they can make enormous profits by running up huge debts. The energy companies and the water companies are just appalling, all they care about is profit and making rich people richer.

Are these 'happy' countries ones where the majority are paying high rate taxes, or top heavy where a small amount of people are paying high rates of tax to fund a large amount of others high usage of services?

A lot of this £28 will be the ££ lost by energy companies going bust when it was a free for all to the bottom on fixed rate tariffs. DH forbade me to move our energy to a cheapie FR because he thought there would come a time when they went bust and then we'd have no electricity for months while the other energy companies side stepped wanting to take us.
Instead WE are stuck paying extra for all those that did move and the energy co went bust, so we lose out twice around.

Can you give the source for that quote, please? I want to write to my MP about it and would like to cite this.

Private companies could continue to provide these services but I would like a state option to exist alongside which covers the welfare energy needs but also anyone else who wants to use it. It would have no profits or huge bonuses, the surplus would fund welfare cases as well as be reinvested into infrastructure. This for all “Maslow” services.

Aye, just one of several things in this country where you're punished for paying your way.

Some of the biggest investors in these industries, and therefore taking the profits, are pension providers. Its cyclical system. If everything was government owned and run, the same would apply, but you would beholden to the state instead, which is already effectively bankrupt!

This is an entirely different thing to taxation.

The countries with the happiest populations tend to be the ones with high taxes and highly socialised services.

Not the ones where every single experience is low quality because employers pay the least possible wages, do not provide any customer service, charge rip-off fees and then go on to celebrate massive profits with bonuses all round.

I’m not saying I agree, but a lot of insurance companies are investors in water companies (seen as safe investments) so if they don’t get paid then it would affect pensions/annuities. The whole thing is a mess.

@brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

"For me it should be illegal to profit from basic needs covered by utilities. 100% windfall tax."

Couldn't agree more.

No point in complaining/speculating until we know what's going to be happening.

Hopefully it'll be the first in many steps undoing the crap that the tories got up to

"something something bare minimum"

If that were true then the capitalist countries wouldn't be the dominant and most comfortable countries to live in.

If you want to talk about extracting money at every stage, maybe tot up how much the government takes from you. Anyone earning over £40k is subsidising the cost of other people and they have no control over the matter.

It's the exact same thing as this and it baffles me that all of a sudden it's now a problem.

Ok, thanks - good point 😄
Let’s hope something productive happens then.

This should come before their profits. As should an obligation to complete any maintenance work needed to keep the infrastructure up and running. I’m looking at you, water companies.

YANBU. It's the same with the water companies. At least with energy you can choose your supplier, with water you're stuck with whoever has the contract to supply your area of the country. We have one of the better companies for water, but it's absolutely outrageous that shareholders and fat cat bosses of all these companies continue to rake in great piles of money while the consumer is expected to suck up increase after increase due to their shamefully poor management.

The autumn budget is the 30th October

As the general public, we want there to be a safety net, so that 90yo pensioners or single mums with new borns do not get cut off if they can't pay their bills. That emergency provision exists.

It is because the energy companies agree to this safety net, that we pick up the bill.

Yeah I’d like to know whether Keir Starmer is planning to impose this Windfall Tax that he promised? Because I’ve heard nothing about it since Labour came into power. I’d like to be told I’m wrong in assuming they used it as a false promise.

Removing WFA was a start

Totally agree with you, it should come out of their profits. Same way that we shored up the banks and they didn’t have to repay it. I’m so sick of it all. Supermarkets making record profits and every week the food bills go up. We live in a time of rampant capitalism and we are being squeezed every way to fatten the profits of the super rich.
I did really hope that Labour would crack down on it all but I’m not seeing any signs of it.

Capitalism favours investors. Everything pared back to the bare minimum. Extracting your money at every stage. Measuring a country’s “success” by economic performance rather than happiness of its citizens.

And political parties like Reform positioning themselves against renewable energy do so to perpetuate this trap. Renewable energy is a way for individuals and communities to get out of the stranglehold of energy monopolies.

Also winter fuel allowance was paid for by everyone and dished out to all people over a certain age, effectively subsidising energy conpany profits.

For me it should be illegal to profit from basic needs covered by utilities. 100% windfall tax.

I'm afraid it's the joys of the wonderful privatised utilities that we have. Paying their shareholders is more important than improving services, or actually providing half way decent ones. What I find galling is that most of us need a water supply( I mean I don't have a spring in my back garden, do you?), we need gas, electricity, they are essential supplies, but we are screwed over by all the companies. I'm supposed to be able to compare umpteen tariffs for gas/electric, to get a good deal. Ha ha! And the water company don't deal with leaks and don't bait for vermin any more. It's rubbish.
Sorry that's my rant.

It's so wrong 😔.