Government money for preps

Update:

This afternoon I signed paperwork for a solar electric and water heating system, 65% of the cost covered by state and federal programs up front.  20% more through tax credits for the next four years.  Electric will also run meter backward, but limits at zeroing bill for the month.  Best case I'll save lots of natural gas and have no electric bills.

I plan to add batteries and a controller after inspection is done, have power with or without system. 

Solar hot water system has a 200 gallon storage tank and I'm plaining on leaving the old 80 gallon hot water heater in line but not heating.  I'm also looking at using unused capacity in the solar hot water panels to heat a storage medium to store heat  to heat the house.

Or perhaps a milder version of that sentiment would be to ask your fellow taxpayers whether they prefer to see some tax money go to such projects as opposed to some other the other things tax get spent on? Or you could tip of your fellow taxpayers that they too could benefit from this stuff if they apply, the more who do thei fairer it is :)

Do you dislike tax system in general or just the idea that some of it is spent on helping specific individuals more than everyone collectively?

Theoretically, if the world had planned more realistically to fight H5N1, and calculated that it would require every taxpayer in the world to see their taxes rise by 2%, would people here go for that or not? Or if you thought the WHO was actually going to do a lot better if only they had more money, would people donate to them?

Sorry I just like to talk a lot about everything really, and as Im not American I seek to understand better the various US attitudes to tax etc.


Edited by elbows

Corky, I hope you plan on thanking all your neighbors and co-workers.

Hey.... show me where that's political???????????????

Oh, and for the record..... I DISPISE OUR TAX SYSTEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am a Libertarian, that's with a Large L.

I'm all for alternative energy.  In fact we just purchased a twenty year old diesel car that we are going to run on vegetable oil.  I was going to post about it this weekend because I am so stoked about it.

SZ

Edited by SophiaZoe

Dogs and frech fry lovers will follow your car drooling! 

 

Lot's of things suck, nothing new about that.  Living through the AF will most likely suck, just suck less than dieing of it or the complications.  I've been lots of things, now I just don't GAFF, and get on with life.  Pragmatic people will live and prosper, work the system till you can change it.

Edited by corky52

SZ, not to sound dumb but can you really run a car on veg oil? That would be awesome!

Original diesels were designed to run on peanut oil, vegetable oil conversions are available for many diesels.  Google it and you'll spend hours reading.  Main problem is that cheap/free sources of used oil are getting claimed and people are wising up to what they have, not giving the used oil away free any more.

Most states charge restaurants to haul away their oil.  Take it off their hands and they come out ahead without charging you a thing.  We have several pickup places already.

SZ,

Down here in SoCal, there are now bidding wars for used grease, between what goes south and local use it's about 2/3's the cost of regular fuel.  Lots of biodesiel users drives the cost up.

Ahh I didnt see the mises.org link in your sig before. I dont think I am that way inclined, but each to their own.

For me free markets can make sense, I just dont view everything as a market, so I find it a nightmare when its proposed as a solution to everything.

Oh well, lets face it, there arent very many good examples of any economic or political ideology actually being used pure to create a country and systm/institutions that work by those rles alone.  Plenty of the communist countries were not really communist in terms of how things really worked below the surface, just as there are many things that are presented to us as being free markets but are not really free at all.

Maybe sometimes we could discuss whether in pure theory, how various economic/political models for a new global order would have done in preparing to fight bird flu, compared to the results that we've actually got from the compromise/fudged/blurred world reality of systems in 2006.

Biodiesel is interesting and can be a perosnal solution to the mounting global energy crisis, but unfortunately I dont think it will scale up too well. A lot will come down to how much energy is actually used to grow the crops, and whether with a decrease in natural gas and toher sources used to make fertilisers, coupled with a changing climate and water availability, there is actually enough global capacity to grow enough food, let alone power cars.

Peak oil is my other great global concern you see, though if bird flu hits it will delay the peak in oil production by quite some time and will possibly change the entire pace of mankinds extremely awkward and potentially devestating shift away from the era of cheap energy, gas and oil.

Yes lets not get into that, just as with bird flu, time will tell.