California Is Giving Away Free Solar Panels To Its Poorest Residents 272
MikeChino writes: Oakland-based non-profit GRID Alternatives is giving away 1,600 free solar panels to California's poorest residents by the year 2016. The initiative was introduced by Senator Kevin de León and launched with funds gathered under the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GCRF), the state's cap-and-trade program. SFGate reports: "Kianté London used the program to put panels on his three-bedroom North Richmond home, which he shares with two sons and a daughter. 'It helps me and my family a great deal to have low-cost energy, because these energy prices are really expensive,' said London, 46, whose solar array was installed this week. 'And I wanted to do my part. It’s clean, green energy.' London had wanted a solar array for years, but couldn’t afford it on his income as a merchant seaman — roughly $70,000 per year. Even leasing programs offered by such companies as SolarCity and Sunrun were too expensive, he said. The new program, in contrast, paid the entire up-front cost of his array."
$70000 is poorest? (Score:2)
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the cost of panels for my house is estimated at $40K, which I cannot afford
You do realize you don't have to go completely off the grid with a $40k array? Why not just a few panels to supplement?
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He's not necessarily talking about going off the grid. There's a certain minimum investment to getting *any* panels on your house. It may not be $40k, but it's still not cheap.
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At first glance, at least, that sounds absurd. Zen Energy is advertising prices starting at $5,750, and that's New Zealand dollars - about US$4500 at current rates.
It isn't surprising that there's a difference, labour costs if nothing else, but four to five times seems excessive.
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The US actively taxes anything that might upset the local utilities. There are relatively few incentives to do it and more disincentive than anything.
You need a licensed contractor, electrician, insurances etc. The associated permits alone in my area would be in the neighborhood of $1500 and a yearly inspection and associated permit cost $200/y. Repairs would require a permit and re-inspection fee of another $150. The utility wouldn't buy back but charge a $15/mo meter fee.
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The US government takes contradictory positions on many issues - because of the way their government is structured it's quite common for federal, state and city governments to not only be working towards different ends, but actively trying to subvert one another.
Re:$70000 is poorest? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, I have always loved the concept of my paying more taxes so other people could have for free the things I can't afford for myself.
Re:$70000 is poorest? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, I have always loved the concept of my paying more taxes so other people could have for free the things I can't afford for myself.
Share your wealth or they will share their poverty.
The more money people have, the less they tend to do for the poor. If it worked the other way around, you wouldn't be whinging now.
It's a shame the middle class won't band together and come after the rich, but those poor idiot fucks won't realize that they have a better chance to win the lottery than to actually work their way into the upper echelons of society. They still think they're going to be the ones looking down their noses at someone else someday.
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As a Californian making $10-$15K/year, excuse me if I don't think we need to donate charity handouts to people making $70K, which by the way is well above the median income.
Re:$70000 is poorest? (Score:5, Insightful)
As a Californian making $10-$15K/year, excuse me if I don't think we need to donate charity handouts to people making $70K, which by the way is well above the median income.
As a Californian making $10-15k/year, you will be paying fuck-all in taxes. Depending on where you live, you may well be receiving back services whose cost is well in excess of what you're paying in.
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That's very untrue. Show some studies to back yourself up.
It's obviously true, because if it weren't, the poor wouldn't be poor. The rich have virtually all of the money, so they're the only ones who can help. And the wealthy have access to tax dodges that the poor can't use, and aren't we always having to hear on slashdot about how entitlements are where the taxes go and how the rich fly from point a to point b and don't use the roads, blah blah blah?
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Why? Do you think theft is a virtuous goal to pursue?
I think sharing and cooperation are virtuous goals. The rich didn't earn what they have: for the most part, it is predicated directly upon the suffering of others, and it was mostly earned through the labor of others. And for what? So that people can stack up numbers in their bank accounts? Money they will never spend? Maybe they'll leave it to some progeny so that they can grow up to be useless, ignorant fucks as well?
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Through the labor of others? He & Pacquiano didn't "earn it"? Who did Michael Jordan (billionaire) oppress? How about Oprah Winfrey?
Yay, you can find a tiny handful of examples of people who support your argument! But most of the people who support mine, you'll never know their names, they're just in the background making money while you pay for it.
And while you piss and moan about "useless ignorant fucks", they're actually the great equalizer: you should be *hoping* these billionaires have stupid children to whom they leave their money just so that they can piss it all away in a mad bout of consumerism.
Unfortunately, they often wind up just shuffling that money between themselves, and it never trickles down to us poor ignorant saps in the trenches. It should not be a news bulletin to you that trickle-down economics does not work, but that's precisely what you're arguing. The truth is that t
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"I take issue with the notion that I should have to support those that are unwilling to work for an income,"
For those truly not willing to work, fine. In my experience, most are willing, eager even, to work.
