What if we all just refuse to pay for electricity?

Adam: [00:00:25] Hello and welcome to comedian versus economist. We demystify the world of money and help you get a handle on the bigger picture. My name's Adam and we're joined, as always, by my little older brother and real life economist Thomas. Hi, Thomas. Yeah. [00:00:38][13.4]

Thomas: [00:00:38] Good. Adam, how you doing? [00:00:39][0.8]

Adam: [00:00:40] Good. Thank you, as always. Massive show coming up. Before we get stuck in there, if you could leave us a rating or a review, even give it five stars and leave some kind words. We would very much appreciate it. Massive show coming up. Thomas. America now has an Inflation Reduction Act. Catch that and many more great acts performing at Fin Fest, October 15th. Walmart subscription service Wal-Mart Plus wants to launch a streaming service. The place for all your homewares dramas, I guess. Not sure what's going on there. And the Don't Pay UK campaign is gaining momentum. Is it just a storm in an English breakfast teacup? We'll get to that a bit later. But first, Thomas, Qantas head office staff have been told to pack their bags. No, wait. Sorry, they've been told to pack your bags. Thomas, what's happening? [00:01:30][50.8]

Speaker 1: [00:01:31] Oh, no. Yeah, there's a memo. [00:01:35][4.1]

Thomas: [00:01:35] Going out to head office staff, asking them to volunteer to take part in frontline airport assisting roles. So baggage handling, being. Being one of. [00:01:45][9.4]

Speaker 1: [00:01:45] Them, right? [00:01:45][0.2]

Thomas: [00:01:46] Yeah. Apparently they're quite short staffed in the. [00:01:49][2.7]

Adam: [00:01:50] Yeah. I wonder if this compresses like here, you know a lot of organisations have volunteering days where you can volunteer in the community. [00:01:56][6.7]

Speaker 1: [00:02:00] I volunteer. [00:02:00][0.3]

Adam: [00:02:02] By packing Cantor's bags for a day. [00:02:04][1.8]

Speaker 1: [00:02:05] Well made with the company. They wouldn't have to pay me. So yeah, it's a win win. Yeah. Markets responded positively to the labour cost cutting measures and right now they're still short. [00:02:18][12.5]

Thomas: [00:02:18] Staffed and they're having a they're having a terrible time at the moment. I saw that somewhat. Someone egged Alan Joyce's house last week. Yeah, the week before or something. People were so angry about it. Like it's pretty, you know, that's premeditated anger. Um, you know, get a bias, Megs. Find out where he lives. [00:02:38][20.1]

Adam: [00:02:39] And eggs aren't cheap. No. [00:02:40][1.6]

Speaker 1: [00:02:42] All right, so talk about commitment. [00:02:44][1.9]

Thomas: [00:02:45] Yeah. They're having a they're having a bit of a way, a woeful time. 8.1% of domestic services were cancelled in June. [00:02:52][7.0]

Adam: [00:02:53] Wow. 41. Yeah, that's a lot. Yeah. [00:02:56][2.2]

Thomas: [00:02:56] It's almost one in ten. That's a lot. Yeah. Like, it's we were, we were looking at booking some flights and we actually had to ask the question about whether we're going to go with Qantas because we just weren't sure, you know, wanted one in ten chance that you just your flight is going to get cancelled. [00:03:09][12.2]

Adam: [00:03:10] This is excellent news. I'm flying next week. I'm flying next Wednesday. [00:03:13][3.7]

Speaker 1: [00:03:14] Yeah, yeah, right. [00:03:15][1.4]

Adam: [00:03:17] It's okay. I'm not flying Qantas. I'm flying Jetstar. So I imagine that will get priority. [00:03:22][5.2]

Speaker 1: [00:03:24] Yeah. [00:03:24][0.0]

Adam: [00:03:25] If you are handling my bags next week, there is a solid. [00:03:27][2.1]

Speaker 1: [00:03:27] With you flipping through. Yeah. Thanks Alan. Thanks Alan. Yeah. Yeah. And the rest of the executive team. Yeah. [00:03:35][7.8]

