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Northern Ireland25496 Posts
On February 20 2021 14:15 dp wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2021 13:49 WombaT wrote:
Perhaps America truly is exceptional but in all the worst of ways. Hell free college would be nice, other countries in my continental vicinity have that. I can borderline afford to go currently, the pandemic certainly helps in terms of cutting my leisure spending, bit of a stretch but doable.
In the States you’re talking what 5, 10, 20x the fees and saddling people with crippling debt?
Ditto healthcare issues, I mean we live in the internet age and other systems aren’t perfect but it’s not as if people are living in ignorance of other, evidently better ways of doing things.
To the point I mean I legitimately don’t understand the wider American psyche. Things are taking a turn for the worse here but the American populace seem borderline masochistic in the pursuit of some abstract notion of American pride in so many domains.
It feels just saying ‘the system doesn’t function well’ which, while true is also a way to sidestep other painful home truths, decades of neglect for all sorts of grievances and sure, the system has flaws but 70 million folks voted for Donald Trump after witnessing his first term play out. The problem starts in this mindset of listening to people that like to complain. For example, people that can't afford college are eligible for pell grants. My wife earned her associates at literally zero cost at a community college in our area because pell grants covered the tuition and books. She could have earned her bachelors through a partnership that community college had with in state colleges for what basically could amount to 10k in loans/out of pocket if she had chosen to do so. Perhaps things are much worse now than it was 12 years ago. Maybe people can chime in and point that out. But I don't believe anyone that says a bachelors would have been a bad investment at 10k. I personally don't believe it would be a bad investment at 33k (average cost), but I would at least consider the argument.
I’m not a huge fan of the commodification of education as solely an investment in future earnings. Yes it’s important but creating more rounded and educated citizens who can pursue their interests is important too.
Different countries of course but my parent’s generation and indeed not that much before me didn’t pay at all. Our fees are still relatively affordable compared to US standards now.
The problem is, to me anyway a compound one. A college degree is a barrier to entry to far too many basic jobs, they’re too expensive for what you’re actually doing and conversely they don’t open as many doors as everyone and their cat has one. Alongside the cultural push that going to college is the thing.
As I’ve said recently in this thread and intermittently over the years here, there’s clearly a huge structural problem here that needs actual reform.
You can get all sorts of qualifications purely by studying yourself and sitting some form of examination, outside of obtaining degrees, which require the money and years of your life. Tertiary education was free to my parents in an age where universities had learning materials and expertise within their walls that were hard to obtain if not borderline impossible for even a hugely motivated layman. Tertiary education now costs a fair whack of cash to me in an era where albeit sometimes overwhelming to navigate with alacrity most people in the West can access good learning material on almost any subject from a computer in their pocket.
Absolutely people can work around this and have good outcomes, your wife sounds like she has her head screwed on straight anyway! Wish young me had. I don’t think that’s any kind of validation for the overall structure making much sense, and I mean it’s a tad strange where teens are expected to have the wherewithal to make decisions around tens of thousands of dollars of debt when they’re a few years away from being entrusted with the huge responsibility of being allowed to drink alcohol.
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Northern Ireland25496 Posts
On February 20 2021 14:02 Zambrah wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2021 13:36 Mohdoo wrote:On February 20 2021 13:33 Zambrah wrote:And to move onto a different topic, The winter storm that messed up Texas is leaving people with massive electricity bills because capitalism. Texas might want to seriously reconsider being so detached from the rest of the nation's power grid, and they're DEFINITELY going to have to do something about this. Seeing thousands of dollars in bills rack up because of a natural disaster caused a state's dogshit infrastructure to get wrecked is bullshit. This was a "take massive debt or potentially freeze to death" moment. I wonder what'll happen with this, because theres no way people will tolerate this kind of additional financial burden in the face of the pandemic. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/deep-freeze-subsides-texans-now-face-electricity-bills-10-000-n1258362?cid=sm_npd_ms_tw_ma The entire idea of privatized utilities is just so fucked up. Yeah this is a huge indictment of the concept of privatized utilities and the concept that businesses are somehow better at running things than the government, lol. Makes me almost wish we had some libertarian takes to defend whats happening in Texas.
The libertarian take is when companies are gouging people it’s because they’re enabled to by the government and if a ‘real’ free market was in place they wouldn’t. Because competition and choice and because economies of scale don’t exist and you can’t get monopolies in a truly free market.
Alas Wegandi isn’t here to refute me of my failing as a LARPer
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On February 20 2021 13:33 Zambrah wrote:And to move onto a different topic, The winter storm that messed up Texas is leaving people with massive electricity bills because capitalism. Texas might want to seriously reconsider being so detached from the rest of the nation's power grid, and they're DEFINITELY going to have to do something about this. Seeing thousands of dollars in bills rack up because of a natural disaster caused a state's dogshit infrastructure to get wrecked is bullshit. This was a "take massive debt or potentially freeze to death" moment. I wonder what'll happen with this, because theres no way people will tolerate this kind of additional financial burden in the face of the pandemic. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/deep-freeze-subsides-texans-now-face-electricity-bills-10-000-n1258362?cid=sm_npd_ms_tw_ma Market based dynamic electricity prices? what the actual fuck is that and why on earth would that ever be a good idea as a consumer.
