Some churches have done it with medical debt. Hospitals gladly take a fraction of debt as payment, and they were able to free many of debt. Now, if we could just get hospitals to stop making inflated charges in the first place, we would really have something.
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Kai, I appreciate that you took time to do your own research on this, rather than just accepting negative stereotypes.
I like the phrase “economically dangerous way to think” 
it sums it up really well, as something I really noticed is that most people at the lowest end scale of net worth appears to have completely different thinking to those who are well off.
I think it can be quite motivational to tell people they need to start thinking like the rich, rather than just telling someone they have to give up a lot of things and that they can’t afford anything.
I once even read a lengthy article exactly about that, only it was focussing on dollars/calories. This applies to everything else too, and I’m just amazed how many people never think to check price per kg, litre or amount of uses.
When I said there are forces designed to keep the poor a lot poorer than they need to be, this is exactly what I was talking about.
I can only speak about how things are in UK, but it’s crazy here. whilst it’s reasonable to offer instalments on big ticket items, you go online to buy things like shampoo, body lotion, some makeup, and you will be offered to spread the cost. Some shopping apps will even give you discount for taking out installments. There used to be a company offering “free” credit on its products with weekly payments, no option to simply pay as far as I remember, and they were more expensive than Harrods 
I literally felt like celebrating when they went out of the business!
That’s very kind of you 
but I can see a few problems here.
Unless you are going to inherit tonnes of money from a long lost relative you have never heard of, or marry a billionairess, how are you going to have this kind of money? By this I mean: what would you have to do to actually become a billionaire? What impact would it have on others? Is it possible that it would inflict misery upon many, just so you can have your billion? Would you have to be a different sort of person? The kind that actually isn’t likely to do what you said you would do? Or maybe if someone is a nice kind person to start, would the process of becoming super rich change them? Even if not… would having that kind money have negative impact on your morality?
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I also.
Reading it again brought to mind something from a sociology course: it was noted in a study that people who come into an unexpected but significant amount of money tend to overspend, thinking of three or four things to spend it on and rather than choosing just spending it on all of them and thus ending up worse off than if they had never gotten that money – definitely an economically dangerous way to think!
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It might suprise you to take note, the average power supply for any habitable building doesnt change much. Let me illustrate:
Most houses run an 80 amp supply and have the followjng basics in their electric panels…
- Power circut = 16-20 amps
- Light circut = 10-16 amps
- Cooktop/oven = 20-30 amps
- Hot water - 20-30 amps
- Heat/cooling = 20-30 amps
As.you can see, if everything above were runnjng at 100%, the supply couldnt handle to load, however, we dont calculate residential eneegy needs based on 100% usage. Mlst applianes dont use anywhere near the amperage assigned to their circut. The bad ones in the above list however are cooktops/ovens and trsditional element type appliances suvh as element type tank storage hot water systems. These two are notoriously bad for high energy consumption
It does not actually matter much whether your house is small or large, the above are the bare minimums, however take note of the ones used daily that draw large amperage…oven/cooktop and hot water. These two are energy sinkholes
True a poorly insulated building is highly problematic in that certainly heating/cooling can draw large amounts of energy, however, quite often poorly insulated also means poorly sealed!
Having said that, id suggest that even in a comfortable temperate climate where heating cooling are not even being used, the electricity bills of your house and his tiny uninsulated home would be suprisingly similar per person when it comes down to the basic supply needs and usage.
That brings me to hot water…quite often when owners wont spend money on insulation, they also wont spend money on energy efficient devices…particlarly when in comes to hot water systems. An continuous flow/instantaneous gas hot water system for example is miles more efficient and far less wasteful of energy than a traditional tank type electric hot water system…this is even more of a problem when its a large capacity system and not all its hot water consumed. That means its heating significant quantities of water for nothing…all systems eventually radiate heat and the water cools…thats an unavoidable reality.
Another example…heat pump hot water in many climates is a far better option than traditional heating element type systems…in other climates heat pumps systems are useless…
So the equation is more comlpex than just insulation, its quite often a mindeset that adverley affects other areas of energy usage in the home and its suprising how quickly a little bit of inefficiench adds up to a lot of waste …a bit like my $6 cup of coffee per day could pay off 30k towards a home loan analogy (hmmm maybe i havent told this forum about that yet???)
