>Every article that states you can save a small amount of money by doing something is tacitly saying it's your own fault if you're poor. [...] It's corporate PR to shift responsibility for the cost of living from billion dollar company profits
That's reading way too much into it, don't you think?
>You ate too many avocadoes, you didn't make your own coffee, you didn't turn your TV off at the wall
The "article" literally says the savings is £30 a year. Nobody thinks that's the reason they're poor.
>Journalists who write those articles should be banned from being published forever.
In other words, money saving advice should be banned because they might be spewing "corporate PR to shift responsibility"?
That's reading way too much into it, don't you think?
I don't think that, no. Or I wouldn't have posted what I posted. Corporations spend an immense amount of money on PR, and a lot of it goes on "perception shifting". As an example, in the early 2000s Shell spent $100m inventing the idea of a "personal carbon footprint" so that people would focus on the environmental impact of you using 20 plastic straws a year instead of Shell burning 400m barrels of oil. It worked brilliantly.
The "article" literally says the savings is £30 a year. Nobody thinks that's the reason they're poor.
£30 a year on this. £50 a year on something else. £20 a week on a phone. £5 a week on coffee. And suddenly the papers are full of "Poor people can't afford a house because they waste their money on things!" People do believe it.
In other words, money saving advice should be banned because they might be spewing "corporate PR to shift responsibility"?
Yes. Money saving advice when it's a paltry amount that won't cause a shift in your circumstances is essentially useless, especially if the root cause is some corporation trying to get out of being responsible for their actions. In this case, electricity companies are making record profits and increasing prices far in excess of inflation. The media should focus on that, not whether or not someone is using 20kWh on making LEDs stay on.
>I don't think that, no. Or I wouldn't have posted what I posted. Corporations spend an immense amount of money on PR, and a lot of it goes on "perception shifting". As an example, in the early 2000s Shell spent $100m inventing the idea of a "personal carbon footprint" so that people would focus on the environmental impact of you using 20 plastic straws a year instead of Shell burning 400m barrels of oil. It worked brilliantly.
I'm not denying "perception shifting" doesn't exist, just that claiming that "Every article that states you can save a small amount of money by doing something" is "corporate PR" is a little too broad. This article has problems for other reasons, but claiming that an energy conservation NGO is acting in bad faith by telling people to conserve energy is a stretch.
>£30 a year on this. £50 a year on something else. £20 a week on a phone. £5 a week on coffee. And suddenly the papers are full of "Poor people can't afford a house because they waste their money on things!" People do believe it.
So you're against money/resource saving techniques being promulgated because it's ammo for the "millennials are poor because they're eating avocado toast" crowd? That seems like an overly "we must win at all costs, anyone that helps the enemy is an enemy" way of looking at things.
>Yes. Money saving advice when it's a paltry amount that won't cause a shift in your circumstances is essentially useless, especially if the root cause is some corporation trying to get out of being responsible for their actions.
I agree this article is dumb because the savings is only £30, but jumping to the conclusion that it must be part of some PR campaign seems premature.
> In this case, electricity companies are making record profits and increasing prices far in excess of inflation.
source?
> The media should focus on that, not whether or not someone is using 20kWh on making LEDs stay on.
In this case "the media" isn't even involved at all. The OP is a blog post from a private citizen, and the "article" it's referencing is from an energy conversation NGO. While I think it might be worth pointing out energy companies profits, that's not really part of the NGO's mission.
That's reading way too much into it, don't you think?
>You ate too many avocadoes, you didn't make your own coffee, you didn't turn your TV off at the wall
The "article" literally says the savings is £30 a year. Nobody thinks that's the reason they're poor.
>Journalists who write those articles should be banned from being published forever.
In other words, money saving advice should be banned because they might be spewing "corporate PR to shift responsibility"?