Taking an Accounting of the Folks You Do Business With
Something is Missing
The TeeVee
A Sony 42″ flat screen LCD HD TV used to be strapped right up there on that articulating arm. We’re moving soon, and as such, have been selling stuff via garage sale and craigslist like crazy. No, the Denon Amp and Boston Labs speakers are not for sale. Ever. I love them, and I loath all surroundsound bullshit. I like my music delivered like a concert. In front of me.
…In October of 2005, I paid $2,800 for that missing TV, at Best Buy. It was not the most I ever paid for a flat screen. That would have been a Samsung, heavy as doG, 37″ LCDHD for $3,700. Ordered it from Amazon in about 2002 or 3, because shipping was $100 and zero tax. No local retailer could come close—the lowest local guy being $4,700, plus tax, for the exact same thing. Now either can be had for about 500 bucks, new.
…The other day, I figured it was time to re-up for a computer after nearly 3 years—when I went to a top-of-line MacBook Air as a my sole machine. $2,100. It still drives the 27″ Apple Cinema Display I’m staring at now.
Twice the speed, twice the RAM and other stuff, and it cost me $1,500, including tax. There’s $600 less for twice as good right there. Moreover, according to the local Craigslist market, my old one can fetch about $600, still.
…My brother just had photovoltaics installed on his 3,000 sq. ft., 4-BR, 3-bath house. They’re a fraction of what they cost 20 years ago, economically viable, and you can even get them installed with zero out-of-pocket—the savings in electricity makes the payment. His June electric bill was $4.50. The A/C runs all day.
I note that in this same 3-4 years, US inflation has been a total of about 8.5%, but of course, that’s compounded annually. 10% is a decent ballpark then, so the MacBook might cost $1,350, instead. Another $150 off but instead, it goes toward monetizing U.S. National Debt.
…Speaking of which, I note that the National Debt has increased about $3 TRILLION in the same 3-year period of time. Public debt is an awesome barometer in noting just how much fucktard parents and fucktard grandparents are liars. They dote on and on about the kids; but they want their “retirement,” and by doG, those kids, grandkids, great grandkids…great, great, great, great, great, great grandkids are going to pay for it all, with interest, while they wave their flags, read every single AARP press release that ever came out, and sport “I voted” stickers. Pathetic.
Tom Brokaw was wrong. It’s not “The “Greatest Generation.” It is—literally—the most entitled feeling generation in the history of planet Earth. I’ll take the previous one, that endured the Great Depression, anytime.
That is all.
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Free The Animal is an eclectic writing project about everything since November 2003. 23 years, 5,500 posts, 5 million words.
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Last I checked, photovoltaics were only cost effective for the consumer after government subsidy. Did your brother get subsidies, or is that actual market price?
A myth, Joshua:
This article is left slanted, but is overall packed with a lot of data you can evaluate for yourself.
mediamatters.org/research/2013/01/24/myths-and-facts-about-solar-energy/192364
The subsidies aren’t to make solar “cost effective,” but simply to use tax policy to encourage a behavior the State finds desirable. The oil and gas industries have received way more subsidies than solar.
Besides, cost effective to whom? I knew an electrician who way back in 2000 bought his own panels which were super expensive back then, installed them himself, and figured it would take about 15 years to break even, which, coincidentally is right about now.