Is it real or scaremongering?

[girlfrien]

Do you really think small businesses and pubs will shut down because of electricity prices?
Was on the news yesterday about Pubs?
Do you think it will really come to it?

It was the Tories then. Some Towns were decimated with little left open.

We are heading towards a massive recession, the rising cost of energy is only a starter. Restaurants, pubs and other small businesses that offer hospitality & entertainment will be hit first and hardest!
I don't think it's economical or practical to save every business. In the end it will be larger companies and chains that will get help simply because they employ more people than a local independent pub.

So the Tory supporter that runs Weatherspoons then!

Utterly disgraceful

www.pipeline-journal.net/news/russia-flaring-around-434-mcmd-gas-normally-bound-nord-stream-1

DH and I are hoping to be OK with our energy bills but already trying to make savings in preparation. Sadly, the first thing we're cutting back is coffees and meals out and drinking in the pub. A lot of people will probably be doing the same. On top of that those businesses will also be paying massively increases energy bills. It's going to be really hard for them.

I'm also wanting to cut back on the 'luxury' of having my nails done but I've been going to the same very small business for years. The owner's more of a friend now and I know she has a young family to support and her partner's not a massive earner so I'm feeling bad about it.

Those that didn't go to the wall during Covid are struggling for survival. so won't be able to sustain any additional financial strain; so yes, they'll close

The government really need to do something to help schools. If more staff are lost because there isn't the money children's education will be affected, which is not acceptable. Educating children benefits society as a whole, even if you have children at a private school it is important to realise that good quality education for all needs to be protected.

Pubs have been on a downhill slope for a while.

1. I might get flamed for this, but the smoking ban did the smaller pubs no favours. Little end-of-the-road old-men-with-pints pubs were never going to get their smoking clientele who came in from the cold in winter to sip bitter, replaced by family dining groups.
2. I might get flamed for this as well, and in fairness it's just how businesses work, but the cheaper operating models of large chains that can buy end-of-barrel in bulk and sell pints for £2 or less make it difficult for smaller pubs to compete in times of austerity.
3. Covid

The energy crisis will be a final, heavy straw on an already weakened camel's back.

Gordon Brown sold gold to stabilize the markets because the banks were short of gold to back their gold carry trades (i.e. bets involving borrowing gold, selling it, and investing in other assets in the hope that the other asset will increase in value more than gold). These trades a like DH borrowing my gold earrings, pawning them, and going to the bookies to put the money on a cert in the 3:30 at Haydock. It was capitalist speculators at the banks who caused the instability by recklessly making very risky carry trades without enough gold reserves to back them. It is always the reckless greed of capitalist speculators that causes instability in the financial market. Always. Every single time. Unfortunately Brown was held to ransom by the risk of a collapse in the speculative capitalist markets, which are deeply entwined with the real economy, and can drag us down with them. The liabilities of the speculators become the debts of the people. This is why the banks need to be more strictly regulated. Brown's sale of gold is estimated to have cost the UK between £2bn and £7bn (such a wide range because of different valuations of the assets that Brown purchased with the proceeds of the gold sale). Brown was similarly forced to bail out the private banks and casino capitalists in the 2007-2008 financial crisis, so much of the debt when he left office was caused again by speculators.

The record of government debt as % of GDP since Brown left office in 2010 is:
2010 68.2%
2011 72.4%
2012 75.7%
2013 77.7%
2014 80.3%
2015 80.3%
2016 81.0%
2017 81.0%
2018 80.0%
2019 82.4%
2020 95.6%
2021 97.3%
Sunak has added £14bn to UK government borrowing this year.
The National Institute of Economic and Social Research reported that Sunak failing to take out insurance against interest rate rises has cost £11bn.
So Brown might have been bad, but the Conservatives have been worse. Capitalist markets are more powerful than democratically elected governments. Blair and Brown's centrist governments were controlled by the markets. That is the tail wagging the dog.

In what way do you share gas we can't access, genius?

You're still buying it on the international market. The price is still high. So, who cuts back then? Who would Keir tell to shutdown to distribute gas to others?

In case anyone isn't quite getting it: the European project is basically committing suicide.

The longer this goes on (and it's not even winter yet), the worse it will be. Germany along is spending 8.4% of its GDP on energy. It was 0.25% in 2019.

