We find out from dutchnews.nl that the Dutch (resigned) government is ready to fight the winter and the rising prices of energy with a couple of measures:
- cut energy taxes by an average of €400/household
- €500m to compensate small firms in the form of lower energy taxes.
In total this will costs €3.2 bn. Since the announced no reductions in expenses, that means this will be covered either by tax increases or by 0% interest rate loans from ECB (which in turn generates inflation).
But let's see how they calculated this amount (of 400 euro):
The rise in gas prizes had threatened to put up some household bills by up to €50 a month.
This sounds suspiciously on the low side. If you're going to gaslicht.com, a website that allows you to check different offers from a lot of providers, we can simulate a household with 3 persons, for example, and check the average consumption based on the existing data:
This is a rough estimation since there are a lot of variable factors, but just to get the idea. We have 3500 kWh and 1500 m³ natural gas.
If we consider that a kWh doubled its price (raising with €0.20) and a cubic meter of gas is now €1 more expensive, we have a difference (based on the above amounts) of 3500x0.20 + 1500x1.00 = €2200 extra!
This means the household bills are going up by ~180 per month, not 50 (which is basically overkill).
If we consider that half of these are taxes, then the government is actually helping with about 4 months, but the increase will still be there.
But the irony is here:
The government has been steadily increasing energy taxes, particularly on gas, to stimulate consumers to cut back and make their homes more energy efficient.
So they're fucking up everything with big taxes in the first place, and now they're saving everyone (how generous!).
We'll see how this it will work in the end. It's really probable that the prices will not stop here. And this combined with more expensive fuel, it will affect industries as well, and any service that it's using electricity or heating (gas).
The inflation is here to stay and not so transitory as some lunatics are declaring (yeah, looking at you FED and ECB). But thanks for the printed out of thin air trillions so far.