Thomas: [00:03:35] So the 8.8.1 was in a cancelled, 46% of flights are delayed or airlines are struggling because you had this sort of this whiplash effect where everything shut down and then it reopened more strongly than expected. Um, they're under-resourced because they shed a lot of resources during the pandemic, so they're all struggling. But that 46% of delayed flights is more than double the number. The figure in the US. [00:04:00][24.8]

Adam: [00:04:01] This is a we laid off too many staff story or is this a covered still around kind of keeping our workforce from working story or is it a bit of both? [00:04:09][8.8]

Thomas: [00:04:10] It's a bit of both. The airline was yeah. Was pointing to the COVID sickness and COVID has been doing the rounds so that that I think that is in the mix. Yeah, they did but they did sack a lot of staff like I saw one number, a few different reports. What I saw as much as 8000 people was sacked, some baggage handling was the baggage handlers were sacked and then a contractors were brought in to handle the baggage handling. And that that was that got challenged in the courts and the Federal Court said that that was unlawful. Qantas is in the process of challenging, appealing that decision. But yeah, they did, they did go on a massive downsizing and yeah. Now seem like they're just under-resourced across the, across the whole organisation. [00:04:54][44.1]

Adam: [00:04:56] Right. And so didn't they. They got a bunch of money during COVID denying it in the government quite a lot. Give them a bit of stimuli. [00:05:02][6.8]

Speaker 1: [00:05:03] Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's plopped them. [00:05:05][2.3]

Thomas: [00:05:06] Stimulus right in there. $2 billion of bailout money for a gala. [00:05:11][5.8]

Speaker 1: [00:05:14] And I said, thank you for the 2 billion. [00:05:15][1.9]

Adam: [00:05:16] We're going to lay some people off. [00:05:17][1.2]

Thomas: [00:05:17] It's kind of the nature of it. I mean, it was an emergency, but like it's one of the criticisms of job keeper and all the stimulus packages is that there was no account. And ability and know like commitments like so for that $2 billion, there wasn't a commitment to maintain service levels. There wasn't a commitment to maintain staff levels. There wasn't a commitment or anything. It was this $2 billion. [00:05:36][19.2]

Adam: [00:05:37] Yeah. [00:05:37][0.0]

Thomas: [00:05:38] And that's not chicken feed like the entire Qantas company is worth $3 billion. [00:05:43][4.7]

Speaker 1: [00:05:44] So so it's like. Right. It's a lot of money. [00:05:48][4.6]

Thomas: [00:05:49] I mean, effectively, the government could have bought two thirds of Qantas and sort of taken it over if they wanted to for that money. But it kind of seems they just sort of. Qantas took the money and ran with it and then used used the crisis as an excuse to I mean they've had problems with the with the unionised for quite a while like it was I think back in 2010 when I was Alan Joyce became a celebrity. It was because he he grounded the entire Qantas fleet to deal with, deal with the union problem. Right. And so there have been there's been some troubles there for a while. And it does seem it does look like they've used this opportunity with everyone sort of stuck at home or or furloughed to sort of clean house and sort of shed a lot of the workforce and rejig their arrangements. Move took more contractors and those sort of things, which is like when and to be fair to Qantas, when Virgin came in, they came in without the legacy union arrangements that Qantas had and then and worked with a much more agile kind of structure and had more contractors and that sort of thing. So I think the contours of seeing this, see, it's all COVID as a as a chance to sort of reset their sort of industrial relations regime. [00:07:00][71.5]

Speaker 1: [00:07:01] Right. [00:07:01][0.0]

Thomas: [00:07:02] But it sort of was just sort of bad timing. And now they're now they're getting hammered book with the lack of staff. That said, they did take that $2 billion and do a lot of things with it. So they bought they replaced their fleet of planes and they bought Alliance Aviation, used those charter flights to fly in, fly out. Right. Yeah. And then gave their executives some bonuses. So I think that people are saying, like, well, was that the best use of that money? And like, well, you had them, you had that money. You can't now complain, like all the services has gone to custard. You know, and well, that was what the $2 billion was supposed to stop from happening to stop that from happening. [00:07:40][37.8]