Austria has just bailed out a local utility company to the tune of €2bn. That was one utility firm that they didn't even know was in trouble until literally this week.

And get ready for more. OPEC+ is going to cut production of oil, because they basically can't keep pumping at present rates without impacting on their oil field integrity.

I'm also worried about nurseries. So many are closing already, and with big energy bills more will struggle, especially since they don't get paid enough for the funded hours they provide. If they close, or significantly raise their prices, it's more women (let's be honest, more likely to be women) being unable to work because they can't find or afford childcare. And that's on top of the job losses for the nursery staff.

I agree you can't quite believe it would happen.

What has happened to the world?
People need to know whether they will get help.

Surely if people lose their jobs over closures more people will be on Universal Credit etc.

As Macron said last week to nobody listening, this is the end of the age of abundance. No empty platitudes about hard months, then we'll come roaring out of it better. No quick fixes by cash payouts or tax cuts. Just a message to understand this isn't a blip. It's the new normal.

The council have announced today that they will help our local leisure centres with their bills.

Several local business are already operating on part time hours, here (NW coast).

Schools and hospitals will lay off staff and make further budget cuts to cope.
schools that offer free breakfast clubs will have to start charging for example. Some schools may also be forced to cut after school clubs, introduce more remote learning etc.,

Hospital waiting lists will increase because departments won’t be able to be open full time. Various other nhs services will either be cut to the bone or be closed down. For many trusts this will be MH and addiction services as these always seem to be first on the hit list.

It will also impact care homes, colleges, unis, council offices and much more public services.

And where do you think all this extra help would be coming from? Tax payers cannot afford to pay more taxes to keep private businesses open when they are themselves struggling with the costs of living.

I think the government will eventually have to help but regardless, yeah definitely.
business, schools, hospitals don’t “benefit” from the cap so their costs will be even higher per unit than households

schools round here are considering laying off staff to pay energy bills and/or closing some days a week.In the meantime I suspect most will keep heating off as much as possible.

It’s inevitable that small business that have high electricity & gas use will either struggle or close. There isn’t the wiggle room in their profit margins to absorb a report 5x increase in fuel costs, and increasing goods & services by 500% would make them uncompetitive to larger providers or chains. Would you buy a cup of £1 tea for £5 because of the 5x increase in fuel costs?

I have a small business, I don’t rely on premises or a large fuel consumption, so whilst the domestic fuel bill is going to be inconceivably large (but still with record breaking profits, EOn you bastards) but I will probably be hit with a drop in available money after bills for my customers.

In an ideal world, Councils & Landlords would drop the cost of having businesses in their premises, but since they’re subject to the same increases thanks to inflations & (well) above inflation fuel costs there’s more chance of me sprouting wings than reducing rents & rates.

Help SHOULD be coming by taxing the living daylights out of the likes of BP and Shell who will make even more
profit these next two years than almost ever before.

but of course they’re major Tory Party donors so that won’t happen.

I’ll be pretty pissed off tbh if the government ends up subsidising our bills over the winter only to force us to pay it back in taxes later.

Yes, I think a lot of small businesses will go under. Probably some big ones too.

^Help SHOULD be coming by taxing the living daylights out of the likes of BP and Shell who will make even more
profit these next two years than almost ever before^

I fully agree with you but lets look at the numbers shall we?

Lets say that Shell and BP make a total GLOBAL profit of £200 BN - I think it's in that ballpark, but I don't think it's actually as much as that, and a 50% tax is levied on those profits (is that enough?) and we give 10% of that tax directly to UK household consumers (assume 25 million households) then we'll all get £4000 each, will cover most, but not all of the increase in our energy bills.

So even if you apply a very punitive tax, that will seriously reduce the value of all our pension funds and disproportionately (because we only make up more like 1% of the global population) give quite a lot of it to some of the world's wealthiest households, because however poor you are in the UK, you're better off than an awful lot of the people on this planet, then it will still only just make our energy costs as affordable as they used to be.

Even that on it's own won't be enough. What about all the other countries facing the same increase in costs? What about businesses? Public services?

I don't know the answer, but simply 'taxing the rich' isn't going to make it all good again, all by itself.