It is much more difficult to get a job than you know.
"especially those who sit on unemployment because they refuse to take work they consider beneath them"
Beneath them?
Or not sufficient in pay to get the bills paid. ( got a job, now, loose the house.. )
Or damaging to your C.V. ( yes, I am working in a
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If you can't afford electricity, how are you posting this? Candlelight?
Re:$70000 is poorest? (Score:5, Informative)
It warms my heart, however, to see the money I must pay for the tax on air putting panels on the homes of other people.
Did you RTFA? I'm going to assume not, so here's the link again [sfgate.com]
The program is paid for by cap-and-trade - namely, companies creating environmental waste, not you, are the ones paying for his solar panels. There are plenty of reasons to complain about the CA government misappropriating the tax money you personally give them, but this is not one of them.
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And who do you suppose pays extra for the things those companies make? You know so they can pay for his FREE solar panels.
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Are you freaking serious? Like that's better?
It's worse. It's still a made up new tax on the economy (which always hits the poor hardest), but first rich people get to take their cut, as they buy, sell, profit off of other people's money. So the state takes the tax, and then sells that tax to rich people, who resell it back to us for a profit.
We pay twice. Why not just a straight up tax on carbon? Pay, and the state banks it. No rich people required. Cause it ain't about that, is it? It ain't about the envi
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Because the carbon tax was politically unviable: There was too much well-funded opposition, plus it would likely drive business elsewhere. If you get taxed for pollution in one state, and don't get taxed in another, it might work out cheaper to just build your new factory in the second.
Cap-and-trade was hard enough to get legislated, and that only got through because it is much easier to dodge.
and you wonder why CA is f***ed (Score:3, Insightful)
>> initiative...launched with funds gathered under the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GCRF), the state's cap-and-trade program ...and you wonder why California has no money for the basics.
>> London had wanted a solar array for years, but couldn’t afford it...
And I'd like a pony. Please Santa?
(Come to think of it, a good 10% the readership of this site probably REALLY does want a pony.)
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http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net... [nocookie.net]
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and you wonder why California has no money for the basics.
Actually, California is doing pretty well [ocregister.com] at the moment.
(Come to think of it, a good 10% the readership of this site probably REALLY does want a pony.)
Dibs on Twilight Sparkle! :)
In other news (Score:4, Funny)
1600 solar panels have shown up at local pawn shops.
Oddly enough, I support this because... (Score:3, Insightful)
...right now California has subsidies to people who have solar panels; any power they don't use during the day is sold 'back to the grid' at retail prices; hence, many of the wealthy have virtually no electric bill for their 10,000 square foot homes while those who can't afford the few thousand dollar lease initiation costs pay full prices.
So, if this what I consider to be unfair state subsidizing of solar panels is going to happen, and it is for now, I'm okay with some people having their burden relieved because right now the subsidies only help those who don't need it.
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It's unfortunate that, due to tiered rates, a wealthy person gets back 33 cents [pdf] [pge.com] for each kilowatt-hour saved, while a poor person gets only 16 cents.
They could encourage energy consumption even among the poor without burdening them by setting rates at a flat 27 cents per kWh and refunding 100% of the revenue equally to everyone through a tax refund.
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Yeah, except that's not universally true either... (Score:2)
I'm not a California resident so can't speak directly about the situation out there, but I can speak for solar here in Maryland. The power we generate with solar panels is purchased by the utility company, but technically NOT at "retail prices". (That's generally a fallacy perpetuated by the folks against solar.) They DO probably pay more than they'd prefer to pay (a rate that's a bit higher than their true cost to generate the same amount of electricity themselves), but we have to pay the transmission cost
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It fills in for the daytime peak so means you don't need a few more GW of conventional power that only comes on line for a few hours each weekday. That can save large lump sum capital costs, and is easier to swallow even if it costs more in total because the money for GW of power from panels is spread out over years.
So it makes sense at some level of subsidy. Whether a subsidy is stupidly high or not in some
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If net metering were a good deal for the electric utilities, they wouldn't be fighting it tooth and nail.
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Network operators and governments may have different ideas and not be so horrified by people generating their own electricity and depriving power utilities of their God given grant to gouge.
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I'm quoting a man who told me his electric bill is about 10 dollars a month, it's not a hypothetical. If you're not in the house most of the day and you have a smart thermostat, you're generating all day without consumption, and using some electricity at night at off-peak prices.
The utility generates at wholesale prices, and then they are forced to buy it back at retail prices. In a way it costs the utility twice, once in lost revenue (arguable as conservation, agreed) and twice in paying more for power t
Re:Oddly enough, I support this because... (Score:4, Insightful)
The utility generates at wholesale prices, and then they are forced to buy it back at retail prices.