Adam: [00:07:41] So and arguably now, if they're like paying their C-suite to pack bags, they're paying way too much for baggage handling. All right, Thomas. So America now has the Inflation Reduction Act. Could it really be as exciting as it sounds? [00:08:02][20.8]

Thomas: [00:08:05] No, it's not as exciting as it sounds. But it did get up last week, got through the Senate and it was hotly contested. So it's seen as a win. It's seen as a win for Joe Biden and the Democrats that they they got this thing over the line. It's being sold as the Inflation Reduction Act. And I mean, it's a hot topic. It's the it's the number one topic in America right now. So, yeah. [00:08:27][22.0]

Adam: [00:08:27] So their inflation's at like 9% or something, isn't it. [00:08:30][2.2]

Thomas: [00:08:30] Yeah. 8.5%. Right. That's down from 9.1 in June, which is a record highs. It is the little we've got inflation in July at 0%, which kind of gave people like, oh, maybe it's not so bad, right? Annual inflation dropped to 8.5%, but 8.5% still very high. [00:08:44][14.7]

Adam: [00:08:45] This is a perfect time then to introduce a policy like this. The inflation rate, like it's it's yeah. Like to bring it in once you've seen it start to go down. Let's, let's bring it on now and then just ride this baby home as we take credit as the reduction the Inflation Reduction Act that we've put together now takes credit for any decrease in inflation from here on out. After we've seen I don't know. Have we seen the peak? [00:09:12][26.7]

Speaker 1: [00:09:12] Well, possibly. [00:09:13][1.0]

Thomas: [00:09:14] Possibly. But you don't know for sure. I don't know for sure. I mean, oil prices came off and that's what drove the the weaker number in July, right? Yeah. Well. [00:09:23][8.9]

Adam: [00:09:24] I don't know because stocks are doing well this year. [00:09:26][2.1]

Thomas: [00:09:26] Markets buoyant since bull market. [00:09:29][2.9]

Speaker 1: [00:09:30] Yeah. Bye bye bye. Uh, no, don't buy. [00:09:37][6.9]

Adam: [00:09:37] No, no, not a buy or sell recommendation. Um, so will the Inflation Reduction Act actually do what it says in the can? Is it going to mean is it going to actually reduce inflation or is it going to happen anyway? [00:09:47][10.1]

Thomas: [00:09:48] My read of what's in the package is that if inflation goes down from here, it won't really be thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act. And I think if we're honest, the inflation reduction reduction isn't really trying to reduce inflation. That's not what it's. [00:10:03][15.2]

Speaker 1: [00:10:04] Not what it's about. I love politics. Yeah. I mean, they do this. [00:10:10][5.3]

Thomas: [00:10:10] In America, they give these acts grand names, but that they're all spin is like Trump had the Clean Air Act, which was all about gutting the Environmental Protection Agency and increasing pollution because of the Clean Air Act or something. [00:10:23][12.9]

Adam: [00:10:23] Yeah, right. [00:10:23][0.2]

Thomas: [00:10:24] They do that in America. You know, 70% of Americans think inflation's a very big problem. 44% think it's the number one issue in America right now. So, yes, it has that has that sell ability. They're spending $370 billion in the package. So there's a lot of spending going into it. There's doing things there. There's energy security and climate change. There's more health care, there's funding for drought relief, a few other things like that. So there's a big spending package, but at the same time, they're raising $740 billion in new taxes, yet introducing a 15% minimum tax rate on large corporations. [00:11:03][39.3]

Adam: [00:11:04] So is that how they're reducing inflation by taxing everyone more, which then leaves less money going around? [00:11:11][6.8]

Thomas: [00:11:12] That's the idea. That's the idea. That's how you get away with calling it an Inflation Reduction Act is it's taking more money out of the economy than it's putting in, which, unlike that, that level is true. But if you look at the timing, like the Penn Wharton budget model, Penn Wharton's like a I think an independent, nonpartisan think tank. [00:11:32][20.6]

Adam: [00:11:33] You know, I don't think you need to tell us. We've been is. [00:11:35][1.8]