Sorry…ive gone offtopic. I have a bit of a passion for home renovaions, energy usage, the electric car saves the environment bullshit, and how not buying a coffee and curbing unecessary spending, debt consolidtation etc, can help an indivudal pay off a home loan.in a modern world where affordability in house seems an impossibility for young people in the workforce these days. One of my aunties was a chain smoker…a habit so bad she could finance a new mid sized family car every 4 years with her cigarrette habit!
Also, electricity isnt the only comparison one should be making there, add water usage and cost into the mix and see what the comparison also is.
A lot of factors enter in the mix, but in our area, summer temps are high, and people are spoiled to air conditioning, so that is the major driver of electric bills. And, more affluent homes tend to have more efficient AC units as well as better insulation. Regarding hot water, more affluent households can also afford the electrical or gas upgrades for point of use systems, or even the higher cost heat pump hot water systems. In some cases, they even can get tax credits to offset the higher cost systems, making for a systemic bias in favor of the rich, which gets a little bit back on to the post topic of spiritual effects of wealth and poverty.
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Um, my house has a 120 amp supply, which is not enough if the furnace and dishwasher are both running at the same time! Indeed if every circuit was running at the minimum it would be 300 amps!
I really need a second panel to handle the outside, basement, and garage; that would drop the main panel to about 180 amps if every circuit was running at minimum – and would solve the problem that if I run my table saw and the refrigerator kicks in a circuit breaker pops.
We’re required by law to have energy-efficient hot water tanks.
Would be obscenely expensive here.
Which is only an issue when the weather is above about 80° F – any waste heat from the hot water heater just reduces the load on the furnace.
I could charge an electric car just by installing a solar array that would cover 1/4 of my garage roof – which would definitely be good for the environment.
Definitely!
Too true! If I could afford to have a solar roof installed plus somehow update the exterior and ceiling insulation I could just about come out even – but the subsidies/tax credits are written in such a way that I would have to do only 6% of a whole installation in one year, whereas if my income was around $120k I could do a complete install over two years.
Like with energy-efficient windows: To be able to take full advantage of the tax credits I’d have to spread doing the entire house over fourteen years, at my income level, whereas someone with that $120k income could get full advantage doing it in just two or three years.
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Yep too right.
You know that reminds me of a stupid thing the Victorian government in Australia enacted not so long back…they banned natural gas pipe services in all the new housing estates.
The plan was to force/promote renewables like solar and wind…of course that was until it was realised that solar and renewables are inacapable of maintaining a stable base load energy supply (because quite often there is neither sun nor wind at the same time and battery back up cant cost efficiently support the grid for more than just a handful of hours).
The stupid imbeciles got caught with their pants down and a heap of estates have already got way to far into development to go back and rectify the governments cockup without significant costs, and install gas mains, to reduce the energy load on the renewable supply grid so it can cope.
Im pro environment, however, we need ro use science and technology to make burning fossil fuels cleaner…its realistically the only option we have in the foreseable future i think…and to stop bloody cutting down trees to build housing estates in lush areas😡
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Were you not aware of the following?
There are literally dozens, if not hundreds of stories about the dirty supply chain for Electric Vehicles. The notion they are more enviromentally friendly is largelly lies. Admittedly often because of cheap production process facilitated by nations such as China, where China is one of the worst offenders.
China buys the rights to these facilities in place like indonesia, then effectively destroys the environment in those places spewing millions of tons of dangerous gases into the atmosphere whilst we sit comfortably in our lounge chairs patting ourselves on the backs glowing at how we have cleaned up the environment buying one and not being at all concerned at our having saved money buying one where materials are obtained via the Chinese supply chains…which is most if not all of them🫡
We are talking car manufacturers such as volkswagon, Toyota, Stellantis (who own Jeep, Chrysler, Dodge etc), GWM, BYD… theres heaps of them who source their production materials from places where this kind of stuff goes on…id place odds on that even Tesla is a culprit.
It gets even worse than that…the additional strain EV charging is placing on our electricity grids is such that we are using diesel amd gas generators to pick up the demand especially in remote locations …add to that renewable sources cant cope or provide stable base load power.
Dont get me wrong, im pro environment and i believe in mans direct influence in causing or at least speeding up climate change, however, Id suggest you go and watch some documentaries about it…they will open your eyes there St Roymond.
I live above 60 degrees N, with cold winters (20-30 degrees C below freezing point is cold but normal during winter), and we do not usually need here natural gas, coal or oil for keeping the houses warm and having sufficient electricity. There are reserve power stations capable of using fossil fuels but they are not needed normally - they are only used if the other sources of energy are not enough for the daily needs.