You electricity bill can randomly go through the absolute roof because other people are using more electricity? Sounds like a brilliant idea /s
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Well, dynamic pricing has some real advantages. A lot of places have peak and off-peak tarrifs, and market-driven prices are really just a more granular version of that.
For you as an individual, a market plan would normally let you save some money if you're willing to watch the prices and run your dryer in the middle of the night. You lose all those savings instantly as soon as there's a disaster, obviously, but that was page 153 of the T&Cs nobody read.
At a system level, it enables small-scale energy-trading that increases the efficiency of the whole network, from stuff as simple as grandma's hot water system coming on at 4am when tarrifs are low, to more sophisticated things like everyone's powerwalls doing buy-low-sell-high to smooth out demand. It's also genuinely desirable for price to affect people's behaviour when there's a shortage. People would still run heating, but maybe their bitcoin farms are no longer profitable, and that frees up capacity for everyone else.
The caveat is that there would be a price cap in any sensible implementation, or perhaps a rationing system to try to give each household enough to run the essentials. This is America, so a sensible implementation is off the cards, but responsive pricing in and of itself is not a bad idea.
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I have dynamic pricing here in Norway as an option (which I use). It works great (well except that one week a year it goes very high and everyone forget that the previous weeks were extremely cheap) and is in total a lot cheaper than the options with caps.
A few interesting things about our electric power system in Norway. The market of being the seller of electricity to the consumer is extremely competitive with a lot of companies (a really large amount), the power plant is usually owned (often semi-privatized) by municipality, county, or farmers. The electric power is heavily regulated, both when it comes to how to produce it and when it comes to fair competition between companies. We are also connected to Nord Pool, where we trade our electricity with the rest of Europe and lets us, unlike Texas, be stable when we have a shortage of power.
So to I am sure a libertarian would point to our system and say that it works in a truly free market, while conveniently forgetting how heavily regulated the producing of the power is combined with fair competition regulations.
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On February 20 2021 19:32 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2021 13:33 Zambrah wrote:And to move onto a different topic, The winter storm that messed up Texas is leaving people with massive electricity bills because capitalism. Texas might want to seriously reconsider being so detached from the rest of the nation's power grid, and they're DEFINITELY going to have to do something about this. Seeing thousands of dollars in bills rack up because of a natural disaster caused a state's dogshit infrastructure to get wrecked is bullshit. This was a "take massive debt or potentially freeze to death" moment. I wonder what'll happen with this, because theres no way people will tolerate this kind of additional financial burden in the face of the pandemic. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/deep-freeze-subsides-texans-now-face-electricity-bills-10-000-n1258362?cid=sm_npd_ms_tw_ma Market based dynamic electricity prices? what the actual fuck is that and why on earth would that ever be a good idea as a consumer. You electricity bill can randomly go through the absolute roof because other people are using more electricity? Sounds like a brilliant idea /s
That article was brutal. $10k to for electricity for a 3BR home is nuts. The company telling people to switch providers instead of fixing their billing/charging system is a huge problem. So many people in the US pass the buck onto other people its nuts. Total not my problem attitude.
We need to do better as a society.
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Well, dynamic tarrifs have their merits in my opinion. We are trying to figure this out in Germany as a means to stabilising the grid (idk about other countries here because this is I think a very German "problem" being addressed).
A super quick and dirty rundown:
Due to a lot of renewable energy generation sometimes the electricity price goes into the negative. Because there is too much (or too little) power in the grid.
So people get paid to a) produce less power, b) consume lots of power (e.g. production of H2 or other synthetic fuel, charging of batteries that would otherwise be financially unsustainable because of the charging/decharging losses,...). This cost is levied over to the general price of electricity, c) the opposite of the above
There are new types of power meters being installed that would allow utilities to offer specific contracts to prosumers who want to take part in that kind of grid stabilisation. With smart appliances that consume a predictable amount of power, these meters allow for the planned start of appliances (EV-charging, washing mashine, dishwasher, dryer...) to generate load or reduce load through swarm behaviour of small power consumers.
Germany also as a maximum profit margin that can be attained by operating a grid (not necessarily selling power, but that market is also rather competitive, though levies constitute of more than a thrid of our electricity price).
The price of constitutes of: 24% levies for renewables; 23% tax; 30% grid maintenance and investment; 23% electricity generation and profit margin for the utility. + Show Spoiler [picture explaining electricity costs -…] +
Through that margin you have to finance customer service, marketing, power purchasing (in the case that the company does't generate its own, which is common), salaries and more of that stuff.
Also the grid is heavily interconnected. A fault in I think a substation in Romania almost took down parts of the EU grid.
That's an advantage as well as a disandvantage as we can see here.
Though we still have problems transporting all the renewable energy from the coast to the south here because the grid can't be expanded fast enough for various reasons.
