Member Info for machiismo

I sit and moan because everyone in this country is being shafted by increasing gas and electricity prices while the companies that set the prices for these commodities are magically making record profits.

If you are happy at being fleeced by some of the richest companies on the planet, then that says more about you than it does about me. I assure you, I speak for the vast majority of the people in this country.

Oh how would we EVER survive without billionaires?!

God the capitalist sycophants never cease to amaze. I assure you, you'll never be part of their club, no matter how much you lick their boots.

Billionaires should not exist, billionaires are an example of a system that is broken.

If we had a sensible corporate tax rate that wasn't open to abuse, then again we wouldn't need any of these things.

As always the fault lies at lack of sensible regulation.

Theo that's the whole point of this thread.

If they are threatening to remove investment due to taxation, do you really think that they are acting in the interest of the people of this country, or do you think they are acting in the interest of their shareholder?

None of it would matter if we have sensible regulation that capped their profits rather than allowing them to pilfer as much from society as they want.

So Shell have had 6 quarters in total over the last 13 years where they haven't made huge profit? Oh wow they must be really struggling...

I guess we should just ignore that their highest ever operating profits just happen to coincide with a cost-of-living crisis. I'm sure the two aren't related whatsoever.

No, the system is working perfectly. It's communism to tax a company making record profits on the back of millions of people in the UK. It's communism to expect critical public resources to be regulated fairly.

It's like there are zero ethics from the loons on here. How anyone can defend the obscene wealth transfer from the poorest in society to the very wealthiest is beyond me. I cannot wrap my head around it.

Skier I literally just linked you to website with the data that shows Shell have made a huge gross profit every year for a decade and your response to that is to double down with your crap?

Again you don't seem to understand that margins and year-on-year percentages don't mean anything without knowing the actual figures.

Your statement that they have lost money is demonstrably false. You are telling porkies. I have linked you to the official figures from Shell that prove your statement is a lie. It really doesn't matter if their margins are high or low, that isn't the point you made. And when their gross profit has been in the tens of billions every year (including a record $80B this last year), they are CLEARLY not operating a loss.

Stop spreading lies.

£350 million promised per week from Brexit? Let's start there.

LOL I forgot for a second there that every fact skier comes out with isn't a complete lie.

Shell have literally not made any less than $20B in gross profit for any hear in the last decade.

(https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/SHEL/shell/gross-profit)

Shell gross profit for the quarter ending September 30, 2022 was $21.741B, a 89.93% increase year-over-year.
Shell gross profit for the twelve months ending September 30, 2022 was $99.493B, a 81.02% increase year-over-year.
Shell annual gross profit for 2021 was $72.5B, a 79.66% increase from 2020.
Shell annual gross profit for 2020 was $40.354B, a 42.62% decline from 2019.
Shell annual gross profit for 2019 was $70.331B, a 4.76% decline from 2018.

You realize you are complaining about the NHS being underfunded and understaffed while also attacking taxation and and defending Brexit right?

It boggles the mind that you're allowed to vote.

We are moving to a cashless economy, there's no two ways about it. We have been doing so for an extremely long time.

I don't particularly see any reason to keep high street banks open to serve a tiny number of clientele that refuse to move on with the times.

You do not need to be a computer genius to learn how to operate online or telephone banking. That said, if they are shutting high street banks, they best make sure they have processes in place for people without smartphones or computers.

I'm sure they probably already do.

"Not the job of a large corporation to bail out a Govt with a poor economic strategy."

Gas is a fundamental part of a functioning society, it is needed for literally everything to work. If you have a small cartel that controls the price of gas (since OFCOM has decided to abandon their jobs as regulator) then they can literally hold the government and society to ransom for excess profits. There is NOTHING stopping these energy companies from tripling or quadrupling their prices until the entire economy collapses. They are literally pushing every single person and business in the country to the very edge of breaking to maximize their bottom line.

This is why energy companies SHOULD be nationalized, but in leiu of that, you need a strong regulatory board to cap prices otherwise you end up with energy companies making record profits, which just so happens to coincide with a cost-of-living crisis.

Do I need to spell it out any further? Greed from companies like Shell directly contribute to inflation. They drive the cost of every single business up, while making huge sums of money by doing so.

Stop advocating for late/end stage capitalism. Fair taxation and robust regulation on gigantic mega-corps is the only way society can survive the relentless greed of companies that are, as you say, only beholden to shareholders.

Either support nationalization or support regulation (including high taxation) otherwise you are literally advocating for gas conglomerates to have complete power over society.

"Shell to review £25b investment in the UK cos of windfall tax."

OR "company blackmails UK by threatening to remove investment despite record profits"

It's time the UK government grew a spine. Ah who am I kidding, the Tories are in power.

It's funny how all the other G7 nations are back to where they were pre-covid, yet the UK is the only one with a smaller economy. It's funny how we spend more on gas than any other nation on the planet. It's funny how living standards are falling at the fastest rates on record. It's funny how there are huge fiscal holes that have magically appeared. It's funny how every sector is struggling with rising costs, lack of workers and industrial action.

I say it's funny because blaming it on Putin's war in Ukraine is quite the hilarious joke. Of course it's Putin, it's COVID, it was also Labour 12 years ago. It's definitely not the huge economic shock we inflected on ourselves six years ago. It's definitely also not the party that has been in power for the last 12 years.

It's all just magically happening and no one is to blame.

What "left-wing rhetoric" is Epro promoting exactly?

I'm more concerned that 4 out of 5 are in complete denial. It's kind of scary how out of touch people are with reality. I guess if you are isolated in some Little England village surrounded by wealthy retirees you have zero interaction with the average worker in this country. It's honestly quite scary how detached people are from the actual situation going on.

Like I said, I guarantee it's something he does, and he thinks everything is as mental as him. Project project project. It's the Tory way.

It's like when he bangs on with his anti-immigrant rhetoric, but then calls all SNP supporters r@cists. It's mental. He's mental.

So you don't want me to explain to you the differences between civic and ethno nationalism?

Every day is a school day, nothing wrong with learning, even in your advanced years.

Btw Lokiloo, I can absolutely guarantee you that Gate13 posts on alternate accounts.

Methinks the lady doth protest too much.

Gate13

You can keep repeating nonsense all you want, that doesn't make it true. Do I need to explain to you further the difference between civic nationalism and ethno nationalism?

I'll give you a clue, the second one doesn't like migrants... So guess which category you fall into...

Thicko.

SNP is a centre-left party which believes in civic nationalism. That isn't nationalism. Civic nationalism is traditional liberal values of freedom, tolerance, equality, individual rights and has no ethnocentrism.

I'm aware things like freedom, tolerance, and equality are difficult for you to wrap your head around...

Obviously you don't understand what the SNP stands for if you think it's a nationalist party.