Speaker 1: [00:11:42] All over the model all over. Yeah. Yeah. Well. [00:11:45][3.4]

Thomas: [00:11:46] As you would know, I. [00:11:47][1.2]

Speaker 1: [00:11:48] Think the time the timing's. [00:11:51][3.0]

Thomas: [00:11:52] All out. So the bill, the way it starts to the moment, actually increases the deficit over the next four years. And 90% of the deficit reduction happens from 2029 through to 2031. So it's like several years from now. Yeah, inflation's a problem right now. Like it's it's a problem today and it's a problem this month. If you want to deal with it, you need to deal with it right now. Cutting back on government spending or what the government's contributing to the economy back out in 2029 isn't really going to help you help you right now. [00:12:24][32.2]

Adam: [00:12:25] Is there anything we can learn from this? I mean, is it too early to say? Is it do we need our own Inflation Reduction Act? [00:12:31][6.3]

Thomas: [00:12:31] Potentially we will. I mean, I think we're sort of heading inflation. Australia's heading that way. I mean what was interesting I think is you get it's it's hard, it's easy to give people money. [00:12:41][10.2]

Speaker 1: [00:12:43] Through. [00:12:43][0.0]

Thomas: [00:12:43] Food, through the government, through federal spending. It's much harder to take it away. Right. And this is what this is trying to do. But you know anyone who. It's their money taken away from them is unhappy and you create enemies and that creates political problems. So I think we're going to face the same thing in Australia that, you know, a lot of the spending that sort of flowed into the economy through COVID is going to be hard to unwind that without making people upset. You think about like a tourism support package, like it's easy to make the case like, well, tourism hasn't recovered yet. Like, don't be taking away our money. But every sector is going to be making an argument like that. So it's hard for for federal governments to wind back the spending once it's in place. But the thing, though, if that's happening, if it's hard to do that while inflation is still on a tear away, that puts all of the heavy lifting on monetary policy and puts it all onto interest rates. Right. And so a policy essentially like this, which if it's the way I'm characterising it, which may be a gross generalisation, but if it's actually contributing to spending, was actually juicing the economy in the short term and inflation still on a runaway, that means higher interest rates. So, yes, it's pushing it all onto onto monetary policy to do the heavy lifting and interest rates have to go higher. That might that might be Australia's fate as well. Like if if America can't wrangle this, I think Australia's sort of political systems a bit easier to work with than the American one. [00:14:14][90.7]

Adam: [00:14:14] Yeah. And you mentioned it's difficult to take money off of people, but in America they've got guns. It's always been it's had very. [00:14:21][6.8]

Speaker 1: [00:14:21] Favourable when you hold a government. All right. What are we. [00:14:26][4.4]

Adam: [00:14:26] Why don't we pause there? We'll grab a quick word from this week's sponsors and be back with more comedian versus economist right after this. Welcome back here on Canadian versus economist. You can send us an email if you like CVG at Equity Mates dot com or via the website Equity Mates dot com forward slash CV. You can also find us on Instagram and Facebook at CV podcast. Thomas. Walmart Plus. Got some new features coming out. What is Walmart Plus and what do I get? Yeah. [00:14:58][31.4]

Thomas: [00:14:58] So Walmart Plus is a subscription service to Walmart. You can think about it like if you were a subscriber to Kmart. [00:15:05][6.5]

Speaker 1: [00:15:07] Well. Oh. [00:15:08][0.7]

Adam: [00:15:09] I wish we. [00:15:10][1.1]

Speaker 1: [00:15:10] Had. [00:15:10][0.0]

Thomas: [00:15:11] I don't know what came out. Doesn't over it. No, it's a membership. Like everything's starting to go to the subscription business model. 1295, 1295 a month because, you know, not a whole lot like free shipping, discount discounts on fuel. I guess if you like buying a lot of stuff from them, maybe it's, you know, I guess if you're doing like a weekly grocery delivery, maybe it's. [00:15:35][23.9]

Adam: [00:15:35] Yeah, that's an American company. So we probably not most of our listeners probably aren't really across what Walmart does and doesn't sell. So it's hard to see the benefit. [00:15:43][8.3]

