The dirty lucre of British Gas
British Gas could only become more immoral if it started snatching babies or producing serial killers. Annual profits rocketed from £95m in 2006 to £571m in 2007. Centrica, British Gas’ parent company, announced group pre-tax profits for last year of £2.1bn. Last month, British Gas increased charges for gas and electricity by 15%. Every winter elderly people in their hundreds of thousands die in Britain because they can’t afford to put the heating on. Despicable. But it’s even more disgusting that our government doesn’t do something to end this obscene profiteering.
tags: British Gas, business, electricity, ethics, fuel, gas, profitsDo they lend with intent to take it all back?
UK sub-prime mortgage lenders who specialise in these mortgages or offer them as part of their business disproportionately make up over 70% of all repossession cases, according to a BBC survey of more than 7,000 court hearings over the past three months carried out jointly by the TV programme Panorama and radio show Five Live Report.
In the US sub-prime loans account for less foreclosures overall–55%. Foreclosures are the equivalent of repossession hearings.
The BBC found cases of council tenants on benefits being encouraged to significantly exaggerate their incomes in order to buy their houses under the right-to-buy scheme, and some of these unfortunates now face having their homes repossessed. In other cases families were given mortgages which became unaffordable within months.
tags: BBC, business, credit, debt, environment, flats, homes, in the news, mortgages, repossession, sub-prime, townhouses
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