Bang goes Zog energy.

[Andrew]

Who said there was ?. The original point was that the Government HAS NO MONEY. It can only take it from us through tax (and inflation) or borrow it from FUTURE GENERATIONS.

[Andrew]

+1000. I'm always amazed how thick people are when they accuse Amazon of 'not paying any tax'. Amazon are allowed to shift profits because that is what WTO rules say they can. Any country that objects can petition the WTO to change the rules. Have fun with that (short term)

And all the Amazon haters are free to drive down to their high street, (probably in their diesel car), find somewhere to park and buy what they want in a proper shop, *if* they have it in stock, if indeed there are any shops at all.

There used to 'electricity board showrooms', 'gas board showrooms', 'British Telecom shops'. Now there aren't. Has anyone wondered why ?.

[John Brown]

That?s what was being discussed in this thread.

The original point was that the

That was not the original point.

It can only take it from us through

That last mangles reality too.

[John Brown]

Profit shifting to low or zero tax countries has nothing whatever to do with WTO rules.

Any country that objects

The WTO can not change the rules unilaterally.

Have fun with that (short

Any term.

It was because there was always competition from retailers, nothing to with amazon.

[alan_m]

BT had the monopoly at one time. You couldn't connect anything to their network unless it had been approved by guess who. When I first went on line (1991 with Demon) I had to use equipment not approved by BT - I guess most other people on line at the time did likewise.

I can also remember trying to persuade my parents to buy a telephone rather than renting it from BT.

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

where the FL's come from ....

[alan_m]

Again they were effectively monopoly suppliers and could subsidise such showrooms with high gas/electricity prices. It was also the era of (enforced) recommended retail prices.

[Steve Walker]

Yes, my first online experience involved two miniature crocodile clips, clipped onto the screw-heads of the two terminals in the incoming junction box. I was connecting using the internal modem of an 80286 based "laptop", that had been bought by my father on a business trip to Hong Kong. Definitely not BT approved!

I don't remember my parents ever renting one, but it is possible that they did at first.

[newshound]

Nice to know I am not quite a lone voice in the wilderness!

I was introduced to "The Armchair Economist" by a colleague half way through my career as a scientist/engineer and it literally transformed my way of thinking about so many things. I wish I had read something like that when I was at school. The single change that I would like to make to the world would be to introduce this sort of basic economics at every secondary school.

Just one quibble, it's not quite "WTO rules", it is rather that every country agrees that at least some international trade is highly desirable, so that there has to be a relatively easy way to shift cash across borders. Otherwise, the only way you can acquire, say, a container load of bananas is to swap it at a port for a container load of washing machines. And once you allow that, holding companies are always going to locate in tax havens.

[Chris Hogg]

Yes, my mother rented one for years. I still have it, and use it, but no longer pay rent for it.

[Dave Plowman (News]

All phones were rented at one time. And unless you cancelled that when you were allowed to buy your own, you continued to pay the rental. Something like a couple of quid a quarter for each BT phone. And in theory you had to return the rented phone.

With the original BT system, if you wanted an extension, the phones themselves had to be altered internally as well as the new wiring needed. As the bells were low impedance and had to be changed to series wiring. Later BT phones had high impedance bells which allowed parallel connection.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I don't that you were allowed to actually plug anything not supplied by BT into the phone circuits much before 1980s, when BT was privatised

[Pamela]

Sid says Margaret Thatcher sold them off. :)

[alan_m]

In 1985 it was £54 per annum rental for a phone (equivalent to £128/yr in today's money)

Purchasing a phone at that time was around £10 for low end and £100 for high end.

[alan_m]

Even after privatisation if it made economic sense to keep them they would still be in existence.

[Theo]

I think a lot of the footfall of those places was people paying their bills in cash or cheque. Then they could pay bills by giro through their bank, and later Direct Debit came along. Which made the high street shops redundant.

People weren't buying gas cookers every week to make the shops worthwhile on sales alone, but once you already have a building that people are coming into anyway you might as well showcase some appliances in it to display how modern and convenient using gas or electricity can be.

(What happened before there was a BT - presumably people paid their bills at the post office? Since phones were rented there was no need for a showroom displaying them)

Theo

[Pamela]

Privatisation also reduced public utility strikes in which the public suffered.

The current lecturers strike is a reminder of the old days. Although this time employers might fund strikers' demands by slimming down university departments.

[Chris Green]

Post Office Telephones was what became BT (in the 60s some time?). I'm pretty sure we paid our bills by cheque through the post. A lot of bills back then came with a ready addressed return envelope.

[alan_m]

People also used to buy "stamps" each week to pay telephone and energy bills.

[Andy Burns]

Even EDF claim to have made 0% profit on residential gas supplies in 2018 vs 2% profit on residential electricity.

I read £85/household