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On February 20 2021 14:02 Zambrah wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2021 13:36 Mohdoo wrote:On February 20 2021 13:33 Zambrah wrote:And to move onto a different topic, The winter storm that messed up Texas is leaving people with massive electricity bills because capitalism. Texas might want to seriously reconsider being so detached from the rest of the nation's power grid, and they're DEFINITELY going to have to do something about this. Seeing thousands of dollars in bills rack up because of a natural disaster caused a state's dogshit infrastructure to get wrecked is bullshit. This was a "take massive debt or potentially freeze to death" moment. I wonder what'll happen with this, because theres no way people will tolerate this kind of additional financial burden in the face of the pandemic. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/deep-freeze-subsides-texans-now-face-electricity-bills-10-000-n1258362?cid=sm_npd_ms_tw_ma The entire idea of privatized utilities is just so fucked up. Yeah this is a huge indictment of the concept of privatized utilities and the concept that businesses are somehow better at running things than the government, lol. Makes me almost wish we had some libertarian takes to defend whats happening in Texas.
This is more of a capitalism problem than a lack of regulation problem. Having whole sale prices on energy isn't really a bad thing, just poor risk assessment on the consumer's part. You end up saving a cent or two when buying market price during normal times. People see this and want to save money. What they don't consider is that during a crisis like this you are going to have to turn your power off. For people with solar panels on their house this model is great for the consumer. For the average joe who sees prices are a cent less and decides to 'save some money' this can be a disaster.
The price shot up so far because there is no regulation on base load. That isn't unique to this pricing model and is something to talk about. You're just starting off at the wrong point. The power plants ran out of fuel to burn. The wells froze. The roads became impassable with the snow/ice/collisions. You can't run a power plant without fuel.
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On February 21 2021 00:04 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2021 14:02 Zambrah wrote:On February 20 2021 13:36 Mohdoo wrote:On February 20 2021 13:33 Zambrah wrote:And to move onto a different topic, The winter storm that messed up Texas is leaving people with massive electricity bills because capitalism. Texas might want to seriously reconsider being so detached from the rest of the nation's power grid, and they're DEFINITELY going to have to do something about this. Seeing thousands of dollars in bills rack up because of a natural disaster caused a state's dogshit infrastructure to get wrecked is bullshit. This was a "take massive debt or potentially freeze to death" moment. I wonder what'll happen with this, because theres no way people will tolerate this kind of additional financial burden in the face of the pandemic. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/deep-freeze-subsides-texans-now-face-electricity-bills-10-000-n1258362?cid=sm_npd_ms_tw_ma The entire idea of privatized utilities is just so fucked up. Yeah this is a huge indictment of the concept of privatized utilities and the concept that businesses are somehow better at running things than the government, lol. Makes me almost wish we had some libertarian takes to defend whats happening in Texas. This is more of a capitalism problem than a lack of regulation problem. Having whole sale prices on energy isn't really a bad thing, just poor risk assessment on the consumer's part. You end up saving a cent or two when buying market price during normal times. People see this and want to save money. What they don't consider is that during a crisis like this you are going to have to turn your power off. For people with solar panels on their house this model is great for the consumer. For the average joe who sees prices are a cent less and decides to 'save some money' this can be a disaster. The price shot up so far because there is no regulation on base load. That isn't unique to this pricing model and is something to talk about. You're just starting off at the wrong point. The power plants ran out of fuel to burn. The wells froze. The roads became impassable with the snow/ice/collisions. You can't run a power plant without fuel.
I dont think that this is a consumer risk assessment problem. To me, that's classic victim blaming.
If you don't have power these days, nothing works. No traffic lights, no water or wastewater utiliites, no garbage disposal, even no power generation if things are set up badly. Fun fact, you can't necessarily run a power plant without power.
It is entirely stupid on a state and individual company level to not have a proper grid that is failsafe to a degree that encompasses realistic and forecastable conditions. The amout of money going into repairs and stuff is going to cost the taxpayer. Current WSJ artice says 18 Billion. It's just a gamble whether you'll get a storm or hurricane or not and increasingly this gamble looks more and more stupid. Having a public utility saves sooo much money for individual safeguards that would otherwie have to be put in place, or the subsequent repairs after the failure.
It is not difficult and not too expensive for the consumer to have a failsafe grid, as demonstrated by many countries across the world. A bit more pricy energy would also help incentivise against wasteful behaviour. Hello climate change.
A lid on how much a standard tariff - a basic pwer tariff everyone gets until they change contracts - is more than sensible. Even the UK has a regulator for that. People defaulting on their electricity bill isn't worth a $ in GDP either.
Them working 2 or more jobs to make ends meet and you want them to do risk assessment on something fundamental as electricity contracts, get you priorities straight. Talk about time wasted that could've been used for something more useful. Like arguing on the internet.
This is exactly what happens with "free" capitalism without regulation. Imagine having proper infrastructure that doesn't collapse during storms. maybe bury the important power lines instead of putting them on wooden sticks and such (yes sarcasm).
Also: are you sure that you meant base load? Do you mean peak load?
