dmp said:
The good news is improving thermal insulation of homes can result in real energy cost savings almost immediately, so payback for investments in insulation could pay for themselves in a matter of only a few years. This is already going on, to some extent and new homes are being built to higher standards that reflect in lower energy bills and lower cost of ownership.
When I bought my house I put more insulation in the attic. From R-13 to R-48. I calculated the payback was about 2 months.
It's a no brainer. Still you drive around in winter here and you can tell by how the snow melts on people's roofs if their house is poorly insulated. A lot of low hanging fruit.
exactly
I am not a huge fan of using government force, in this case to get consumers to do what government believes is right.
I am not a big fan of government distorting free market decisions,
So what would you advocate be done? Are you saying tax credits should be offered to get people to insulate their homes?
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education, perhaps free home inspections to reveal how much savings are available. Perhaps, low cost loans. For very low income residents perhaps grants.
AFAIK some of this is already going on, but clever capitalists have figured out ways to game profit from even programs like this. The classic lease a solar panel to reduce monthly electric bills, allows the money guys to skim off the tax credits and at the end of the lease I suspect the homeowner (somebody?) is left with some old obsolete panels. (I think one of Elon Musk's businesses is in this government supported areas.)
[edit-update] I just read that a number of homeowners in CA who took energy saving loans from state program to improve their homes, ran into trouble later when trying to sell their homes, because the energy loans had priority over the mortgage. Homeowners typically had to pay down the energy loans before selling their homes. [/edit]
Answering these kinds of questions is what makes Republicans lose primaries. Maybe you should just evade the question
Maybe I shouldn't run for office, I am not a very good liar, or as creative with the truth as that class of people. Oh yeah, I'm not running for office. 8)
Getting back to the original topic, perhaps it isn't so much that the private sector is inept - but more so that the consumer is inept...
Add that government is inept too.... I don't have time to make that list but it is long. The standard argument is that government is smarter than the masses. This is very old and i thought it was settled decades ago, but this new age of more free sh__ for all, has new young voters energized (go Bernie).
Good luck to us all... common sense is not very common.
JR
