rjb, What I've noticed are how big companies leave their electricity on in their offices even after closing hours. I just can't figure out why they don't bother to conserve energy by turning off lights when not in use.
I've often wondered, especially here in Silicon Valley where we have some really large office buildings, I could work as a consultant to build in efficiencies on lowering their energy bills - probably in the millions every yearm abd reap a percentage of the savings as my "pay."
Anybody out threre want to get rich?
cicerone imposter wrote:rjb, We have replaced most of our light bulbs with low energy bulbs. We even use more 100 watt bulbs which gives us more light (we need better lighting at old age) at cheaper cost over the 75 or 50 watt bulbs. It stays cool to the touch too! I love it.
I have a sneaking suspicion that low energy bulbs was a marketing ploy as much as anything else. Perhaps somebody owned a bunch of stock in companies making those bulbs? I have no evidence, but why were we all of a sudden blitzed with the energy saving light bulb all of a sudden out of the blue? And now I hear that disposal of those bulbs might cause mercury pollution. Here again, the law of unintended consequences kicks in because alot of people are very naive. 30,000 lbs of mercury is nothing to sneeze at. Thats 15 tons of the stuff that we are dumping into landfills, groundwater, etc. Remember the "mad hatters?" They went mad by breathing mercury fumes in the process of making or forming hats back in the old days.
http://www.newstarget.com/021907.html
Lights are left on in office buildings for the cleaning crew and also as a security measure. :wink:
I used to work in a high rise office for a "big company" and I think I recall a policy that said certain lights should be left on, some off, and as Miller said, the policy was for security reasons, etc. Also, cleaning people and some employees were in the building working after hours. No doubt, a percentage of lighting was left on in error, and more could have been done to save energy, but it was not altogether waste when you saw the lights on in the building at night.
Imposter, just like big government, there is a certain amount of waste in big companies, but probably to a lesser degree.
Just an observation on what's happening in the stock market and bond yields today. They're both up, but that doesn't make much sense, because they usually operate in the reverse. Anybody out there have an answer?
I thought you had all the answers, imposter?
Thanks for providing a few laughs, imposter. I'm just trying to give you a tiny bit of competition so I say something stupid now and then, but I admit I can't always measure up to your standards.
okie wrote:
I have a sneaking suspicion that low energy bulbs was a marketing ploy as much as anything else. Perhaps somebody owned a bunch of stock in companies making those bulbs? I have no evidence, but why were we all of a sudden blitzed with the energy saving light bulb all of a sudden out of the blue?
I don't share your conspiracy theory, okie. I have about 20,000 sq ft of retail and office space and I am a numbers guy. I have seen the saving, with our electric bill being cut at least in half. The investment is big but the numbers work.
You cited, okie, a link to some guy who is involved in LED lighting. Only halfway through the article criticizing flourescent does he mention that he is a retailer of LED. He should have disclosed that at the beginning, in my mind.
But more power to him. If LED can improve on the efficiency of lighting and lighting costs, let's go there.
The mercury problem is indeed real with flourescent. We recycle our four foot bulbs at a cost of about $1.50 each. But I suspect that a lot of other users don't. I am not sure that many folks using bulbs the size of a regular light bulb would even know that they contain mercury.
I would reiterate the point that the technology is evolving rapidly. Maybe there is something coming along that is energy efficient without creating other problems.
Back now to yall bellitling each other!
realjohnboy wrote:okie wrote:
I have a sneaking suspicion that low energy bulbs was a marketing ploy as much as anything else. Perhaps somebody owned a bunch of stock in companies making those bulbs? I have no evidence, but why were we all of a sudden blitzed with the energy saving light bulb all of a sudden out of the blue?
I don't share your conspiracy theory, okie. I have about 20,000 sq ft of retail and office space and I am a numbers guy. I have seen the saving, with our electric bill being cut at least in half. The investment is big but the numbers work.
It is just a suspicion of another marketing angle, I said I had no evidence, but just find it curious that we are all of a sudden blitzed with the light bulb craze. I could be wrong, but I will be watching as things progress.
Quote:You cited, okie, a link to some guy who is involved in LED lighting. Only halfway through the article criticizing flourescent does he mention that he is a retailer of LED. He should have disclosed that at the beginning, in my mind.
