Jakeinspace

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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