{"id":61817,"date":"2022-02-08T08:01:49","date_gmt":"2022-02-08T13:01:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=61817"},"modified":"2022-02-08T08:01:49","modified_gmt":"2022-02-08T13:01:49","slug":"days-of-reckoning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=61817","title":{"rendered":"Days of reckoning"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"post-cover-head\">\n<div class=\"single-post-thumb single-has-thumb\">\n<div class=\"post-cover-title\">\n<h3 class=\"name post-title entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/consciousnessofsheep.co.uk\/2022\/02\/03\/days-of-reckoning\/\">Days of reckoning<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"content post-cover\">\n<article id=\"the-post\" class=\"post-listing post-6995 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail  category-energy\">\n<div class=\"post-inner\">\n<div class=\"entry\">\n<table id=\"amazon-polly-audio-table\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td id=\"amazon-polly-audio-tab\">\n<div id=\"amazon-ai-player-label\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"amazon-ai-player-container\"><audio id=\"amazon-ai-player\" class=\"amazon-ai-player\" preload=\"none\" controls=\"controls\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/audio><\/div>\n<div id=\"amazon-polly-by-tab\"><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>Here\u2019s something which will likely be universally unpopular:\u00a0<strong>\u00a0The government shouldn\u2019t do anything to subsidise energy prices.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>I say this in the face of a \u00a3700 or so increase on annual bills announced today.\u00a0 And this is just the beginning, because, as Nils Pratley at the\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/business\/nils-pratley-on-finance\/2022\/feb\/02\/rishi-sunak-household-energy-bill-rebates\">Guardian<\/a><\/em>\u00a0points out, when the price cap is raised again in October, it will add a further \u00a3300 to bills \u2013 just in time for next winter.<\/p>\n<p>To be clear, I am not arguing that millions of households should be left to choose between heat and food; I am merely pointing out that there are better and more effective ways of alleviating poverty than bailing out a private energy industry which is the victim of its own past follies.\u00a0 Rather, I agree with Torsten Bell from the\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.resolutionfoundation.org\/\">Resolution Foundation<\/a><\/em>, who told this morning\u2019s\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sounds\/play\/m0013zl6\">Today<\/a><\/em>\u00a0programme that the best way of addressing poverty is through increases in the benefits system.\u00a0 Restoring and adding to the \u00a320 a week cut from Universal Credit and the triple lock on pensions would be by far the most effective way of alleviating fuel poverty.<\/p>\n<p>The energy side of the crisis, however, requires sweeping restructuring which goes well beyond anything the government or the opposition are currently prepared to countenance \u2013 not least because the economic models they operate on are so out of step with the real world that they fail even to understand the problem, still less offer a workable solution.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why the energy cap failed<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The state-imposed energy cap, which is the focus of establishment media attention today, was always the wrong solution to the wrong problem.\u00a0 As I\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/consciousnessofsheep.co.uk\/2017\/10\/12\/energy-cap-wrong-answer-wrong-problem\/\">explained<\/a>\u00a0four and a half years ago:<\/p>\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Days of reckoning Here\u2019s something which will likely be universally unpopular:\u00a0\u00a0The government shouldn\u2019t do anything to subsidise energy prices.\u00a0\u00a0I say this in the face of a \u00a3700 or so increase on annual bills announced today.\u00a0 And this is just the beginning, because, as Nils Pratley at the\u00a0Guardian\u00a0points out, when the price cap is raised again [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[265,2488,16170,642,13351,30640,31360],"class_list":["post-61817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-energy-2","tag-energy-crisis","tag-energy-prices","tag-government-subsidies","tag-poverty","tag-price-inflation","tag-the-consciousness-of-sheep","tag-tim-watkins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61817"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61818,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61817\/revisions\/61818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}