Speaker 1: [00:15:46] I don't even. [00:15:47][0.3]

Adam: [00:15:47] Think in Australia we can order from Walmart. So it sounds a lot like what you get with an Amazon subscription. [00:15:51][4.3]

Thomas: [00:15:52] I think I think that's what they that's what they're doing. Like Amazon as always, is setting the setting the bar. And this is Walmart's attempt to sort of catch up to it. What's interesting, what we learnt this week, it said in The Wall Street Journal was covering this at saying that Walmart executives are having chats with Paramount, Disney and Comcast about partnering up her offer for a streaming service as part of Walmart Plus. [00:16:16][24.4]

Adam: [00:16:17] This is out of control of the streaming service thing. Hmm. Like, I feel like now companies are just making a streaming service and then working out what they'll put on it later. Yeah. Like even. Oh, man, I was browsing some shows on. I forget which one. I'm not even sure. And there was this Korean baseball series that was like a reality TV show about these Korean baseball teams and looked kind of interesting, but it turned on. It was just garbage. And I just got me thinking like. [00:16:44][26.8]

Speaker 1: [00:16:44] This is. [00:16:44][0.3]

Adam: [00:16:45] Who won, who wanted this? You know, in Netflix Australia, like what's the what's the market for a reality TV show based around two Korean baseball teams? Yeah, I'm sure it's interesting to someone, but I just feel like there's more and more as I try and find shows on on different platforms now that it's just we've got the platforms and now, which is fine stuff to put on there and hope that someone watches it. Yeah. And have a few big ticket ones, you know, big ticket items and, and hope that, that, that has a halo effect or whatever it is. [00:17:19][34.2]

Thomas: [00:17:19] I mean, it's starting to feel like TV did five, ten years ago, right. Like this. Yeah. Lot. Lots on most of its junk. You catch a few good things on each one. [00:17:29][9.8]

Adam: [00:17:30] Yeah. But now I get to pay for it. [00:17:32][1.4]

Thomas: [00:17:32] Paid for? [00:17:32][0.2]

Speaker 1: [00:17:32] Yeah, that's right. [00:17:33][0.9]

Thomas: [00:17:34] Another win for capitalism. [00:17:35][0.8]

Speaker 1: [00:17:36] Delivering for consumers. Yeah. [00:17:38][2.3]

Adam: [00:17:39] I remember whingeing about Foxtel being like $35 a month and thinking, oh man, I can't afford that now. [00:17:48][8.7]

Speaker 1: [00:17:48] My streaming bills like $80 across nine services. [00:17:51][3.6]

Thomas: [00:17:54] Yeah, but it is very crowded. You think? I think there has to be some sort of rationalisation happening there. [00:17:59][5.2]

Speaker 1: [00:17:59] I mean, if they. [00:18:00][0.4]

Adam: [00:18:00] Were if they were like if it was on brand, if there was like Walmart were just and they were just streaming shows, it was like, this is how we make cereal boxes at the box factory. This is kind of. There's a Twitter account. I follow that. That is like how stuff gets made. And they just post videos of how stuff gets made. And it's fascinating if that was if that's their streaming offering and if it was it was on point, I could see how it's like, you know, a thing. Yeah. [00:18:27][26.9]

Speaker 1: [00:18:28] Otherwise I don't go for it. Yeah. [00:18:30][2.0]

Thomas: [00:18:31] No, I mean, I think I think there's two things they're trying to do. Like, one is, is just tapping more consumers. So a few others have sort of partnered up with streaming services like Verizon and T Mobile in America, have deals that give their customers discounted subscriptions to Disney Plus and Paramount Plus. Hmm. So it's sort of the idea that, like, there's already a lot of consumers there. It's about helping pull those particular consumers who are like in the in the Disney plus area into into Walmart and do it and sort of like just accessing that consumer base. So that's that's sort of one potential driver. But the other is I think there's this push towards a super app. So the super app, which is like one app for everything that you've everything that you do, everything that you buy. And this is sort of more advanced in China and Asia. So you got Tencent in China, grab in Singapore, Paytm in India. You know, you get a whole range of services from food delivery to streaming, to chat to all these different things bundled together in one super app and then. You own that super app, your own commerce. And that's always been Amazon's agenda. Amazon's always been there. Like, we just want to own the pipes of commerce. You have full control of it. And so this is Wal-Mart's, I think, play to like well, okay, let's let's try beef out the Wal-Mart offering. That's not just what's in the physical stores, but then you have the Wal-Mart super app and their training. I think that's where they go with it. [00:20:00][89.5]