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On February 21 2021 00:54 Artisreal wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2021 00:04 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On February 20 2021 14:02 Zambrah wrote:On February 20 2021 13:36 Mohdoo wrote:On February 20 2021 13:33 Zambrah wrote:And to move onto a different topic, The winter storm that messed up Texas is leaving people with massive electricity bills because capitalism. Texas might want to seriously reconsider being so detached from the rest of the nation's power grid, and they're DEFINITELY going to have to do something about this. Seeing thousands of dollars in bills rack up because of a natural disaster caused a state's dogshit infrastructure to get wrecked is bullshit. This was a "take massive debt or potentially freeze to death" moment. I wonder what'll happen with this, because theres no way people will tolerate this kind of additional financial burden in the face of the pandemic. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/deep-freeze-subsides-texans-now-face-electricity-bills-10-000-n1258362?cid=sm_npd_ms_tw_ma The entire idea of privatized utilities is just so fucked up. Yeah this is a huge indictment of the concept of privatized utilities and the concept that businesses are somehow better at running things than the government, lol. Makes me almost wish we had some libertarian takes to defend whats happening in Texas. This is more of a capitalism problem than a lack of regulation problem. Having whole sale prices on energy isn't really a bad thing, just poor risk assessment on the consumer's part. You end up saving a cent or two when buying market price during normal times. People see this and want to save money. What they don't consider is that during a crisis like this you are going to have to turn your power off. For people with solar panels on their house this model is great for the consumer. For the average joe who sees prices are a cent less and decides to 'save some money' this can be a disaster. The price shot up so far because there is no regulation on base load. That isn't unique to this pricing model and is something to talk about. You're just starting off at the wrong point. The power plants ran out of fuel to burn. The wells froze. The roads became impassable with the snow/ice/collisions. You can't run a power plant without fuel. I dont think that this is a consumer risk assessment problem. To me, that's classic victim blaming. If you don't have power these days, nothing works. No traffic lights, no water or wastewater utiliites, no garbage disposal, even no power generation if things are set up badly. Fun fact, you can't necessarily run a power plant without power. It is entirely stupid on a state and individual company level to not have a proper grid that is failsafe to a degree that encompasses realistic and forecastable conditions. The amout of money going into repairs and stuff is going to cost the taxpayer. Current WSJ artice says 18 Billion. It's just a gamble whether you'll get a storm or hurricane or not and increasingly this gamble looks more and more stupid. Having a public utility saves sooo much money for individual safeguards that would otherwie have to be put in place, or the subsequent repairs after the failure. It is not difficult and not too expensive for the consumer to have a failsafe grid, as demonstrated by many countries across the world. A bit more pricy energy would also help incentivise against wasteful behaviour. Hello climate change. A lid on how much a standard tariff - a basic pwer tariff everyone gets until they change contracts - is more than sensible. Even the UK has a regulator for that. People defaulting on their electricity bill isn't worth a $ in GDP either. Them working 2 or more jobs to make ends meet and you want them to do risk assessment on something fundamental as electricity contracts, get you priorities straight. Talk about time wasted that could've been used for something more useful. Like arguing on the internet. This is exactly what happens with "free" capitalism without regulation. Imagine having proper infrastructure that doesn't collapse during storms. maybe bury the important power lines instead of putting them on wooden sticks and such (yes sarcasm). Also: are you sure that you meant base load? Do you mean peak load?
I'm not arguing for less regulation. I'm just saying that Griddy itself isn't a bad company and thinking Texas's problems are with the market pricing model is misguided.
and yes I really meant base load. Texas has sizable solar and wind production moving into the market which has caused their other infrastructure to become neglected. Texas doesn't normally need oil and gas plants during winter because it doesn't get cold so they shutdown. Oil and Gas plants are not as profitable so they're storing less fuel and none of it has been winterized. They have the peak capacity, it's just that they ran out of oil in Texas to run their plants. Keep in mind that Texas is the largest oil producing state in the entire US. How the do you run out of fuel in Texas?
Moving forward in the US means connecting the grids. This was actually proposed during the Trump administration, but was killed because it would hurt the coal industry. Definitely looking forward to see what Biden does in that area. Of course, this doesn't help Texas at all because they're special and have their own grid. This would mean the mid west diverting power to California so they can not have black outs.
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On February 20 2021 14:15 dp wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2021 13:49 WombaT wrote:
Perhaps America truly is exceptional but in all the worst of ways. Hell free college would be nice, other countries in my continental vicinity have that. I can borderline afford to go currently, the pandemic certainly helps in terms of cutting my leisure spending, bit of a stretch but doable.
In the States you’re talking what 5, 10, 20x the fees and saddling people with crippling debt?
Ditto healthcare issues, I mean we live in the internet age and other systems aren’t perfect but it’s not as if people are living in ignorance of other, evidently better ways of doing things.
To the point I mean I legitimately don’t understand the wider American psyche. Things are taking a turn for the worse here but the American populace seem borderline masochistic in the pursuit of some abstract notion of American pride in so many domains.
It feels just saying ‘the system doesn’t function well’ which, while true is also a way to sidestep other painful home truths, decades of neglect for all sorts of grievances and sure, the system has flaws but 70 million folks voted for Donald Trump after witnessing his first term play out. The problem starts in this mindset of listening to people that like to complain. For example, people that can't afford college are eligible for pell grants. My wife earned her associates at literally zero cost at a community college in our area because pell grants covered the tuition and books. She could have earned her bachelors through a partnership that community college had with in state colleges for what basically could amount to 10k in loans/out of pocket if she had chosen to do so. Perhaps things are much worse now than it was 12 years ago. Maybe people can chime in and point that out. But I don't believe anyone that says a bachelors would have been a bad investment at 10k. I personally don't believe it would be a bad investment at 33k (average cost), but I would at least consider the argument.
