British Gas has just put up home heating gas by 35%, thus placing some 6 million households in the UK in ‘fuel poverty’ – i.e. having to decide between heating their home or feeding their belly. I’m expecting more elderly than usual to die this winter.
It is going up because of the ‘international situation’.
What does this mean? Well, as far as I can see it is all to do with the decision to link gas prices to oil prices. As oil goes up, so does gas. But the point is, their costs haven’t.
Are you beginning to feel ripped off yet? Well, let me put it plain and simple. If the CEOs stopped the link between gas and oil, the cost of home heating could fall massively without hurting the gas companies. So why doesn’t it happen?
Well, I suppose ‘shareholders’ wouldn’t like it.
But what ARE shareholders nowadays? Well, very few ‘people’ own large shares. The controlling shares of most of Big Biz belong to the mortgage and pension funds, whose decisions are made by a small number of other CEOs.
CEOs, it seems, are ruling the world – and maybe as few as 500 of them! Which is, of course, why I often call us ‘serfs’ nowadays. So, are you getting the picture? CEOs are our guardians, guaranteeing that your mortgage and pension doesn’t collapse by ripping you off so much that you can’t afford to pay your mortgage and pension … but don’t worry, Big Biz would still own your house, so they won’t lose. And well, if pensions collapse, they just don’t pay out, so they CAN’T lose.
But why is this so important? Well, maybe because if you didn’t pay in to a fat mortgage and pension plan, they wouldn’t have the money to HAVE their Big Biz in the first place.
No, business and society would be much smaller, more customer, environment and service orientated, and politicians would actually still be running our countries for us.
Ah! Serfdom is such a subtle thing nowadays.
© Anthony North, July 2008
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