I would argue that that their wholesale prices are subsidized as they don't pay the indirect costs of pollution.
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One Purchasing excess electricity isn't a subsidy
It is a subsidy if you are selling it back at retail prices. Utilities don't buy any other power at retail, nor would they buy solar generated power at retail if they had the choice of not subsidizing it.
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Purchasing it at retail rates sure as hell is.
Re: Oddly enough, I support this because... (Score:2)
Yes, it is.
Try and sell someone a solar panel install that can not sell it's excess electricity to the power company at a premium over the going rate on the spot market.
BTW, the excess electricity typically goes to waste, and the money paid to the solar panel owner drives up the cost of electricity for everyone else.
How do the "poorest residents" own homes (Score:5, Insightful)
You need a roof on a home to mount solar panels. Not an apartment, a home.
Have you seen housing prices in California? My house cost $389,000 in 2002 and it's only 750 square feet.
So, how do the "poorest residents" own a home?
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So, how do the "poorest residents" own a home?
Most likely they bought back when housing prices were cheaper and/or they had more income.
Prop 13 at work, eh?
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So, how do the "poorest residents" own a home?
By spending half or more of their income on their mortgage, and by having a co-signer and a down payment. It's not rocket surgery, it's just dealing with the evil, evil banks. The banks are sitting on something like three houses for every homeless man, woman, and child in America, refusing to drop their prices to market level.
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The banks are sitting on something like three houses for every homeless man, woman, and child in America, refusing to drop their prices to market level.
Can I see a citation for that statistic please? Or at least your calculations to come up with that figure?
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Slums (Score:2)
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20 years ago, home prices in California were not much different than they are today, when things are still recovering from the collapse of the housing market. You'd have to go back at least 40 years to find home prices that would be attainable for even the lower middle class.
And even then, most of the cheaper homes were condos, not houses, and condos always have associations, and associations always have fees. And Prop 13 or no, property taxes have to be paid. So even if someone bought their home in better
Reality is stranger - even outside California (Score:2)
Reality is two steps ahead of you. In India homeless people are BUYING solar chargers for their phones. A group selling solar lights at cost in India found that people wanted phone chargers as well, so they built it into their solar light. Their phones may not fit the current definition of smartphone but they are far more so than the first iPhones.
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Better than arresting them for stealing power.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/03/12/1370393/-Homeless-woman-charged-with-theft-of-services-for-charging-cell-phone-outside
They probably wasted more tax dollars with that affair than telling the homeless to come to City Hall to get their phones charged for free.
Very likely. However:
"Luckily, in the end, the DA dropped the charges. "
Makes this look like hysterical propaganda:
Welcome to the modern American Police State.
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holy crap where do you live?
This is a great idea (Score:3, Interesting)
I've been buying solar panel units here in Seattle that are placed on public buildings through our Seattle City Light program, since my townhouse faces north, and it works even if I sell the house and buy another one somewhere in Seattle (costs about $150 per unit, due to large scale installations that drop the costs).
As to poor people using solar panels, some cities way up here give homeless veterans Tiny Houses (250 sq ft) with solar panels on their roofs so they don't have to camp outside.
Adapt. Cause emissions don't care about your excuses, and change is now.
Does this really need support? (Score:3)
Isn't the whole point of stuff like SolarCity that you have no up-front cost (because you lease the system) and a negative monthly cost (because the monthly lease is cheaper than the cost of the electricity you saved)?
Why does the government need to give people free solar panels when it costs them zero dollars to get a full solar setup from SolarCity?
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A few things here... (Score:5, Insightful)
First off, $70k isn't poor. Not even in California. Can people afford to put a solar array on their house with $70k income? No. But that doesn't mean they are poor.
Second: Truly poor people don't own homes. Middle class and upper class own homes. Poor people rent. Renters have no choice where their power comes from.
Third: The solar panels are usually the cheapest part of adding a power source to your home. The transfer switch, batteries and inverter are the bulk of the cost.
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"Can people afford to put a solar array on their house with $70k income? No"
No? only a doofus thinks that. I put one on my home when I made only $40K It's not expensive if you don't use the overpriced made in america solar panels.
I bought China 200 watt panels for less than $1.50 a watt. then installed a syncing inverter and use the grid as my battery. I actually run the meter backwards.
If you make $70K and cant afford solar, then you are either a fool, or someone that can't budget money very well.
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First off, $70k isn't poor. Not even in California.
That depends on where it is and if it's a family or just a person. Just a person in the boonies making $70k is doing great. A family literally anywhere (even someplace totally shit) in the Bay Area living on $70k? They're scraping by, because over half of that is likely to go to rent or mortgage, when conventional wisdom says not to spend more than a quarter.