If you aren't aware of how things have changed in the last 12 years, your general condescension blame game nonsense is particularly inappropriate.
You're also still not recognizing the idea that something being worthwhile does not mean we just say "Alright good enough" and walk away. As has been pointed out before, a variety of aspects of American life are better than the bare minimum to be worthwhile, yet we still strive to make improvements. It feels like when you point out a college education is worth it, you are saying the structure doesn't benefit from improvements. What % of your income would you spend on running water in your home before you decided it wasn't worth it? Should we not mind so long as its still worth it?
If we were to look at cancer treatment 50 years ago and say "This is clearly helping a lot of people, everyone is being ridiculous about wanting to completely cure cancer", we'd have missed out on a lot of enormous advances.
In 200 years, we will look back at human civilization as a complete dumpster fire. We will have likely improved almost every aspect of human existence substantially. We have no incentive to accept good, great, or even amazing. So long as any improvement can be made, it is imperative we reach for that. The way you keep looping back to "its still worth it" is just bizarre to me.
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Not freezing to death is generally worth it I'd think, but I likewise don't think we have any reason to accept the current situation in Texas.
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On February 21 2021 01:19 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2021 00:54 Artisreal wrote:On February 21 2021 00:04 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On February 20 2021 14:02 Zambrah wrote:On February 20 2021 13:36 Mohdoo wrote:On February 20 2021 13:33 Zambrah wrote:And to move onto a different topic, The winter storm that messed up Texas is leaving people with massive electricity bills because capitalism. Texas might want to seriously reconsider being so detached from the rest of the nation's power grid, and they're DEFINITELY going to have to do something about this. Seeing thousands of dollars in bills rack up because of a natural disaster caused a state's dogshit infrastructure to get wrecked is bullshit. This was a "take massive debt or potentially freeze to death" moment. I wonder what'll happen with this, because theres no way people will tolerate this kind of additional financial burden in the face of the pandemic. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/deep-freeze-subsides-texans-now-face-electricity-bills-10-000-n1258362?cid=sm_npd_ms_tw_ma The entire idea of privatized utilities is just so fucked up. Yeah this is a huge indictment of the concept of privatized utilities and the concept that businesses are somehow better at running things than the government, lol. Makes me almost wish we had some libertarian takes to defend whats happening in Texas. This is more of a capitalism problem than a lack of regulation problem. Having whole sale prices on energy isn't really a bad thing, just poor risk assessment on the consumer's part. You end up saving a cent or two when buying market price during normal times. People see this and want to save money. What they don't consider is that during a crisis like this you are going to have to turn your power off. For people with solar panels on their house this model is great for the consumer. For the average joe who sees prices are a cent less and decides to 'save some money' this can be a disaster. The price shot up so far because there is no regulation on base load. That isn't unique to this pricing model and is something to talk about. You're just starting off at the wrong point. The power plants ran out of fuel to burn. The wells froze. The roads became impassable with the snow/ice/collisions. You can't run a power plant without fuel. I dont think that this is a consumer risk assessment problem. To me, that's classic victim blaming. If you don't have power these days, nothing works. No traffic lights, no water or wastewater utiliites, no garbage disposal, even no power generation if things are set up badly. Fun fact, you can't necessarily run a power plant without power. It is entirely stupid on a state and individual company level to not have a proper grid that is failsafe to a degree that encompasses realistic and forecastable conditions. The amout of money going into repairs and stuff is going to cost the taxpayer. Current WSJ artice says 18 Billion. It's just a gamble whether you'll get a storm or hurricane or not and increasingly this gamble looks more and more stupid. Having a public utility saves sooo much money for individual safeguards that would otherwie have to be put in place, or the subsequent repairs after the failure. It is not difficult and not too expensive for the consumer to have a failsafe grid, as demonstrated by many countries across the world. A bit more pricy energy would also help incentivise against wasteful behaviour. Hello climate change. A lid on how much a standard tariff - a basic pwer tariff everyone gets until they change contracts - is more than sensible. Even the UK has a regulator for that. People defaulting on their electricity bill isn't worth a $ in GDP either. Them working 2 or more jobs to make ends meet and you want them to do risk assessment on something fundamental as electricity contracts, get you priorities straight. Talk about time wasted that could've been used for something more useful. Like arguing on the internet. This is exactly what happens with "free" capitalism without regulation. Imagine having proper infrastructure that doesn't collapse during storms. maybe bury the important power lines instead of putting them on wooden sticks and such (yes sarcasm). Also: are you sure that you meant base load? Do you mean peak load? I'm not arguing for less regulation. I'm just saying that Griddy itself isn't a bad company and thinking Texas's problems are with the market pricing model is misguided. and yes I really meant base load. Texas has sizable solar and wind production moving into the market which has caused their other infrastructure to become neglected. Texas doesn't normally need oil and gas plants during winter because it doesn't get cold so they shutdown. Oil and Gas plants are not as profitable so they're storing less fuel and none of it has been winterized. They have the peak capacity, it's just that they ran out of oil in Texas to run their plants. Keep in mind that Texas is the largest oil producing state in the entire US. How the do you run out of fuel in Texas? Moving forward in the US means connecting the grids. This was actually proposed during the Trump administration, but was killed because it would hurt the coal industry. Definitely looking forward to see what Biden does in that area. Of course, this doesn't help Texas at all because they're special and have their own grid. This would mean the mid west diverting power to California so they can not have black outs.
