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.\u00a0 Increase your standard of living, reduce your taxes, and the only real problem is transportation and climate.\u00a0 And many in the new generation never had cars or air conditioners.<\/p>\n

The Big Devaluation is not a recession or slow-down of economic activity.\u00a0 The main result is a lot of perfectly good used items that have very little monetary value.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 However there is a new reality of lower value to there services.\u00a0 Police don’t stop and arrest unregistered and uninsured motorists nearly as often as they used to.\u00a0 And many people just can’t pay their utility bills.<\/p>\n

If your power bill is more than about $200 a month then you can save money buying a generator and disconnecting from the grid.\u00a0 This doesn’t mean buying an expensive backup generator that switches when power goes off.\u00a0 This is buying a much cheaper generator and turning it on when you get home, completely disconnected from the utility company.\u00a0 You pay as you go, and even hook up a car battery for overnight lights, radio and the like.<\/p>\n

Taxes and utility rates are the hardest to pay on minimum wage, so people will find alternatives quickly.\u00a0 Utility companies are more aggressive at collecting debts and verifying that customers can pay their bills.\u00a0 \u00a0So when they can’t pay they will find power elsewhere.\u00a0 Tax assessors are seeing a devaluation of used automobiles.\u00a0 A five year old car in near perfect condition can be bought for\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

A person who does not use an air conditioner, electric heat\u00a0 or an electric clothes dryer will have no inconvenience by disconnecting from the electric grid.\u00a0 If we can give up those things we can beat the electric cost of a government-monopoly utility company.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

For decades we have all been investing in our utility companies without realizing it.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 If it weren’t for refrigeration and motors we would only need batteries and a solar panel or a weekly charge.<\/p>\n

Only climate controls demand enough energy we cannot manage without a government monopoly.\u00a0 So abandon your AC and you do not need the power company except for the refrigerator and some window fans.\u00a0 Buy a generator and you are off the grid and saving money every month.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 This is the new norm in both urban and rural areas.\u00a0 Young people do not have such property many of us have considered essential our whole lives.<\/p>\n

The world has changed while we weren’t looking and that is not necessarily a bad thing.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

There is no reason any more for government supported monopolies of utility companies.\u00a0 It is quite possible to save money by not using utilities.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Bureaucracies are obsolete due to computer advances.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Include mandatory insurances in the cost of vehicle registration, run utility monopolies with full transparency, as non-profits, and allow competition for such services.<\/p>\n

The tax base is eroding and government can react to the new reality.\u00a0 Or not.\u00a0 In either case we cannot continue to support services mandated by a government whose employees all make more money than we do.\u00a0 We will have to remove ourselves from all mandated services and take care of our own.<\/p>\n

If competition is not allowed large portions of the urban and rural population will go off the grid.\u00a0 Abandon your car and your air conditioner and you eliminate taxes and save money.\u00a0 Doing so will increase your standard of living and your freedom.<\/p>\n

And a growing population of young people never had a chance to enjoy their own car and their own air conditioners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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.\u00a0 Increase your standard of living, reduce your taxes, and the only real problem is transportation and climate.\u00a0 And many in the new generation never had cars or air … Continue reading The Big Devaluation …<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22,23],"class_list":["post-714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rantings","tag-bigdevaluation","tag-compx2"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8FSV9-bw","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.simplifyandrepeal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.simplifyandrepeal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.simplifyandrepeal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.simplifyandrepeal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.simplifyandrepeal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=714"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.simplifyandrepeal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":724,"href":"https:\/\/www.simplifyandrepeal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714\/revisions\/724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.simplifyandrepeal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.simplifyandrepeal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.simplifyandrepeal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}