But more power to him. If LED can improve on the efficiency of lighting and lighting costs, let's go there.
I didn't notice that, but that points out how the competing interests can advertise their wares in more ways than one.
Quote:The mercury problem is indeed real with flourescent. We recycle our four foot bulbs at a cost of about $1.50 each. But I suspect that a lot of other users don't. I am not sure that many folks using bulbs the size of a regular light bulb would even know that they contain mercury.
I would reiterate the point that the technology is evolving rapidly. Maybe there is something coming along that is energy efficient without creating other problems.
I agree with all of that. Sometimes the positives of a product or energy source is focused on, while the negatives are ignored until we go to the next phase of media emphasis. I think Rush Limbaugh's term that he uses, "driveby media," is quite appropriate. They report what strikes their fancy as they drive by one hot item to the next, but never stop long enough to report an issue in depth with any accuracy.
Quote:Back now to yall bellitling each other!
Some people like to use lots of sarcasm. As long as its fairly clean and with a little humor, along with some actual evidence or explanations, I don't mind.
$3 for a half-gallon of OJ!
Household incomes rise but ...
Census Bureau reports slight rise in 2006 incomes but as a group, households aren't doing as well as before the 2001 recession.
By Jeanne Sahadi, CNNMoney.com senior writer
August 28 2007: 11:40 AM EDT
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Household income crept higher and the poverty rate edged lower last year, the government said Tuesday, while the number of Americans without health insurance rose by 2.2 million to 47 million people.
Median household income rose 0.7 percent to $48,200, adjusted for inflation, the Census Bureau reported. But more people had to be at work in each household to get there.
That's because median earnings for individuals working full-time year-round actually fell for the third consecutive year. For men, earnings slipped 1.1 percent to a median of $42,300, while for women, earnings sank 1.2 percent to a median of $32,500.
The percent of Americans living below the poverty line, meanwhile, slipped to 12.3 percent in 2006, or about 36.5 million people, from 12.6 percent, or 37 million, the year before. The drop in the number of people living in poverty is not a statistically significant change, but the rate of decline is, although it's still above the 11.7 percent rate during the last recession in 2001.
"To demonstrate long-term progress, poverty will need to drop below the 11.3 percent attained in 2000, the year before the recession began," the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said Monday, before the report's release.
While the rise in household income is a positive development, it was expected given low unemployment last year. But U.S. households have yet to attain the higher median income and lower poverty rate of 2001.
The poverty threshold varies based on age and household size. A single person under 65 is considered poor if his income is below $10,488 while a family of four with two kids under 18 is considered poor if their income falls below $20,444.
Poverty thresholds are not adjusted for geographical differences in cost of living so the same threshold applies in Brownsville, Texas, as it does in New York City. Nor do they reflect the value of household subsidies intended to alleviate the effects of poverty (e.g., food stamps, tax credits, Medicaid).
All told, in terms of income and poverty "We're making progress, but we're still not back to where we were. It's disappointing," Mark Zandi, chief economist and co-founder of Moody's Economy.com, said before the report's release.
But Zandi doesn't think fiscal policies are necessarily to blame for the slow financial progress among middle-income and low-income Americans almost six years into the economic recovery.
While "fiscal policy hasn't helped," Zandi noted that globalization and technological change are the major cause since they enhance income and wealth of those with skills and education, but not others.
When it comes to health insurance, the ranks of the haves and have-nots widened for the second straight year. The number of Americans not covered by health insurance rose to 47 million in 2006 - or 15.8 percent of the population - from 44.8 million, or 15.3 percent, the year before, according to the bureau.
Plans for healthcare reform - in particular, proposals to achieve universal healthcare coverage - are being addressed by most of the 2008 presidential candidates.
au, Your report is a good one, because it portends what we can expect of our future economy; not good. The middle class is getting squeezed every year, and there's just so much debt they will be able to carry while their equity in their homes continues to fall. Not good for our economy.
I'm expecting the DOW to hit below 13000 before year end, and bond prices and rates to go up.