Adam: [00:20:00] It saves an interesting like thing to tackle first. Do you know what I mean? I mean, I know they've got some basic stuff, but I don't know that the streaming market is so crowded at the moment. This seems an odd one to go after. Like, wouldn't it? Like, I don't know. It was a no other value proposition they could come up with for the Walmart. Plus they went. Now we're going to have to launch a streaming service if we want to be competitive like they could have at an even like Walmart, ridesharing or something. If I don't know, I'm. [00:20:30][29.8]

Thomas: [00:20:30] Going to I think the interesting thing with with the with Walmart is you need anything in the Walmart plus has to be something that is almost universal. That's why things like work, shopping and fuel go so well together like it's shopper dockets, few discounts. In Australia. It makes sense because everybody buys groceries. [00:20:48][17.9]

Speaker 1: [00:20:49] It was in 1992. Yeah, but you still. [00:20:52][3.2]

Thomas: [00:20:53] Like this owns a whole bunch of fuel. And so but it makes sense because you customers who buy groceries are the same customers who buy fuel. But if you like the ridesharing, for example, everyone who should not everyone who shops at Walmart would rideshare necessarily is pretty good. But it's like the so like it decreases the the appeal of the subscription membership if you have things in there that people don't actually want. [00:21:22][29.1]

Adam: [00:21:23] Hmm. [00:21:23][0.0]

Thomas: [00:21:23] Do you know, like if you had food delivery or something. [00:21:25][1.9]

Adam: [00:21:26] Yeah, I got you mean. [00:21:27][1.2]

Thomas: [00:21:28] Yeah, like, yeah, like. Yeah, like if you like more. No, I don't. I don't need that. I'm not going to subscribe because that's not an offering that I want to you need and you need things in the bundle that have universal appeal and streaming is one of them. Like it's, you know, most people have some kind of streaming thing going on. [00:21:43][15.8]

Adam: [00:21:44] They could maybe target like scented candles because everyone loves like scented candles. Finally today don't pay UK Thomas what is don't pay UK all about. [00:21:57][13.3]

Thomas: [00:21:57] Yeah so this is a campaign being organised. It's trying to get a million people to commit to not paying their electricity bills in winter in the UK this year. Not this is not to say not pay at all but to to cancel their direct debit. [00:22:12][15.0]

Speaker 1: [00:22:13] You. [00:22:13][0.0]

Thomas: [00:22:14] Arrangements with the electricity provider. Yeah. And just sort of hit them that way saying that yeah. That energy prices of through the roof in the UK as they are sort of everywhere and it's not okay for they saying like it's going to result in deaths. [00:22:28][14.3]

Speaker 1: [00:22:29] But. [00:22:29][0.0]

Adam: [00:22:29] Hang on. So the whole argument here is that they're going to to not pay their energy bill to their energy provider. They're they're protesting against the government. So those that are protesting through their provider, is that am I reading that right. [00:22:43][14.6]

Thomas: [00:22:44] Yes, I think I think the government like like it is here, it's a regulated market. And the government controls what part, what costs can get passed on through price increases. Right. It's not a market price. And that's it is set by the government. But the government does have to respond to the wholesale electricity price pressures. [00:22:59][15.5]

Adam: [00:23:00] They're angry at the government or they angry at the retailers or the providers or both? [00:23:05][4.9]

Thomas: [00:23:06] Probably a bit of both. I mean, I think they are particularly angry that a lot of UK energy companies have made a monster during this process and energy generators in particular. And Shell and you BP, they've made a lot of money, but they haven't passed that on. And there's been sort of some piecemeal attempts to sort of try and smooth it over for consumers. But they're saying it's skewed. It's companies are making a lot of money, but because consumers that are bearing the brunt of. [00:23:33][27.3]

