Posted on 02/23/2012 7:09:16 AM PST by AFPhys
Many households in Germany are no longer able to pay their electricity bills. As a result, around half a million households are sitting in the dark.
The sharp price increases for electricity and gas is leading to serious payment problems for more and more consumers even to dark apartments. Because of unpaid bills an estimated 600,000 households in Germany had their power cut off in 2010, said the consumer watch dog Verbraucherzentrale Nordrhein-Westfalen which is based in Düsseldorf. This estimate is based on a survey of local energy providers in Germanys most populous state.
"Price increases of around 15 percent for electricity and gas in the past two years have made energy for many households unaffordable", said CEO Klaus Mueller. The increasing fuel poverty is alarming. What is more, ever tighter household budgets and regularly lacking competence in keeping personal finances in check are turning claims arising from unpaid energy bills quickly into an insurmountable cost trap.
Three-quarters of the 58 companies that responded to questions from the NRW consumer group reported growing problems related to energy debt and power outages. In 2010, the surveyed utilities in North Rhine-Westphalia alone sent out three million reminders for unpaid electricity bill. They issued 340,000 blocking threats and cut off power to 62,000 customers.
According to extrapolations by consumer protection groups, power has been cut off to about 120,000 households in NRW alone and to about 600,000 households nationwide. The estimates of the energy companies are consistent with the experience of the consumer advocates. A spokeswoman from the NRW consumer watch dog added that their consumer advice increasingly focuses on the question of how to comply with payment obligations towards energy suppliers.
ping
UT Austin prof Pianka preaches that the world would be better off if 90% of humankind were wiped out by ebola. Nice that he's getting paid with tax dollars and parents are letting their kids sign up for his classes, huh. Somehow, I don't think he's going to volunteer to be first in the ebola flavored koolaid line.
and if Adolf reincarnates and promises to turn everybody’s lights back on you know who is getting elected...
Just like in “1984”. Every new degradation in the standard of living is hailed as a triumph for making everyone more “equal”.
More to show how the left-wing mindset is that of an anti-Life deathcult.
It is quite amazing to me that the socialist supporters just can’t understand simple facts such that you have to create the electricity in order for it to be affordable for people.
It is going to take some huge blackouts in a “Western” country, and probably deaths that result, before the greenies are dispatched for once and all. When that happens, though, it will take a minimum half decade for that country to correct their error.
I just hope the example country is not the US.
ducking & running!
Because of unpaid bills an estimated 600,000 households in Germany had their power cut off in 2010...
I think you’re right about “Germans” worrying about the Turks, arabs and Balkans sitting in the dark. These “visitors” may have been good for menial labor jobs, but now the off-spring are citiZens and that doesn’t sit well with Germans.
I lived there for some years. Little crime. I went back for a visit, after Kosovo, much crime and different kinds of “churchs”.
If we sold coal to Germany, the coal mines would be working and so would the miners. That’s a no no. nobama wants to hamstring employable people by taking away their ability to work.
0bama's Church of Socialism wants us to be sitting in the dark, out of work, cold and hungry waiting for big bother to deliver our one bowl of gruel for that day.
Thanks for the ping....passing it on!
The solution is simple. Take money from those reach capitalist to pay for the poor folks electric bills. /sarc
As long as the six-eight weeks urlaub (vacation) isn’t messed with — they’ll endure.
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