@kmccune
“Local people do not answear the phone now for service calls.”
Is somebody with a thick accent halfway around the world answering the phone?
I understand that these guys might be competent . . . but if I’m having a hard time understanding them, I ask them to connect me with somebody in the USA. Sometimes it actually works.
“Is somebody with a thick accent halfway around the world answering the phone?”
More than likely!
One of the reasons why I dread internet connectivity problems is that this situation forces me to speak with “Skippy” in Mumbai, who is almost impossible to understand.
You know and I know that these folks are sitting in a cubicle across the globe from us, but the companies (like Verizon, my internet provider) seem to think that, by using extremely improbable names for these very heavily-accented folks, we won’t figure out that they are not based in the US.
Thanks Db,but its all about money I’m guessing if the person had the fortitude,they could probaly start their own answearing business from any where,for car problems ,power,doesnt matter,I suppose its cheaper then a salaried employee doing it-seen too many “consultants”. Wouldnt that be weird if someone starting taking cars to Mexico and having them repaired someway and making a profit,I know they already do this with the cheap migrant labor,it really harms everyone.without a strong lower middle class ,the economy is weak and stagnant.Henry Ford realized you had to pay your workers a living wage,they couldnt buy His cars on $2 a week-“trickle down” economics doesnt work-Kevin
It’s hit or miss with the person you talk to in India. Even though all their classes are taught in English over there…there still can be a accent problem. I deal with them all the time…have been for years.
One of the biggest questions I have about both wind and photovoltaic energy is what percentage of the energy produced is consumed by the manufacture of photo cells or windmills. We address this question eagerly with ethanol, “could an ethanol plant be viable if it had to use its own ethanol to fire the still, harvest the grain etc.?”. In fact, perhaps the most efficient way to turn biomass into energy is to feed it to horses and let them pull our Amish style buggies.
Of course, this principle also applies to petroleum and coal. We will never run out of petroleum, we’ll just stop using it when the energy needed to extract and refine it exceeds the energy we get out of it.
Here is an interesting article on this subject.
http://www.jeffvail.net/2006/11/energy-payback-from-photovoltaics.html
The price of energy is gauged by the price of available competition. As long as the competition is kept out, the consumer has price control only through lowering use. Otherwise, there is no free market price for gasoline, heating oil electricity etc, they get from a committed central supplier. Changing furnaces every week to get the best price is akin to jumping from one hospital to another while your wife is pregnant to get the best deal…it doesn’t happen. The only thing that approaches a free market for energy is when LOCAL production is added to the mix. A flex fuel car that is really flex fuel, solar collecters on a private house or a local govt. deciding to re activate a nearby damn or when a business decides to invest in their own windmill. These are slow incremental approaches that are much more worth while doing then building a huge power generating plant for the entire East Coast ( exaggeration). You do that, you open your self up for being exploited by " the smartest guys in the room".
Ask California how their committed source Enron treated and took advantage of them.
Exactly,the decentralizing trend must have stopped when the smart cats figured they could get a legal monopoly,what do you think a car would cost if you didnt have but 2 manus?-Kevin
"The price of energy is gauged by the price of available competition. As long as the competition is kept out, the consumer has price control only through lowering use. Otherwise, there is no free market price for gasoline, "
Nonsense. Why does gasoline price vary? I you were correct, why would it ever drop? Why did this happen?
Ask California how their committed source Enron treated and took advantage of them.
That was a criminal. Enron was purposely shutting down plants (or limiting production) to raise the price significantly. Ken Lay didn’t think he did anything wrong…too bad he died before he served time for his fraud.
The price of gasoline, the price or raw oil, is regulated by supply and demand. Always has been. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has been manipulating the supply since they formed in 1960, and we (the world at large) supply plenty of demand. Occasionally one of the OPEC members has gone astray and tried to undercut the others, and occasionally somethuing like the financial crisis will occur over which they have no control, but overall it’s been a pretty tight organization. They “infight” publically, but they all realize it’s to their individual benefits to stick with the program.
“,the decentralizing trend must have stopped when the smart cats figured they could get a legal monopoly” Makes my head spin just trying to figure out what is being alledged.
Oh boy. Electrical generating companies are regulated by the state public utilities commissions because the transmission system does not allow efficient competition. I learned this in grade school. They are allowed to be monopolies because it is not efficient to run power lines to houses from competing power generators. Because you can’t have efficient competition, they are regulated to insure rates are proper. Oil companies can compete and are not limited by the distribution system like electrical generators. Many years and decades ago, like the turn of the previous century, many little hamlets had their own power or gas generating systems. Times change, technology changes, efficiencies change. I don’t know who the “smart cats” are supposed to be but the folks I know are normal professionals trying to get a job done.
I’m from BELGIUM, there are now 100 cars sold in Belgium. (in the last year)
But I was wondering; what is the general conclustion of the TESLA MODEL S?
Thanks & greetings from BELGIUM.
OPEC is less influential that they used to be because of increased production of non-OPEC stats like Canada, North Sea countries, and Russia. Without the market share they former had, OPEC cannot control prices as they did before.
@jtsanders - you’re right, and don’t forget the huge oil production increases in the US, these have had a major impact on stabilizing oil and gasoline prices. That’s one reason gas prices haven’t shot through the roof, even though major civil wars are going on in the middle of the largest oil producing area in the world.
I paid $3.45 yesterday which is 10-15 cents lower than a while back. Like I said the risk of obsolesence is one of the least factored in items in long payback periods. You’ve got a 10 or 20 year payback period on a EV or generating system and then wham, all of a sudden supplies change, technology changes, or a paradyme shift and there you sit in the middle of it.
I’ll go a little off topic . . .
" Ken Lay didn’t think he did anything wrong…too bad he died before he served time for his fraud."
I’m not sure if you guys are aware of this . . . Ken Lay is technically innocent, because he died before being able to appeal his conviction. Therefore, the “legal process” was not complete.
Clearly, the law and justice are NOT the same thing
Re Ken Lay: it doesn’t really matter anymore.
I also paid 20 to 30 cents less for gasoline lately. It must be all those new electric cars forcing the price down. : )
Nah Bing ,greed it is,altruism is out the window,the govt will break up a good monopoly,but is mum when you are getting scalped-Kevin
In regards to Ken Lay . . . several years ago, when he died, and it was reported that he was technically innocent, because he hadn’t had a chance to see the legal process through to the end, I was quite upset
On the other hand, so many guys have been released from death row, after being exonerated by DNA evidence.
But Ken Lay wasn’t found guilty of murder, and I personally believe he was guilty as sin, never mind any technicalities
We’ve really gotten off the beaten path . . .
I'm not sure if you guys are aware of this . . . Ken Lay is technically innocent, because he died before being able to appeal his conviction. Therefore, the "legal process" was not complete
Very true. In my home state, a politician by the name of Budd Dwyer got caught in a political corruption snare. (Many feel he was inncoenct, but that’s neither here nor there, now.)
Well, he scheduled a press conference, proclaimed his innocence–and shot half his head off on live TV. Much of the reason for doing that is so that he remained innocent, and his family was still able to receive his pension.
(You can still find the broadcast floating around, but I advise you not to watch…really greusome.)