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?

Of course those same apparently financially illiterate adults know exactly what benefits they are entitled to and how to get them. I would like much more vigorous checking of people receiving benefits, the examples from people on here and my own experiences show so many people getting benefits who shouldn't, working in the black economy and claiming, men and their partners living together with their children while claiming to be separate, disabled people who aren't. There are deserving people out there and they could get more if we weren't supporting scroungers. And then we have people on here saying leave them to it, it isn't a bottomless pit of money and it's costs us all in taxes. Benefits were meant to be a safety net, not a lifestyle.

Companies only exist if they can make profits you can argue about how much profit should be allowable, but profits in £ can look huge but as % of turnover can be not that ridiculous.

It's not a view that I alone hold. This article probably best reflects my outlook on the matter. It certainly isn't simplistic or about treating people as a homogeneous group. Quite the opposite in fact.

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-behavioral-aspects-of-poverty/

Are we getting a £200 bung, I missed that?

Totally agree

I'm British so don't have enough knowledge of American society to comment on an article about poverty in America, where the conclusions are based on a study of two Americans and their behaviour.
As I said before, I'm primarily influenced by the findings of the experts in the subject here. And, while I acknowledge that not all disadvantaged people behave in the same ways, and that some behaviours are more conducive to surviving poverty than others, some people are in circumstances which mean they can't do the 'right' things.
Changing that is not something we can achieve in time to offset the incoming financial crises of people already on or below the poverty line being hit with an additional expense that can tip them into destitution.
We can't help children in poverty by pointing out their parents should have 'finished high school', 'got a job' and 'had fewer children', can we?

As I understand it, Lloyds repaid the loan, but the taxpayer is out of pocket by £10.5bn from the bail out of RBS/NatWest.

Correct, not to mention the lost of opportunity that the taxpayer had to invest that money in other sectors that have outperformed the market exponentially and that money should’ve been in our pocket instead of Lloyd’s

It's kind of the whole point of having a government, pooling our resources in order to improve everyone's lives.

It truly blows my mind when people say you shouldn’t rely on the government
What other purpose Do they believe the government serves?

You’re not buying your energy directly from BP though. Producers are making lots of money. Retail suppliers aren’t.

Ofgem does cap what energy retailers can charge. It’s called the price cap.

Lots of European countries aren’t as dependent on gas for heating as well as for electricity as we are.

Our electricity market is coupled to the gas market as gas is still used to generate electricity. Moving to renewables/nuclear/storage will help with that. We use a system of marginal pricing so gas is often a price setter in the electricity market.

Moving away from gas for heating will help - we need to use heat pumps and heat networks instead. Our houses are also generally quite badly insulated and difficult to heat.

We don’t have enough gas storage so no buffer to manage price spikes.

Disband the government, then. Abolish tax. Make everything a dog eat dog world. I wonder how long you would survive.

This is literally one of the functions of government. Are you suggesting people should starve? Costs are now so high that for a lot of people there is no way of organising household budgets on a low income to make things work.

I'm sure you use 'government' resources anyway, OP. Never use the NHS? Were you born in an NHS hospital? State educated? Use the roads, use local council services?

@Katypp - you mentioned a £200 ‘bung’ to people, and said it wouldn’t
help the economy, but I’m not sure that is entirely true. I believe there has been research that shows that, when people on lower incomes are given extra money, they tend to spend it, which boosts their local economy (shops, pubs, hospitality etc).

@ScarlettSarah Not sure where you get I want to disband the Government from my OP - that's quite a jump! Also - and also to the others who said similar - the Government has quite a broad brief, but I am not aware of any statute that one of the functions of Government is to bail out households - if it is, it must be new because it only happened from Covid onwards. And yes, I do use NHS etc and pay tax to do so. I'm not sure how that is relevant anyway?

Just come back to this thread - I will try to answer other questions later.

We could end up with high inflation, higher mortgage rates, obviously much higher fuel and energy prices. This will stop people spending in other areas, which will lead to business failures and job losses.

So yeah, the government is right to consider stepping in. That is what governments are for. YABVU - potentially. It all depends on how much things go up.

It's fair enough to expect people to budget to some extent. But there has to be a line. Some people don't use their heating, but still have to pay the standing charge, which is ridiculous, and where the companies make their money by making sure we can't lower our bills much. Food is going up, we can change brands, change shops, but we still have to eat. People won't have planned their lives based on what things are like now. A budget that might have sufficed 10 years ago would now be a real struggle. The government shouldn't "bail people out" for being irresponsible, but they should make sure that the average person can afford to live. There is a difference.

YABU.

I do think the government should be helping out people with Oil heating, in the short term.

Heating oil is usually used because there is no option for gas, which would be subject to a price cap, so it makes that fairer.

Also, you can't buy just a little bit of oil, due to minimum orders, so users are looking at several hundreds more at once, with no pay-monthly option. People do plan and budget, but personally, I plan assuming 65p or less, not 1.40+.

Finally, people with heating oil are often in the far north of the country, where it is colder. When prices spiked, I reduced my thermostat to 16c and to two hours per day. The temperature dropped to 10c some days. It's up to about 16c now, but due to get colder next week.

I can absorb the cost, and also stand the cold. But I do think vulnerable and elderly people should get help. Even just over the next few months, and hopefully people will be able to save for next winter or prices will drop.

My question too.

^ This.

@leaflikebrew 'Absolutely - let's all learn resilience.
I'm 100 per cent positive that will help everybody.
Well done for pointing that out'

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

@Hoardasurass 'What a nasty post from someone who has clearly never been so poor that they have to choose between heating and eating.'

This kind of thing. Nit actually engaging in debate, just making smartarse comments.

By the way @Hoardasurass, I actually have been in that very position myself, but take a step back and see what is better for the common good, not just me.
I am a child of the 1970s. Only having the heating on for an hour or so a day was not ideal but did not make me feel it was anyone's responsibilty to help me out.

Agree.

Exactly this, if you give most ordinary people money they will spend it, therefore contributing to the economy.
Also it is in the governments best interests for the general public to be able to afford to live, including shopping and working.

The first form of defence is attack, some people are not capable of reasonable debate.

Also a child of the 70s and agree with you OP. BBC article about C.O.L crisis made me laugh out loud when the family who went to Pizza Express had 3 courses, extra drinks and toppings.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckg3g11z6d8o

Nope it’s a fact

It was introduced as part of the Financial Service Act 2013.