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Jakeinspace t1_j90j05a wrote

Reply to comment by atchijov in Globally, the total cost of energy for households has likely increased between 62.6% and 112.9% since Russia invaded Ukraine, say international researchers. An additional 78–141 million people worldwide could be pushed into extreme poverty as a result of these increases. by MistWeaver80

I'm no economist but the way I see it, when the supply of fuel is restricted or limited, we can either completely run out or invoke a rationing system. I'm pretty sure it would be political suicide for any western polititian to suggest war-time era fuel rationing, so it's rationed by price - supply and demand - the price goes up untill people can't afford to use it.

Governments are also making record amounts of money from the rise in fuel prices. In the UK a good chunk of what we pay at the pump is in fuel tax. At one point last year the government knocked ~5% off the fuel price to help reduce the cost of living crisis, even then they were making more money from fuel tax than before the start of the Ukraine-Russsia war due to the increased overall prices of fuel.

In my opinion, we should certainly be imposing a windfall tax on these energy companies. They've indirectly made a lot of money at the expense of millions of people's quality of life. (And thousands of people's actual lives)

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mnvoronin t1_j90nk73 wrote

>In my opinion, we should certainly be imposing a windfall tax on these energy companies.

You may find it interesting that Gazprom, Russian gas monopoly, was slapped with a windfall tax last year and ended up paying almost all of its extra profits back to the government.

Unfortunately, western governments seem to be toothless.

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thelazylazyme t1_j90xaza wrote

You mean Putin found an easy way to source some funds for his invasion of Ukraine?

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Candid_Ashma t1_j90xwj2 wrote

Spain does/will have a windfall tax on banks and energy companies.

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GANTRITHORE t1_j91x33s wrote

>. Unfortunately, western governments seem to be toothless.

How much help did oil companies get early pandemic when prices tanked to below $0?

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zeldestein t1_j9j1p3w wrote

> How much help did oil companies get early pandemic when prices tanked to below $0?

Bizzare question especially when considering the timeline and the end results of what happened during COVID lockdowns.

Are you unaware of government subsidies for fossil fuel companies? And have you never heard of PPP funds?

To my knowledge, claiming that oil companies received no assistance during covid when their prices went to $0, they received a lot of funds in fact. So much assistance in fact that they came out ahead and made serious coin.

They received anywhere from $3 to $7 billion dollars in this country alone for the period.

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