If you don’t have air conditioning or a car or a clothes dryer you can go off the grid right in your own home to save money. Increase your standard of living, reduce your taxes, and the only real problem is transportation and climate. And many in the new generation never had cars or air conditioners.
The Big Devaluation is not a recession or slow-down of economic activity. The main result is a lot of perfectly good used items that have very little monetary value. The Devaluation is caused by too many goods and not enough consumers because people don’t make as much money as they used to make.
So taxes and other government monopolies, like utilities and insurance companies, were less affected by the financial disasters of recent years and want to continue to charge more, to expand. However there is a new reality of lower value to there services. Police don’t stop and arrest unregistered and uninsured motorists nearly as often as they used to. And many people just can’t pay their utility bills.
If your power bill is more than about $200 a month then you can save money buying a generator and disconnecting from the grid. This doesn’t mean buying an expensive backup generator that switches when power goes off. This is buying a much cheaper generator and turning it on when you get home, completely disconnected from the utility company. You pay as you go, and even hook up a car battery for overnight lights, radio and the like.
Taxes and utility rates are the hardest to pay on minimum wage, so people will find alternatives quickly. Utility companies are more aggressive at collecting debts and verifying that customers can pay their bills. So when they can’t pay they will find power elsewhere. Tax assessors are seeing a devaluation of used automobiles. A five year old car in near perfect condition can be bought for a quarter of the value of a new equivalent, and that makes the ten year old car nearly worthless for tax assessment. Property tax collection amounts for automobiles fall overall.
A person who does not use an air conditioner, electric heat or an electric clothes dryer will have no inconvenience by disconnecting from the electric grid. If we can give up those things we can beat the electric cost of a government-monopoly utility company. A small efficient refrigerator and a natural gas or propane powered generator, and then you can disconnect your home from the electric grid to save money. But many have no choice as they cannot pay the power rates on their salaries, and only need power for a few hours a day to generate ice and lights, laundry and television.
For decades we have all been investing in our utility companies without realizing it. The infrastructure now is so set we forget the new efficiency in lighting, communication and entertainment have brought energy demands very low for such things. If it weren’t for refrigeration and motors we would only need batteries and a solar panel or a weekly charge.
Only climate controls demand enough energy we cannot manage without a government monopoly. So abandon your AC and you do not need the power company except for the refrigerator and some window fans. Buy a generator and you are off the grid and saving money every month.
And many of us are unaware that a large portion of our population these days have no cars, air conditioners and receive help for heating in the winter. This is the new norm in both urban and rural areas. Young people do not have such property many of us have considered essential our whole lives.
The world has changed while we weren’t looking and that is not necessarily a bad thing. What needs to change is the tax structure and the government services offered and paid for by the tax payer who is making less money.
There is no reason any more for government supported monopolies of utility companies. It is quite possible to save money by not using utilities. Those of us who can invest in a home generator can stop investing in the utility companies and instead take care of our own needs.
Bureaucracies are obsolete due to computer advances. Build a data base, simplify laws, and eliminate government employees and replace them with government service providers who make minimum wage like the rest of us.
Include mandatory insurances in the cost of vehicle registration, run utility monopolies with full transparency, as non-profits, and allow competition for such services.
The tax base is eroding and government can react to the new reality. Or not. In either case we cannot continue to support services mandated by a government whose employees all make more money than we do. We will have to remove ourselves from all mandated services and take care of our own.
If competition is not allowed large portions of the urban and rural population will go off the grid. Abandon your car and your air conditioner and you eliminate taxes and save money. Doing so will increase your standard of living and your freedom.
And a growing population of young people never had a chance to enjoy their own car and their own air conditioners.