Thanks for explaining that, I didn't correctly understand how you referenced the base load in the earlier post but have revisited it and think I understand.
I don't agree that the link between wind and solar and a neglected grid you propose is some inevitable outcome. It's the outcome of a deregulated mess. But this seems to be common ground now in general.
As you said, what good does peak capacity do, if it's unavailable? Why is it unavailable? Neither because of wind and solar, nor because of the freeze. Because there was no requirement for proper preparation. The weather forecast didn't drop out of the blue either... Many mistakes were made and I hope we can learn from the mistakes and continue to future-proof our grids - power, gas, H2, maybe even CO2. Who knows.
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On February 21 2021 04:24 Artisreal wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2021 01:19 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On February 21 2021 00:54 Artisreal wrote:On February 21 2021 00:04 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On February 20 2021 14:02 Zambrah wrote:On February 20 2021 13:36 Mohdoo wrote:On February 20 2021 13:33 Zambrah wrote:And to move onto a different topic, The winter storm that messed up Texas is leaving people with massive electricity bills because capitalism. Texas might want to seriously reconsider being so detached from the rest of the nation's power grid, and they're DEFINITELY going to have to do something about this. Seeing thousands of dollars in bills rack up because of a natural disaster caused a state's dogshit infrastructure to get wrecked is bullshit. This was a "take massive debt or potentially freeze to death" moment. I wonder what'll happen with this, because theres no way people will tolerate this kind of additional financial burden in the face of the pandemic. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/deep-freeze-subsides-texans-now-face-electricity-bills-10-000-n1258362?cid=sm_npd_ms_tw_ma The entire idea of privatized utilities is just so fucked up. Yeah this is a huge indictment of the concept of privatized utilities and the concept that businesses are somehow better at running things than the government, lol. Makes me almost wish we had some libertarian takes to defend whats happening in Texas. This is more of a capitalism problem than a lack of regulation problem. Having whole sale prices on energy isn't really a bad thing, just poor risk assessment on the consumer's part. You end up saving a cent or two when buying market price during normal times. People see this and want to save money. What they don't consider is that during a crisis like this you are going to have to turn your power off. For people with solar panels on their house this model is great for the consumer. For the average joe who sees prices are a cent less and decides to 'save some money' this can be a disaster. The price shot up so far because there is no regulation on base load. That isn't unique to this pricing model and is something to talk about. You're just starting off at the wrong point. The power plants ran out of fuel to burn. The wells froze. The roads became impassable with the snow/ice/collisions. You can't run a power plant without fuel. I dont think that this is a consumer risk assessment problem. To me, that's classic victim blaming. If you don't have power these days, nothing works. No traffic lights, no water or wastewater utiliites, no garbage disposal, even no power generation if things are set up badly. Fun fact, you can't necessarily run a power plant without power. It is entirely stupid on a state and individual company level to not have a proper grid that is failsafe to a degree that encompasses realistic and forecastable conditions. The amout of money going into repairs and stuff is going to cost the taxpayer. Current WSJ artice says 18 Billion. It's just a gamble whether you'll get a storm or hurricane or not and increasingly this gamble looks more and more stupid. Having a public utility saves sooo much money for individual safeguards that would otherwie have to be put in place, or the subsequent repairs after the failure. It is not difficult and not too expensive for the consumer to have a failsafe grid, as demonstrated by many countries across the world. A bit more pricy energy would also help incentivise against wasteful behaviour. Hello climate change. A lid on how much a standard tariff - a basic pwer tariff everyone gets until they change contracts - is more than sensible. Even the UK has a regulator for that. People defaulting on their electricity bill isn't worth a $ in GDP either. Them working 2 or more jobs to make ends meet and you want them to do risk assessment on something fundamental as electricity contracts, get you priorities straight. Talk about time wasted that could've been used for something more useful. Like arguing on the internet. This is exactly what happens with "free" capitalism without regulation. Imagine having proper infrastructure that doesn't collapse during storms. maybe bury the important power lines instead of putting them on wooden sticks and such (yes sarcasm). Also: are you sure that you meant base load? Do you mean peak load? I'm not arguing for less regulation. I'm just saying that Griddy itself isn't a bad company and thinking Texas's problems are with the market pricing model is misguided. and yes I really meant base load. Texas has sizable solar and wind production moving into the market which has caused their other infrastructure to become neglected. Texas doesn't normally need oil and gas plants during winter because it doesn't get cold so they shutdown. Oil and Gas plants are not as profitable so they're storing less fuel and none of it has been winterized. They have the peak capacity, it's just that they ran out of oil in Texas to run their plants. Keep in mind that Texas is the largest oil producing state in the entire US. How the do you run out of fuel in Texas? Moving forward in the US means connecting the grids. This was actually proposed during the Trump administration, but was killed because it would hurt the coal industry. Definitely looking forward to see what Biden does in that area. Of course, this doesn't help Texas at all because they're special and have their own grid. This would mean the mid west diverting power to California so they can not have black outs. Thanks for explaining that, I didn't correctly understand how you referenced the base load in the earlier post but have revisited it and think I understand. I don't agree that the link between wind and solar and a neglected grid you propose is some inevitable outcome. It's the outcome of a deregulated mess. But this seems to be common ground now in general. As you said, what good does peak capacity do, if it's unavailable? Why is it unavailable? Neither because of wind and solar, nor because of the freeze. Because there was no requirement for proper preparation. The weather forecast didn't drop out of the blue either... Many mistakes were made and I hope we can learn from the mistakes and continue to future-proof our grids - power, gas, H2, maybe even CO2. Who knows.