Adam: [00:23:33] It, so they want a million signatures. And what do they got at the moment? [00:23:36][3.3]

Thomas: [00:23:37] I think it's over 100,000. [00:23:38][1.2]

Adam: [00:23:39] 100,000, yeah. [00:23:41][1.5]

Thomas: [00:23:42] So they need to tend for increase that in the next two months. [00:23:45][2.9]

Adam: [00:23:46] Which I don't think it's going to work. No, you know. [00:23:49][3.6]

Speaker 1: [00:23:50] No, no. [00:23:50][0.4]

Adam: [00:23:51] Well I have complete confidence in general apathy of the masses. And the problem is it's mostly being around online, this petition, and it's just too easy to sign up like like this. Amazon people are just like, oh, I've changed my profile picture to, like, support this thing. I don't like your what more can I do? So I can I can sign up to a form. So I just think people will pledge to, to do this thing. But I don't I don't know how many are actually going to follow through when it comes down to it, because there's a real costs, right? There's a if you don't pay your energy bills, they cut off your power. [00:24:29][38.0]

Speaker 1: [00:24:31] Yeah. [00:24:31][0.0]

Adam: [00:24:31] That's a bold thing to try and do and hope. That the other million people that signed up are going to do the same thing. [00:24:38][7.2]

Thomas: [00:24:39] It's not that simple that they just cut off your power. It is they have a thing with prepaid. There's prepaid or like a kind of pay as you go system in the UK. And they're not suggesting people in those arrangements do what they're suggesting. It's people on direct debit. If you if you don't pay on time, there's then 28 days where the company has to negotiate with you to try and figure out how to do it. If that doesn't work, they then go to take you to court and put you on some kind of payment plan to get the money from you. All right. They can't just cut off your energy. They're not allowed to do that. And so that's sort of the players saying, like, we want to hit them in two ways. One is like if they lose that cash flow, if everyone cuts their direct debits, suddenly all that cash, that regular cash flow that they rely on and they're probably pretty nimble, lean organisations are probably quite dependent on this, not a lot of room in their cash flow to sort of deal with like, you know, 50% say customers. Yeah, yeah. Cutting their direct debits. So that puts stress on them. Then that can then follow up with a million customers and chase them through the courts to get the money back from them. [00:25:46][67.2]

Speaker 1: [00:25:46] Right. [00:25:46][0.0]

Thomas: [00:25:47] And I was reading one guy saying, Hussein, like, yeah, I'm going to I'm going to cancel it. But, you know, I'm not paid like on the last day or when I get the court letter, I'm not going to I'm going to I'm going to let them cut them off. And I'm not going to it's not going to show up on my credit rating, but I'm going to kick on the stink and make it make it difficult for them. [00:26:02][15.5]

Adam: [00:26:03] Okay. I'll get to work. [00:26:04][1.3]

Thomas: [00:26:04] Yeah. Yeah. So they get enough people to do that to just just drag their heels and create a farce. It could, you know, on a big enough scale that would that would create a lot of problems. [00:26:14][10.0]

Adam: [00:26:15] I mean, they've got they've got about 100,000 at the moment. I'm dubious on the numbers, mainly because I signed up. [00:26:22][7.1]

Speaker 1: [00:26:23] So I guess I got a. [00:26:27][4.2]

Adam: [00:26:27] Temporary e-mail address and I signed up because I wanted to see how far I could get without being an active UK energy customer. And I got all the way through and the number ticked over from 106,000, whatever it was, to one more. And so I don't know, like I imagine there'd be a lot of people just, just sussing it out, putting in, they'd be a lot of bots. There was no there was no Google capture or anything to start me just. [00:26:52][24.2]

Speaker 1: [00:26:54] Having a lot of. [00:26:55][0.5]

Adam: [00:26:56] Spam bots just sending down fake. [00:26:58][1.8]

Speaker 1: [00:26:58] Like, you know. [00:26:59][0.8]

