I’m not usually in Kvinner og Klær’s target group, but this summer they published an article that struck a chord with me. There, an anonymous single mother told me that she was selling bed say to afford food.
It is a story from real life about how a failed Nav system, and the bourgeois government’s introduction of the so-called retirement year, punished a lady who loved her job until her body said stop.
Then came the poverty.
When the single mother had finally received disability benefits, prices began to rise. Food prices and electricity prices. The bed was sold, and the mother can only dream of going to the dentist.
In such a situation is it not enough to reverse the bourgeois government’s anti-social cuts. Red demands that the government take control of a market that is about to run wild – and start work to plug the holes in the welfare state.
The Prime Minister says that “we” have to brace ourselves for a tough winter. For the richest, the price increases mean nothing, but for many, it is a crisis.
It is a political responsibility to prevent soaring prices from crushing the finances of ordinary working people and people on social security.
The fear of how an unregulated power market will turn out in the winter, also here at home in cold Norway, is of course justified.
When the prices of such a basic and necessary commodity as energy rise by many hundreds of percent, it will have large and unfair consequences. The high electricity prices will reinforce economic differences and create poverty.
Moreover, it is not only the private economy that is threatened. Jobs that have relied on cheap, clean power rather than cheap labor may also be at stake.
It is expensive to be poor, not least when the electricity bill is to be paid. One examination carried out by Gudbrandsdalen energi recently showed that 1 in 5 families with children have borrowed money to pay the electricity bill in the past winter, while nearly half are dreading the coming winter.
Another examinationcarried out by Bank 2, shows that people lose sleep at night because they worry about interest and price rises. Saving electricity and money is easier said than done for many.
It is easier for a camel to pass through a needle’s eye than for a poor man to enter Enova’s kingdom, with the current requirement for equity to qualify for support.
Energy saving, for example in the form of additional insulation or installation of heat pumps, costs money. When the cold sets in, residents still have to heat their houses.
After a year of rising prices, there is a good chance that people’s financial buffer is no longer very large.
And it will get worse. It is predicted sky-high electricity prices for the winter. Over the past year, Rødt has put forward a whole bunch of proposals on how we can regulate the market. Not only for reasons of security of supply, but also to regulate prices.
We believe it is overtime to introduce a maximum price for electricity in combination with strict regulation of exports, in order to stop the most anti-social consequences of today’s dysfunctional energy market.
It is good, old-fashioned social democratic politics to regulate power. We own it jointly, and now there are good reasons to take back democratic control over the sale of power as well.
Energy is a vital commodity. Then it cannot be up to the size of people’s wallets whether they can afford heating for the winter or not.
Allowing prices to rise can also be bingo with people’s workplaces. Businesses and small industries without fixed price contracts face troubled times.
It’s hard enough to pay the utility bills with a job. It gets even worse for those who risk losing their jobs as well.
I am aware that the Labor Party and the Center Party have not gone to the polls on Rødt’s programme, but I expect stronger political governance from a left-wing government than what we see now – both to stop the price shocks and to strengthen welfare.
Because while “we” are facing tough times, the wind is calm on the summits.
The grocery giants recently made billions in profits, and can quickly run away with the gains from rising food prices. Nevertheless, the government has relaxed the corporation tax.
The power industry goes so it laughs. Nevertheless, the government will not introduce a maximum price to limit the super profit, and the increased tax revenues have neither given us free dental care nor cheaper public transport.
It is difficult to understand where the government’s social democratic project will become.
It’s not just strangers forces that affect power. There is also a lack of political power to regulate prices and strengthen the welfare state.
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