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Obscene Energy Companies' Profits

(60 Posts)
Dinahmo Thu 28-Jul-22 12:35:20

Today Centrica announced $1.34 bn profits for the first half of this year. Shell announced £10bn quarterly profits. These are the companies that provide energy to the UK. Whilst thousands of people are having difficulty in paying their energy bills at the moment and which will be going up again later this year the directors and shareholders of these companies will be rubbing their hands together with glee.

But will the govt do anything? I think the answer is a resounding NO.

I've posted this again because I think the original heading was misleading.

Gabrielle56 Mon 01-Aug-22 15:14:58

Lilyflower

Most of the shareholders of large companies are investment bodies like pension funds rather than individuals with gold plated Rolls Royces. My DH was a pension trustee and said most people don't know it but the money goes to ordinary individuals in the long run through pension providers paying out to their members.

Additionally, much profit is needed for research, exploration and development. We urgently need power and fuel companies to be exploring new gas fields and technologies to replace power sources coming offline and that is exactly what companies do with much of their money.

Furthermore, wealthy individuals spend their (taxed) income which goes into the economy, funds jobs and is taxed again through VAT.

Do we want to live in Marxist style authoritarian regimes where we are assigned a bleak government flat where it chooses to place us and have to wait ten years for a clapped out car? The price of not living like slaves is that successful companies share their wealth.

Are you for real?! If you think that very wealthy people spend their money and pay taxes in UK you're more ignorant than you even sound ? my BiL a very very wealthy Saudi national, stashes his dosh in Switzerland and has his domicile in Saudi even though he spends most time in UK and USA.only time he spends in UK is to buy furnishings for his homes here and they're also sourced mostly in Europe so not actually made here! He earns A LOT of his dosh in UK but wouldn't pay by our taxes if his life depended on it! You're s naïve.
And your Karl Marx vision of the alternative, ? I can only assume you're poorly educated and never worked with ordinary People who vote labour or lib dem? Shame really, you sound as if your life has been a wasted ticket, brainwashed by trying to climb the 'social ladder ' real people do real jobs and expect to be remunerated accordingly without a fist fight at every anniversary!! I'm assuming you can look up what " remunerated" means?

kjmpde Mon 01-Aug-22 15:23:28

I heard that the profits were those worldwide - not just the UK.

Private firms are there to make money for shareholders

Bijou Mon 01-Aug-22 15:41:06

It was so much easier before the utilities were privatised and we didn’t have to line the pockets of the shareholders.

BellaT2 Mon 01-Aug-22 22:28:17

There is a movement starting to fight back against enery increases. Details at dontpay.uk

BellaT2 Mon 01-Aug-22 22:42:45

Energy

pen50 Tue 02-Aug-22 07:19:01

gangy5

It is sickening to see these large profits being made by the privatised utility companies. This is partly causing the gap to widen between the haves and have nots. There is obviously enough profit floating around in these companies to provide for investment without relying on shareholders. This system is tipping me into becoming an ardent socialist.
Smaller fish I know, but Aldi and Lidl, are now giving the larger supermarkets a run for their money. Efficiently run businesses who give value to shoppers and look after their staff. Their prime asset is that they have no shareholders looking for dividends.

Nowadays the shareholders tend to be pension and insurance funds. The greedy so-and-sos milking the system for everything they can grab are the executive directors who are paid obscene basic salaries which are then multiplied by heads I win tails you lose bonus agreements. They have traditionally done this by keeping costs as low as possible through the power of cheap foreign labour, outsourcing manufacturing to Asia, using the power of near monopoly to ratchet down supply prices... The current world situation has rather stymied these tried and tested routes to personal extreme wealth but no doubt they will find others - for example they can push prices up by unjustified percentages when price rises are expected anyway - who's going to check that supply costs really have gone up by 20%?

effalump Tue 02-Aug-22 17:25:02

The U.S. Govenment are, hopefully in the very near future, about to release 6000 patents that had been suppressed. Some of these are patents taken out by Nicola Tesla a hundred years ago and one is likely to be his technology for accessing free electricity. Just think, if this is true it would be a complete kick up the 'jacksie' for the energy companies, wouldn't it.

Katie59 Wed 03-Aug-22 07:20:02

effalump

The U.S. Govenment are, hopefully in the very near future, about to release 6000 patents that had been suppressed. Some of these are patents taken out by Nicola Tesla a hundred years ago and one is likely to be his technology for accessing free electricity. Just think, if this is true it would be a complete kick up the 'jacksie' for the energy companies, wouldn't it.

Accessing free electricity is easy, illegal cannabis growers do it all the time, but it is dangerous and they are criminals.

volver Wed 03-Aug-22 07:45:49

Tesla's idea was that electricity could be generated in such a way that it was available to all, hence "free". When hydroelectric power was first introduced in Scotland, the belief was that it would be so cheap to produce that it wouldn't be worth charging people for it. That didn't quite work out.

I'm not going to hold my breath for "suppressed patents". Nor am I going to think that were going to get useful electricity from nothing. As Scotty said, "ye canna change the laws of physics, captain."