If you are reading this you are, like me, one of the survivors, the lucky ones, if you can call it luck, surviving that damn storm. Sometimes i think it was those souls we lost who are the real lucky ones. We've been abandoned on this cursed Earth to pick up the remains of whats left of society, to try and raise humanity from the ashes of despair... its episode 2 (3) of TAWA and for no particular reason its about heating bills (yawn).
I'm no expert at consumer pieces, if i'm totally honest when i watch the hilarious Rogue Traders on BBC's award winning consum-o-whinge Watchdog I almost always route for the cowboy. So i am arguably the least qualified person to be writing this. But seeing as how no-ones going to read it i shouldn't worry about that too much.
Before i carry on, let me just defend that last statement. I'm a heartless prick... but that's not the reason i feel the way i do. I do not sympathize with villains, i in no way condone people ripping other people off, or being dis-honest or taking money from those who need it most. That's not my bag at all, i assure you. I just happen to have very little sympathy for morons - and though its by no means a universal truth it is pretty easy to avoid being ripped off. For me, seeing fools parted from their money has an almost Darwinian poetry about it.
We have more consumer avenues than ever, the latest studies show that almost 47% of the internet is consumer reviews. No matter what product or service you require within 10 seconds you can find 3 or 4 reputable suppliers and read detailed reviews on all of them using the google. And it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to realize that if the company you are looking at have no reviews and little to no digital footprint they probably ain't that kosher, so don't use them, bonehead.
Yes, its safe to say that most of the time i have as much sympathy for some gullible buffoon wiring money to Nigeria to free up his inheritance as i do for those chromosomely challenged half-wits who get mauled by Tigers at zoos for leaning over the fence - both shitty things to happen that are entirely avoidable.
But there are some ways in which we all get bamboozled by fleecing con-men, ways where we have no choice about getting diddled or not - we just have to pull our trousers down bend over and hope for the best, even if the best we can hope for is a great big cock of injustice slipped right up the harris. One of the more common forms of forced rube-ing we have to endure is energy prices. We all need electricity and warmth and we are forced to pick from a handful of greasy, crooked, take the slippers off your dead-nan's-feet suppliers.
Its illegal to have a monopoly in any area of business, this is a good thing as it will generate a competitive market, in order for businesses to win greater market share. It is designed to encourage companies to offer better service at greater value in order to get hold of our hard earned spendo. This principal works some of the time however with certain industries it is incredibly hard to generate competition and the energy business is one of these. Its not as if I could start flogging gas using Ebay and a PayPal account is it? (or could I???).
The problem we have with the energy industry is we only have the illusion of a competitive market where as what we really have in reality is a conglomerate of like-minded business men working together to protect a mutual interest. They can carry on raising prices year-on-year as long as they all raise them in harmony. And we are all powerless to stop them, unless we unplug our lives and start living off natural resources like a bunch of stinking hippies. And that's just not a realistic option.
And with half the drug intake, a quarter of the vocabulary and but a mere fraction of the grade A fanny of Russell Brand i've manged to highlight a problem we were all well aware of and offered absolutely no solution other than some unrealistic form of apathy.
Woe.
@defmoss83 i dont twit much (am i saying it right?)
What we should do RBA is harness something we're good at.
ReplyDeleteSo let's take cycling.
We're pretty good at that and I'm sure the Team Sky riders wouldn't fancy cycling out in this weather (too cold and dark) for them
Get their turbo trainers linked up to the natiuonal grid,set them off on some ludicrous training run and bosh Blackpool Illuminations has nothing to fear.
They're all cunts, all of them, damn electricity and gas having bastards.
ReplyDeleteI gaze out of the cafe window, over the dyke at what used to be all fields, well truthely they still are, but now they are cluttered with big arse wind turbines generating untold amounts of what they are telling us is - clean green energy.
Now, when it comes to energy I'm pretty colour blind, red, yellow, black, white brown, green, it's all the same to me, but cheap? that's the bit that confuses me, I pay over a grand per month, how the fuck is that cheap?
I understand that this is an old building, so I replaced all the boilers and gas tanks, the works, I was told it would save me money in the long run, they were kind of right, it has saved me a lot of money that I usually would spend going out or doing other stuff with, because I havn't got it anymore, it all went to pay for those friggin energy saving devices, by the time i'll actually start paying less, inflation and tax rises would have made the energy bills higher again anyway. Shitbags!!
I don't know what i pay for stuff because i never look. Works for me.
ReplyDelete