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Comment by ZeroGravitas | Hacker News Reader

Seize the windfall profits going to gas producers and give it to people to find non-gas ways to heat their homes.

Not sure what I could buy that will heat my home (waiting times on solar panels are measured in months and wind turbines in years), and cash itself doesn't burn that well.

But I also don't see this as being that big a deal. Even if we had to turn off fuel for 2/3rds of the homes, people will just go to a home that can be heated and stay warm together. We'll survive and probably make new friends doing it even if we'd complain the whole time.

Or people learn to heat themselves up instead of the whole room, which uses less than 10% of the energy. We're an inventive species and in Europe we certainly have the means, we just need the motivation.

Insulation is your best bet

The profit is going Russia who supplies the majority of Europe's gas. There's nothing to seize since they can turn off the tap and Europe will literally freeze.

Basically, Europe is buying less than half the usual supply of gas at 6x the price right now :(

Norway made three times as much this year from gas sales.

It's a market, and the thing that is causing the price spikes is Russia cutting off their supply.

They'll still profit from the higher prices on the reduced supply, but so will everyone else who sells on the market at the market price. Basically war profiteering.

Economics is a science. If you try to push one way on the market price you will get problems on the other side, this is the same way you can't get past the laws of thermodynamics) . The cost of reducing people's profits (or cost is what we are talking about) will be shortages because people will still be willing to pay for more electricity at a higher price, they just won't be able to find it because it was sold at a lower price.

I explicitly dont want to reduce the price of gas. Because high prices make people use less and switch to alternatives, which is what is required when you are short on something.

But siezing the windfall profits is also basic economics orthodoxy.

https://theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/jul/19/nobel-pri...

> The Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has called for a windfall profits tax, arguing the idea is a “no-brainer” that has been taken off the table due to the influence of big companies

Arranging a little explosive Nord Stream accident should be quite easy. No more Russian profits for couple of months.

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