241–250 of 427 posts
Some parts of Australia. Not Victoria which has bankrupted itself building roads and railways it cannot afford.
Bullshit. Victoria's default offer will include the same offer from October [1]. Victoria has a separate regulator because it deregulated its electricity grid before the other states. [1] https://www.energy.vic.gov.au/households/save-energy-and-mon...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well off people do not allocate capital in a way that's socially or economically (on a national level) optimal. So the government has to do that for them (even if those who the majority of taxes personally benefit less from that than if they were allowed to keep that money). I don't think that's entirely unreasonable. After all there are hardly any personal incentives for individuals to invest into infrastructure, ed…
If there's hardly any individual desire, as you say, to fund the development of the poor then taxes in that pursuit are illegitimate under a theory taxation happens by the assent of the people (even if only roughly a majority or their representatives). Given that most taxation done with the the advertised goal of helping the poor in Australia does happen with popular assent of individuals, I would theorize your posit…
I never said that wasn't the case but historically that "some" was never sufficient. On average people are rational and selfish to a larger extent than they are altruistic.
> taxes in that pursuit are illegitimate under a theory taxation happens by the assent of the people
Well the whole concept of an organized society falls apart if individuals can personally freely chose which laws to obey and which taxes to pay. You have to have a balance based on a reasonable consensus, otherwise you end up with totalitarianism or anarchy (and in that case the people who have the means and resources to do that will establish alternative power structures and will end up subjugating those who do not AND also outcompete those how have the means but are unwilling to do the same).
First world problems but my Australian retail plan already offers a free period between 11am-2pm without any usage cap, so now with this policy introduction i'm worried my provider will introduce such a cap under the guise of 'its what the government says we can do'.
> without any usage cap
At the risk of Reddit-style mass downvoting, I strongly encourage you to borrow Oracle-level of debt (billions of USD) and build a Tesla Megapack battery "farm" and immediately begin mining Bitcoin. Of course, the battery "farm" will conveniently only be activated during these special hours. The only forseeable risk to ROI for this project would be AT&T- or Comcast-style of "double top secret" limitations over the "without any usage cap" clause.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If there's hardly any individual desire, as you say, to fund the development of the poor then taxes in that pursuit are illegitimate under a theory taxation happens by the assent of the people (even if only roughly a majority or their representatives). Given that most taxation done with the the advertised goal of helping the poor in Australia does happen with popular assent of individuals, I would theorize your posit…
> have some individual incentives to develop services offered to the poor I never said that wasn't the case but historically that "some" was never sufficient. On average people are rational and selfish to a larger extent than they are altruistic. > taxes in that pursuit are illegitimate under a theory taxation happens by the assent of the people Well the whole concept of an organized society falls apart if individual…
It can't simultaneously be true that most don't want to help the poor at their own cost while also the tax has been legitimized by the majority wanting to help the poor at their own cost. Only individuals or representatives elected by individuals can vote and if their incentive was to not help the poor then they'd vote not to and that would be that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> have some individual incentives to develop services offered to the poor I never said that wasn't the case but historically that "some" was never sufficient. On average people are rational and selfish to a larger extent than they are altruistic. > taxes in that pursuit are illegitimate under a theory taxation happens by the assent of the people Well the whole concept of an organized society falls apart if individual…
No, I'm not talking about picking and choosing for a voted tax. I'm saying it can't be true most people don't want to help fund the poor if the majority are voting to tax themselves to fund the poor. Clearly under anything remotely resembling the Australian representation of what they claim their representative democracy is, the majority of people already decided they individually are incentivized to help the poor de…
Or people have a tendence to perceive a system where everyone is required to pay their "fair share" as more just and are more willing to (often begrudgingly) participate in it. If the system was fully voluntary the average contribution would be significantly lower that it is now. Also a significant proportion might feel they benefit from this system more than they pay into it (or are risk averse and prefer having the safety net even if they contribute more than they benefit)
> decided they individually are incentivized to help the poor develop infrastructure
Well I'm generally vaguely incentivized to help the poor and develop infrastructure. Would I be willing to voluntary give up 40% of my income to do that rather than a significantly lower proportion? No, of course not. When it comes to infrastructure I'd be willing to pay very little or nothing at all if I know my neighbour isn't contributing anything. I don't think the average person would behave particularly differently than me.
It’s very cool to see what happens where there are simply so many residential solar installs. Power price goes negative during peak sunshine hours so they just give it away. Solar installs benefitting everyone, even those who never got solar.
Yeah, it's been great to see the uptake of rooftop solar in Australia. One downside is that large scale solar projects aren't profitable any more. It kind of sucks for the investors that adopted green tech, that they aren't getting a good payoff. The good news is that co-located solar and battery projects are still profitable, but capital costs are higher and payback period of batteries aren't as good.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Moreover, apartment dwelling residential customers connected to embedded networks (many new apartment blocks in NSW, Victoria and Queensland) are not eligible for the Solar Share Offer because under section 6(3)(c), a consumer supplied through an embedded network is already excluded from the Commonwealth Electricity Retail Code’s definition of a «small customer». The government won't address this particular perverse…
I love being ripped off because I'm renting, so instead of having a direct relationship with my service providers, they are legally allowed to sign binding contracts with the building manager who I'm sure in no shape way or form receives a kick-back. So I'm stuck with an energy provider that is too incompetent to figure out how to bill me correctly, but puts a markup on what I'd pay as a home owner, and I don't even…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
To check I understand you: the smaller tank with heatpump would consume less energy outside the time window in which energy is free than the large tank with resistive heating, but has a higher capital cost which would outweigh the amount saved on energy? If that's right, it's not obvious to me that building a suitably sized solar panel is environmentally worse than building a heat pump.
The smaller tank with heatpump will consume a lot less energy than the larger tank with resistive heat. Economically to me, the larger tank is cheaper, because the appliance is cheaper, and I never pay for the power it uses. Environmentally, yes, it is not obvious. The large tank requires many more solar panels to power it but no battery. The small tank and heatpump needs much less solar but battery for nighttime use…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is what I am doing. 42 kWh battery, 6 kW solar and fully electrified house, 2x EVs. I am able to charge cars at work and so in the depths of winter I am able to run the house by charging during the 3 hour window. There have been just a couple of cold (~2-4 degC) days when the battery was depleted 1-2 hours before the window starts. As the weather warms and we get more solar exposure we will easily be in excess.…
> I am able to charge cars at work Nice perk! Does you know who pays for the electricty? Is this "virtue signalling" by the company or landlord... or a subsidy from the local/state/national gov't? To be clear, I am not making any value judgement about providing free charging for EVs. It seems like good gov't policy to promote the adoption of EVs.
We already get free power between 0am and 6am, so with free power between 11am and 2pm we’ll have a whopping 9 hours of free power to charge our car and heat our water storage.
I'm in a plan that gets me $0.08/kWh during those hours, and I'm planning to switch to one that's just over half that, but I haven't come across any free power in that time span.