Poverty levels declined. Actually, it declined slightly in 2005 as well. And as I have pointed out from Census Bureau statistics, large tax rebates for working families over and above what the families even paid into the tax system are not included, so that the real poverty statistic is probably even lower than the official number. Since larger rebates are unique to more recent tax policy, the numbers cannot be directly compared with older numbers, because it is a comparison of apples and oranges.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,294912,00.html
From the US Census Bureau:
All people
________________________________ ________________________________
Below poverty level
______________________ ______________________
Year Total Number Percent
____________________________________________________________________________
ALL RACES
2006...... 296,450 36,460 12.3
2005...... 293,135 36,950 12.6
2004 14/ 290,617 37,040 12.7
2003...... 287,699 35,861 12.5
2002...... 285,317 34,570 12.1
2001...... 281,475 32,907 11.7
2000 12/ 278,944 31,581 11.3
1999 11/ 276,208 32,791 11.9
Yes, poverty rates and numbers dropped from 2005 to 2006, but it doesn't show the increase in Americans losing their health insurance.
Also, the trend from 2000 to 2006 show an increase in poverty by about 5 million more falling into poverty while seven million more Americans lost health insurance coverage.
Nothing positive from my vantage point.
2007 is going to show a dramatic increase in the poverty rate.
First it was home sales tanking, now it's car sales going down the tubes.
OJ is now $6/gallon...
A sobering census report
Published: August 29, 2007
The economic party is winding down and most working Americans never even got near the punch bowl.
The Census Bureau reported Tuesday that median household income rose 0.7 percent last year - it's second annual increase in a row- to $48,201. The share of households living in poverty fell to 12.3 percent from 12.6 percent in 2005.
This seems like welcome news, but a deeper look at the belated improvement in these numbers - more than five years after the end of the last recession - underscores how the gains from economic growth have failed to benefit most of the population.
The median household income last year was still about $1,000 less than in 2000, before the onset of the last recession. In 2006, 36.5 million Americans were living in poverty - 5 million more than six years before, when the poverty rate fell to 11.3 percent.
What is perhaps most disturbing is that it appears this is as good as it's going to get. Sputtering under the weight of the credit crisis and the associated drop in the housing market, the economic expansion that started in 2001 looks like it might enter history with the dubious distinction of being the only sustained expansion on record in which the incomes of typical American households never reached the peak of the previous cycle.
It seems that ordinary working families are going to have to wait - at the very minimum - until the next cycle to make up the losses they suffered in this one. There's no guarantee they will.
The gains against poverty last year were remarkably narrow. The poverty rate declined among the elderly, but it remained unchanged for people under 65. Analyzed by race, only Hispanics saw poverty decline on average while other groups experienced no gains. The fortunes of middle-class, working Americans also appear less upbeat on closer consideration of the data. Indeed, earnings of men and women working full time actually fell more than 1 percent last year.
This suggests that when household incomes rose, it was because more members of the household went to work, not because anybody got a bigger paycheck. The median income of working-age households, those headed by somebody younger than 65, remained more than 2 percent lower than in 2001, the year of the recession.
Overall, the new data on incomes and poverty mesh consistently with the pattern of the last five years, in which the spoils of the nation's economic growth have flowed almost exclusively to the wealthy and the extremely wealthy, leaving little for everybody else.
Standard measures of inequality did not increase last year, according to the new census data. But over a longer period, the trend becomes crystal clear: The only group for which earnings in 2006 exceeded those of 2000 were the households in the top 5 percent of the earnings distribution. For everybody else, they were lower.
This stilted distribution of rewards underscores how economic growth alone has been insufficient to provide better living standards for most American families. What are needed are policies to help spread benefits broadly - be it more progressive taxation, or policies to strengthen public education and increase access to affordable health care. Unfortunately, these policies are unlikely to come from the current White House. This administration prefers tax cuts for the lucky ones in the top 5 percent.
Taken from the above article: Standard measures of inequality did not increase last year, according to the new census data. But over a longer period, the trend becomes crystal clear: The only group for which earnings in 2006 exceeded those of 2000 were the households in the top 5 percent of the earnings distribution. For everybody else, they were lower.
This is what's so daunting hearing from republicans on these boards; they keep making the claim that the economy under Bush has been very good. According to the Census Bureau and the above report, only the top five percent of income earners gained. There's an inconsistency here, or those claiming the "economy is good" belongs in that five percent.
