Steven N.The problem of energy poverty could have been solved from the hundreds of billions of forints that were used in government campaigns to promote the utility price cut policy and demonize George Soros, said economist and former central bank governor Péter Ákos Bod.
Bod doesn’t see the sense of keeping utility prices at 2014 levels, as the world has changed since then. Energy prices will be high for a long time to come, he said, and are not expected to return anywhere close to 2014 levels.
The economist believes that the special taxes announced by Viktor Orbán on Wednesday can be expected to increase prices, which will be passed on to consumers as in “indirect tax increase.”
Bod pointed out that there’s less of a concern that these special taxes will cause an increase in unemployment and more likely that they will accelerate even higher inflation. [Magyar Hang]