The strategy is to use a combination of many energy sources: wind, solar, hydroelectric, geothermal heating, nuclear, burning of biomasses originating mainly from forestry (branches, stumps, saplings/young trees coming from the thinning of young forests).
The grid for the electricity transfer has been expanded so that it covers many countries. Even if one country would be windless, wind energy may be produced in some other country and then transferred to the other countries.
Hydroelectric power cannot be increased much because of environmental reasons - there are currently plans to remove many small dams that have blocked the spawning sites of endangered salmon and trout populations.
Nuclear is too expensive - current prices of electricity are so low that it is not economically wise to build more. During windy periods, the price of electricity may drop periodically below zero - you can actually earn money by using electricity during those hours. Good for the poor but not for the companies that have built expensive nuclear power plants.
Biomass burning is considered suboptimal, although the biomasses burned are largely such that cannot be utilized by pulp mills. Many power plants using biomass have now installed electric heating systems and switch from burning to warming with electricity during periods when the price of electricity drops very low.
In this situation, it is wind and solar that are the cheapest remaing options.
The storing of energy is still a problem but there are plans to solve it on several fronts. Turning the energy to hydrogen is one option and there are plans and building ongoing. Many are building storage batteries, largest above 40 MW, because that is profitable in the current situation. There are also plans to transfer the electric cars into a two-way power storage system.
Another problem is the transfer capacity of electricity across several countries. New power lines are built but that takes years. In some areas, there is a temporary pause in accepting new customers that need a gigawatt or more electricity.
To conclude, it is possible to provide all needed energy using the renewable sources and that may also be the cheapest alternative but the problem is that building the necessary infrastructure takes decades. Sudden demands do not work, there needs to be long-term goals and stepwise progress towards the goal.
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The current battery technology cannot provide electric vehicles for all - there is simply too little critical minerals and the price is too high. In that sense, electric vehicles using the current battery technology are necessarily a temporary phase towards better options.
There are at least two paths forward if we want to minimize the environmental effects (both CO2 and dirty supply chains).
One is developing new batteries that do not need the critical minerals and are cheaper. Many different lines of research are working on this issue. Some new batteries have already been tested but I do not know if these are already ready for commercial use. I read that Chinese sell cars using an alternative battery technology but do not know how optimal or expensive it is.
The second is developing renewable fuels by using energy produced without using fossil fuels. There are test plants working but I assume that there is a need to build many more and larger plants for this purpose before the e-fuels can fulfill a significant part of the demand.
E-fuels would be a good solution because they could be used with the current cars using combustion engines.
Whatever new technology is developed, it may take more than a decade before the electric vehicles become cheap enough to be available to most vehicle owners.
Here, new SUV-type plug-in hybrid or full electric cars cost mostly above 50’000 €, with some Asian (Chinese) cars being a bit cheaper. Finland has expensive cars due to tax policies but even somewhat lower prices are definitely beyond what many car owners can pay. Smaller and cheaper electric cars are coming to the market but they are not as cheap as the cheapest cars with combustion engines.
Saving the planet is currently the priviledge of those who have money.
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That is really lame! I say that in part because they’re probably letting human waste got to waste; that is, human waste can be used to generate methane that can be fed into natural gas lines (and what’s left after making methane is high-quality fertilizer). I’ve never run the numbers, but it would be interesting to see how much of a city’s natural gas needs could be generated that way.
When houses are built well so they’ll last at least a century, that lumber serves to sequester carbon. Sadly in the U.S. many houses really aren’t built to last even thirty years these days; I suspect Australians aren’t quite that foolish.
OTOH a lot of plastic can be recycled into building materials that should last easily five hundred years, which also sequesters carbon.
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Somewhat – and there’s a place where tariffs make sense: Canada manages to produce massive amounts of nickel without all that environmental damage, which means it isn’t necessary, and such pollution should be penalized. Doing it cleanly is very energy intensive, but if batteries are built well that energy cost is more than offset!
OTOH advances in graphene power storage may make nickel unnecessary for batteries in the near future.
It should be noted that Indonesia’s CO_2 problem is a bootstrap issue: the current energy source is dirty, but it takes the materials being produced to get clean energy – and the continued use of fossil fuels would be ten or twenty times worse! Another aspect is that Indonesia produces almost no nickel for batteries; its materials go to making stainless steel.
We really need to get busy mining asteroids! I remember reading of one that NASA has identified as having enough nickel to supply foreseen demand for the next three hundred years, so the materials are out there.
note: watch the last video especially!
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