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Monday 7 March 2022

Couldn't happen here



In North Korea via Daily NK
 
N. Hamgyong Province cracks down on side businesses to curb electricity use

The province must carry out national construction plans and the “people’s economic plans” with limited electricity supplied by state-run power plants, a source told Daily NK

North Hamgyong Province recently launched a large-scale crackdown on individuals with side businesses as part of efforts to curb their consumption of electricity.


Blimey - thank goodness there are no official plans to ration our use of electricity here in dear old Blighty. Only extreme totalitarian regimes seem to do things like that.

4 comments:

Sam Vega said...

Rationing will be interesting. As the suppliers are private companies, will the government directly interfere in the contractual arrangement between customers and suppliers? Or will they hobble the producers with green taxes or laws, limiting how much energy can be produced? Or will they just help pay for inefficient infrastructure so that there is insufficient for everyone's needs, and devil take the hindmost? That would spread out the blame, but I think they would have to put up a show of helping the poorest by spreading the pain across society.

People will soon start asking about the point of having a price cap, if it is going up by 54% on April Fool's Day.

Scrobs. said...

There's going to be another cap in September, just as customers are thinking that they're in the black (pun not intended), after the summer months!

You can bet your house that it'll go up again!

Andy said...

All of these increases in costs that I'm reading about are going to push inflation to historic highs. Just days before the covid thingy got the starting gun I was arranging my personal pension, I opted for a fixed income rather than index linked. I don't often have regrets but this is one decision which I might regret.

A K Haart said...

Sam - there must be some fraught discussions going on where nobody is willing to be standing at the lectern when a huge amount of brown stuff hits the fan - as they know it will.

Scrobs - I've just ordered a load of wood in anticipation.

Andy - I hope you don't end up regretting it, a spell of high inflation could be bad news for all of us.