Adam: [00:27:01] Phishing emails. The funniest thing though was the welcome email that I got after I signed up to this welcome email came in and literally the call to action in the welcome email was asking me if I could spare a few pounds to help with the campaign. [00:27:16][14.8]

Speaker 1: [00:27:20] This campaign that's trying to fight the cost of living and trying to fight. [00:27:25][4.4]

Adam: [00:27:25] Rising prices and the fact that nobody can afford to pay their energy. [00:27:28][2.9]

Speaker 1: [00:27:28] Bills. The first thing I ask you to do is bear VPN and help the cause. So all my money is tight. I've actually signed up. [00:27:40][11.6]

Thomas: [00:27:42] Now, but it's probably it's small change compared to like you electricity bill surely in the UK. But yeah talking about us are going at going average household bills going over to four and a half thousand pounds a year in the UK. So yeah. Electricity. Yeah, it's going to hurt. Yeah. There was something that Citizens Advice is, is an advocacy group saying that self disconnections up eightfold so that's people like. [00:28:06][23.8]

Adam: [00:28:06] Oh well. [00:28:07][0.2]

Thomas: [00:28:07] I can't afford electricity anymore, I'm just going to disconnect and just suffer through winter or whatever. I think 3600 people between January and May this year already, and that's it. That's in summer or January this winter. But it's a real story like it's is people, health and life and safety's at risk because they just can't afford the electricity. So that's what that's what they're sort of going for. [00:28:30][23.6]

Adam: [00:28:31] All right. [00:28:31][0.1]

Speaker 1: [00:28:31] I'll unsubscribe. Yeah, but I think. [00:28:38][6.8]

Thomas: [00:28:38] It's also like if they get like even if they get they don't get a million and they get 500,000, it's enough to sort of say this is a big enough issue that enough people care about it. Enough people are going to take some action over it. It's I mean, I think it's a clever campaign like it's cancelling your direct debit is a pretty easy action item, is not it? You not even have to get on the train and attend a protest. You just cancel. Your direct debit is about as easy as activism gets, but if you get or not get enough people together, it really puts the issue on the political map and then can can shift things. There's an interesting precedent to this, which I you know, about, but there's a there was a sewerage water. It was in southern water in Kent. In fact, the water provider in Kent in 2020, they were fined £90 million for dumping raw sewage into the sea. Right. Yeah. And they then tried to pass that cost onto consumers. And the consumers are like, we're not paying. [00:29:31][52.6]

Speaker 1: [00:29:32] You to clean up your mess. Yeah. [00:29:34][1.8]

Thomas: [00:29:35] And consumers went on strike. They refused to pay. And then they got 50% of the of. [00:29:40][5.2]

Adam: [00:29:41] Their bills to hang on. The consumers got not 3% back of what they paid to cover the surge, dumping just a 50% discount off their bills. [00:29:49][8.2]

Thomas: [00:29:49] On us isn't the same thing. [00:29:50][1.1]

Speaker 1: [00:29:51] And well, if your normal. [00:29:54][2.9]

Adam: [00:29:54] Bills like $50. And then I was like, Oh yeah, but we as a business, we had to dump a bunch of sewage and then we got fined $90 million. So now your bill is going to be $100 instead of $50. And then you protested. So I went, All right, you can have 50% of it back and we just charges $75 instead of $100, still down $25. [00:30:16][21.6]

Thomas: [00:30:18] Yeah, this is where more detail than I'm aware. I don't know how much the prices went up or how much they were down. [00:30:23][4.7]

Speaker 1: [00:30:24] There's this 50% rise, a big number, 60%. How do you rate your own research as the living embodiment? I don't get caught in the weeds. Yeah, we. [00:30:36][11.4]

Adam: [00:30:36] Were all there. Thank you very much for tuning in. Once again, please rate and review the show wherever you get your podcasts. Don't forget Finn Fest happening October 15th. Head to Equity Mates dot com forward slash fin fest for all the info and that's it for us. You can send us an email if you like CB at Equity Mates dot com or get us on Facebook and Instagram at CB Podcasts. We'll see you next week. But for now. [00:30:36][0.0]

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