They could have spent money winterizing instead of taking massive profits, but I think the solution is what I was talking about in my last paragraph of the previous post. All the grids in the US have transmission lines so that when Texas has a once in a decade winter storm it can draw wind power from the east coast or solar power from the west coast to supplement.
This has many other advantages throughout the US, especially surrounding carbon emissions and climate change.
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The problem starts in this mindset of listening to people that like to complain. For example, people that can't afford college are eligible for pell grants. My wife earned her associates at literally zero cost at a community college in our area because pell grants covered the tuition and books. She could have earned her bachelors through a partnership that community college had with in state colleges for what basically could amount to 10k in loans/out of pocket if she had chosen to do so.
Perhaps things are much worse now than it was 12 years ago. Maybe people can chime in and point that out. But I don't believe anyone that says a bachelors would have been a bad investment at 10k. I personally don't believe it would be a bad investment at 33k (average cost), but I would at least consider the argument.
Tuition for in state school near me is around 7.5k per semester. That is 60k for 4 years, before living expenses. This is much higher than when I went a decade ago, and it was stupid high then. Also I had poor friends, none of them had pell grants. The problem isn't that people are complaining, the problem is that tuition is way too damn high.
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Northern Ireland25496 Posts
On February 21 2021 07:25 greenturtle23 wrote:Show nested quote +
The problem starts in this mindset of listening to people that like to complain. For example, people that can't afford college are eligible for pell grants. My wife earned her associates at literally zero cost at a community college in our area because pell grants covered the tuition and books. She could have earned her bachelors through a partnership that community college had with in state colleges for what basically could amount to 10k in loans/out of pocket if she had chosen to do so.
Perhaps things are much worse now than it was 12 years ago. Maybe people can chime in and point that out. But I don't believe anyone that says a bachelors would have been a bad investment at 10k. I personally don't believe it would be a bad investment at 33k (average cost), but I would at least consider the argument.
Tuition for in state school near me is around 7.5k per semester. That is 60k for 4 years, before living expenses. This is much higher than when I went a decade ago, and it was stupid high then. Also I had poor friends, none of them had pell grants. The problem isn't that people are complaining, the problem is that tuition is way too damn high.
By want of comparison in NI undergrad number 2 is costing me 4400 GBP a year. Still too high for my tastes but manageable, barely and I have certain advantages other people don’t. I mean disadvantages in terms of my health, but supplementary benefits on terms of working part time mean I can afford it without having to work so many hours that I have no time to actually study.
This is me paying up front as after having studied before I’m not eligible for our student loans this time. I’m unsure how it works in the States and if there are exceptions but you only start paying back your loan when you’re above a certain income threshold.
It just strikes me that if there was a parallel universe with American Wombat in it who had the same life trajectory I would have been absolutely fucked, with no amount of graft or sensible behaviour being able to extricate myself from that scenario.
I had a complete breakdown in my mid 20s, the issues that caused it were undiagnosed but probably contributed quite largely to me tanking degree #1 at the last hurdle. Then a full year in hospital, was in tons of debt and yeah, not great. Took a while but I was able to stabilise both mentally and financially and I’m back studying something I’m enthused in, with decent job prospects to boot.
I’m unsure how American Wombat would be able to recover at all outside of significant financial assistance from family etc.
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On February 21 2021 01:21 Mohdoo wrote:If you aren't aware of how things have changed in the last 12 years, your general condescension blame game nonsense is particularly inappropriate.
You're also still not recognizing the idea that something being worthwhile does not mean we just say "Alright good enough" and walk away. As has been pointed out before, a variety of aspects of American life are better than the bare minimum to be worthwhile, yet we still strive to make improvements. It feels like when you point out a college education is worth it, you are saying the structure doesn't benefit from improvements. What % of your income would you spend on running water in your home before you decided it wasn't worth it? Should we not mind so long as its still worth it?
If we were to look at cancer treatment 50 years ago and say "This is clearly helping a lot of people, everyone is being ridiculous about wanting to completely cure cancer", we'd have missed out on a lot of enormous advances.
In 200 years, we will look back at human civilization as a complete dumpster fire. We will have likely improved almost every aspect of human existence substantially. We have no incentive to accept good, great, or even amazing. So long as any improvement can be made, it is imperative we reach for that. The way you keep looping back to "its still worth it" is just bizarre to me.
