Aibu it's not the Government's role to bail people out?

[Katypp]

The UK is massively in debt and money is short.
AIBU to think that families should be expected to manage their own household budgets instead of constant calls for Government subsidies every time prices go up?
It's coming up to summer. Surely it's not unreasonable to expect householders to manage their own bills by cutting back their energy use?
Surely adults could be expected to manage their own grocery bills? Obviouly covid was exceptional, but oil prices rising have happened many times before with no expectation of bailouts.
My question is, given the state of the economy, do we need to wean ourselves off expecting the Government to step in every time prices go up and learn resilience again?

I'd like to see a cap on the profit fuel companies can make tbh rather than the government using our taxes to pay their stupid levelvprofits - what was BPs profit last year ?? 10bn?? And they tell us they'll have to raise prices - surely they could run at break-even for a year and STILL average £5bn profit a year over 2 years.

Absolutely - let's all learn resilience.

I'm 100 per cent positive that will help everybody.

Well done for pointing that out @Katypp

Sensible responses would be good instead of knee-jerk attacks

No, they bail out banks, they can bloody well help the taxpayer

That’s exactly what they are supposed to do!

I guess noone can manage budgets because these increases are so large. I mean we’re lucky to get a 0-5% pay increase but fuel could double as could gas/electric. Food has more than doubled since covid.
Some CT went up 10% in a year - straight off thats about another 260.

But i dont agree with just help directed at benefits claimants

However those on UC arent allowed more than 4k i think before benefits are cut, which is hardly anything as 2 wages going in could be 3-4k…

If you add up living costs now vs pre covid/brexit the difference is huge!

Which "kneejerk attack" in particular are you objecting to?

The banks were bailed out because not doing so would have been disasterous for the economy.
Giving households a £200 bung is not beneficial to the country as a whole.

Since when?

So yes.

But the major question here really is - why are our energy costs higher than every other country in Europe?

The govt (any govt) has a vested interest in keeping it's population healthy and happy and economically active.

The population needs heating and food and hot water and fuel to do so. If energy prices spiral out of control it means the healthcare bill goes up because people aren't eating / staying warm, it means the levels of illness are higher and taxpayers become more economically inactive, it means people are travelling and spending less, threatening small businesses and reducing VAT take, and so on. The effects are actually vast.

Therefore it's prudent (and cheaper) to subsidise energy to keep people healthy and on the move.

Where’s the poll so I can vote?

YABU.

They could cap what the energy companies charge, but, no, I don’t think the country can afford to keep bailing everyone out.

We've always had recessions etc before, costs have shot up, and bail outs weren’t normal.

Luckily, summer is on the way, which means we can all use less energy anyway, and hopefully, things will settle down again before too long.

I mean they could even temporarily stop taking their cut on the fuel couldn’t they. Imagine those prices at the pumps 🤪

Oh lovely! Monday morning and we've got our first rage-baiter of the week. Well done you OP. Well played.

Of course in an ideal world that would happen. But do you really want those incapable of that (through ignorance, low intelligence, disability or something else) to fall into debt and harm because they can’t?

Many adults in this country don’t understand money, bills, budgeting and don’t feel they have the capacity to learn. I wouldn’t like to leave them to starve while energy companies make profit.

The answer to your major question is yes.

I think handouts are pointless while the government is unwilling to sort out the bigger issue: the fact that privatised utility companies have constantly been allowed to rip off customers.

We need a government with the guts to re-nationalise water, gas and electricity supplies.

What a nasty post from someone who has clearly never been so poor that they have to choose between heating and eating.
The summer months are when we build up a little credit so we can heating our homes in the winter but this year we won't be able to as well be paying extra due to the war and cost of living going through the roof again

UK food costs are still well below most other western countries. And you’re expecting the government to help keep them lower? How long for?

If they can bail a bank out and not be repaid for the bail out then I think it can help it citizens

I was so hoping this would be about banks and water companies. I knew it wouldn't be though.

And how would that help the population? Less tax, less government spending and/or more national debt.

What’s the alternative? We hand out money we don’t have just because people are too stupid to cope? I think the better option would be to provide people with budgeting lessons, or have someone like the CAB offer a ‘pots’ project that helps those unable to manage by allocating their money automatically to bills etc and tell them what they have left for food each week. This cannot be too far off with AI etc can it?