{"id":66840,"date":"2024-02-15T07:33:20","date_gmt":"2024-02-15T12:33:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=66840"},"modified":"2024-02-15T07:33:20","modified_gmt":"2024-02-15T12:33:20","slug":"in-brief-the-energy-death-spiral-grows-another-bad-omen-hobsons-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=66840","title":{"rendered":"In Brief: The energy death spiral grows; Another bad omen; Hobsons choice"},"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\/2023\/12\/15\/in-brief-the-energy-death-spiral-grows-another-bad-omen-hobsons-choice\/\">In Brief: The energy death spiral grows; Another bad omen; Hobsons choice<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"content post-cover\">\n<article id=\"the-post\" class=\"post-listing post-10141 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail  category-in-brief\">\n<div class=\"post-inner\">\n<div class=\"entry\">\n<p><strong>The energy death spiral grows<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Although it is far from obvious, Ofgem \u2013 Britain\u2019s energy regulator is supposed to act in the interest of energy consumers.\u00a0 As the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/organisations\/ofgem#:~:text=The%20Office%20of%20Gas%20and,industries%20to%20achieve%20environmental%20improvements.\">UK government<\/a>\u00a0explains:<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cThe Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem) regulates the monopoly companies which run the gas and electricity networks.\u00a0 It takes decisions on price controls and enforcement, acting in the interests of consumers and helping the industries to achieve environmental improvements.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This will come as a surprise to the millions of UK households struggling to pay energy bills which are \u2013 now state subsidies have been withdrawn \u2013 higher this winter than last.\u00a0 Indeed, we are now entering our third winter of eye-wateringly high energy prices, with no obvious respite in sight\u2026 the only consolation being that the closure of Britain\u2019s heavy industries has at least prevented widespread power outages so far.<\/p>\n<p>On the downside though, among the millions of households\u00a0<em>struggling<\/em>\u00a0to pay their bills are thousands \u2013 and growing \u2013 of households who are in default.\u00a0 Not least because increased energy costs are hitting just at the point when general inflation has eaten into wages, when the Bank of England has jacked up interest rates (causing rents and mortgage payments to spike) and when governments (national and local) have decided to raise taxes to cover their own excessive debt.<\/p>\n<p>So, what to do about the growing outstanding debt to the energy companies?\u00a0 A genuinely consumer orientated regulator might tell the energy companies to eat the loss \u2013 perhaps taking the hit to shareholder dividends or senior management remuneration.\u00a0 Alternatively, since this issue isn\u2019t going away any time soon, they might tell government that now is the time to bring an end to this quasi-market farce and take the energy monopolies back into public ownership&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Brief: The energy death spiral grows; Another bad omen; Hobsons choice The energy death spiral grows Although it is far from obvious, Ofgem \u2013 Britain\u2019s energy regulator is supposed to act in the interest of energy consumers.\u00a0 As the\u00a0UK government\u00a0explains: \u201cThe Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem) regulates the monopoly companies which run [&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":[2,3,4],"tags":[31147,9376,17899,431,13351,31360],"class_list":["post-66840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-energy-2","category-environment","tag-consciousness-of-sheep","tag-death-spiral","tag-hobsons-choice","tag-interest-rates","tag-price-inflation","tag-tim-watkins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66840","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=66840"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66840\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66841,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66840\/revisions\/66841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=66840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=66840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=66840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}