Can you get an associates degree at your local community college at $0 cost through pell grants for those that are eligible, yes or no? I checked myself, and it easily covered both books and tuition with additional left over. Checked the partnerships with in state colleges and it does seem that they have increased overall since 12 years ago. But still well within a 15-17k cost with pell grants. If that is crippling debt for the education in your view, I don't know what to say.
This whole "strive to improve" has nothing to do with the actual conversation of the cost of college. It's deflection because a case cannot be made on the merits. Most of the issues you continue to bring up have absolutely nothing to do with student loan forgiveness.
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On February 21 2021 11:42 dp wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2021 01:21 Mohdoo wrote:If you aren't aware of how things have changed in the last 12 years, your general condescension blame game nonsense is particularly inappropriate.
You're also still not recognizing the idea that something being worthwhile does not mean we just say "Alright good enough" and walk away. As has been pointed out before, a variety of aspects of American life are better than the bare minimum to be worthwhile, yet we still strive to make improvements. It feels like when you point out a college education is worth it, you are saying the structure doesn't benefit from improvements. What % of your income would you spend on running water in your home before you decided it wasn't worth it? Should we not mind so long as its still worth it?
If we were to look at cancer treatment 50 years ago and say "This is clearly helping a lot of people, everyone is being ridiculous about wanting to completely cure cancer", we'd have missed out on a lot of enormous advances.
In 200 years, we will look back at human civilization as a complete dumpster fire. We will have likely improved almost every aspect of human existence substantially. We have no incentive to accept good, great, or even amazing. So long as any improvement can be made, it is imperative we reach for that. The way you keep looping back to "its still worth it" is just bizarre to me. Can you get an associates degree at your local community college at $0 cost through pell grants for those that are eligible, yes or no? I checked myself, and it easily covered both books and tuition with additional left over. Checked the partnerships with in state colleges and it does seem that they have increased overall since 12 years ago. But still well within a 15-17k cost with pell grants. If that is crippling debt for the education in your view, I don't know what to say. This whole "strive to improve" has nothing to do with the actual conversation of the cost of college. It's deflection because a case cannot be made on the merits. Most of the issues you continue to bring up have absolutely nothing to do with student loan forgiveness.
Am I getting this argument right? Some people can get an effectively free education, therefore the ones that end up having to take on debt can get fucked? Is this the Conservative "anyone who has a tough life has it as the result of their bad choices" fantasy?
In general, I don't think having to take on 10's of thousands in debt just to have the basic qualifications for most jobs right now is a healthy dynamic. Only for the last couple generations have marketable job skills been tied to an expense on par with a luxury SUV.
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On February 20 2021 17:32 WombaT wrote:
I’m not a huge fan of the commodification of education as solely an investment in future earnings. Yes it’s important but creating more rounded and educated citizens who can pursue their interests is important too.
I understand the sentiment, but that is the argument that keeps being put forward. "We were conditioned to believe this was the route to economic enhancement." I haven't seen anyone argue from the angle you are adding now, so I didn't feel inclined to talk about it.
On February 20 2021 17:32 WombaT wrote:The problem is, to me anyway a compound one. A college degree is a barrier to entry to far too many basic jobs, they’re too expensive for what you’re actually doing and conversely they don’t open as many doors as everyone and their cat has one. Alongside the cultural push that going to college is the thing.
As I’ve said recently in this thread and intermittently over the years here, there’s clearly a huge structural problem here that needs actual reform.
I completely agree. And it is not in the slightest touched on by SLF. It is the same reason that making college free doesn't change anything except the age people enter the workforce. Make associate degrees free and jobs will try to differentiate applicants by requiring a bachelors. Bachelors is free? They'll require a masters. There is no funding increase that will change that.
On February 20 2021 17:32 WombaT wrote:Absolutely people can work around this and have good outcomes, your wife sounds like she has her head screwed on straight anyway! Wish young me had. I don’t think that’s any kind of validation for the overall structure making much sense, and I mean it’s a tad strange where teens are expected to have the wherewithal to make decisions around tens of thousands of dollars of debt when they’re a few years away from being entrusted with the huge responsibility of being allowed to drink alcohol.
Love her, but her decision wasn't one based on long research and pro/con boards. She was poor. Options were limited, debt accumulation of the kinds that people talk about here would be unthinkable. Making a responsible decision about your future at that age was required. I made a similar decision for completely different reasons. Again, the idea 18 year olds can't weigh the options, obtain the knowledge to make an educated decision like this is complete and utter nonsense.
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On February 21 2021 12:34 NewSunshine wrote:
Am I getting this argument right? Some people can get an effectively free education, therefore the ones that end up having to take on debt can get fucked? Is this the Conservative "anyone who has a tough life has it as the result of their bad choices" fantasy?
In general, I don't think having to take on 10's of thousands in debt just to have the basic qualifications for most jobs right now is a healthy dynamic. Only for the last couple generations have marketable job skills been tied to an expense on par with a luxury SUV.
No, you aren't in the slightest getting the argument right.
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EPT![[image loading]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/Strompreis-zusammensetzung_2017.jpg)