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First off, $70k isn't poor. Not even in California.
That depends on where it is and if it's a family or just a person. Just a person in the boonies making $70k is doing great. A family literally anywhere (even someplace totally shit) in the Bay Area living on $70k? They're scraping by, because over half of that is likely to go to rent or mortgage, when conventional wisdom says not to spend more than a quarter.
The thing that baffles me is his salary. 70k is absolutely entry level for a merchant mariner. I had friends make more than that right out of school. And being a merchant mariner, he can live anywhere. It is almost standard practice to fly at the company's expense to wherever the boat is. Even the lowest paid philipinos get a free plane ticket on both ends of their tour.
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The average house price in california is 400,000$ How again is 70,000 not poor for that area?
If they bought the home 50 years ago or more as you hypothesize then the housing prices now are simply not relevant. Why even mention them? Poor people do exist in California. I've seen some living in cardboard boxes or under bridges. The rest I see living in the massive number of apartment buildings all over California. Renting. If you rent an apartment in California $70,000 is a rather nice income. Call it 'poor' if you want but if that's poor I would love to be poor. I could live comfortably in Californi
Comment removed (Score:3)
What else? (Score:2)
Kevin DeLeon is not particularly coherent (Score:2)
Remember that DeLeon is the same idiot who spoke unintelligible gibberish in his "ghost gun" speech. He's not trustworthy enough for me to believe this isn't loaded with graft and assorted other corruption.
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It doesn't have to be loaded with graft & corruption to be a waste of time.
TFA talks about a 2.5KW system. Which is about 10 panels. So this whole program is going to provide free solar to 150-200 homes in a State with 38.8 million people.
Wow, a program to provide free solar to 0.0025% of CA's population!! Really generous program you've got there, guys....
Their criteria need work. (Score:5, Insightful)
"three-bedroom home"
Not poor (Score:3, Insightful)
Dear California Poor.... (Score:2)
I'll give you $50 cash for each of them.
Most will be sold by the end of the summer.
Clarification of target group (Score:5, Informative)
The submitter used the word "poorest", which seems chosen rather... poorly. The SFGate article uses the somewhat less extreme term "low income", but toward the end it is also more specific about the criteria: "To qualify, applicants must live in a neighborhood designated as disadvantaged by the state. They must own their homes and make no more than 80 percent of their community’s median household income." The provider, GRID Alternatives, promises "to make renewable energy technology and job training accessible to underserved communities", which seems more in line with what is actually going on.
So, one view of this is that this is a program to direct cap-and-trade money (generally collected to be used specifically for environmentally beneficial projects) into areas of the state that wouldn't get it otherwise. It uses donated equipment and labor as well as the C&T funding, so it's not at all tax funded. Besides helping recipients in the targeted areas get cheaper power, it is possibly reducing overall electricity demand in a green way (though this is debatable, given the limits of solar power as a baseload source).
Redefining 'poorest residents' (Score:3)
When did homeowners become 'poorest residents' in California?
Seems to me a person too poor to buy a house is, by definition, 'poorer' than a homeowner.
The poor (Score:2)
So now we'll be seeing solar panels on shopping carts?
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Well, he does live in California. The Bay Area is outrageous.
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Well no one is forcing him to live in one of the most expensive areas in the world (assuming it actually is). I make less than 15k per year after taxes and I don't really consider myself poor. In the country I'm living in now the average income is about $250 per month or about $3000 USD per year. In Laos most people make about $1200 per year. In Cuba the average person makes less than $200 per year. No I did not miss a zero there. I don't see myself as poor.
But I guess making nearly $6000 per month is poor
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I take your point and I have a hard time considering anyone making $70 thousand/yr as being anywhere close to the poverty line.
But what if its not a case of him choosing to live somewhere expensive but rather refusing to be forced OUT?
Lots of people have lived for generations in poor-to-middle-class neighborhoods and then been effectively evicted through gentrification.
Re:That poor man (Score:5, Insightful)
You're earning 500% the average income for the country in which you live, no shit you don't consider yourself poor. Your entire point is nonsense, of course you have to consider location when defining what 'poor' is. I don't care that someone earning $5k in another country can live like a king or not, someone earning $5k in the UK is poor.
Your inability to consider what is worth paying people decent money for says a lot more about your ignorance than anything else.
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Let's say he has a 1,500 square foot home that he purchased for the bargain price of 450,000 dollars back in 2005, then he has a mortgage payment of about $2,500 a month. Then he has two kids to feed along with himself, so that's another $700 a month. Then everything else in the state costing about 30% more than anyone else, along with an effective tax rate of about 35% for him...carry the one...leaves him with about $600 a month, which may be needed for cars and everything else. So yeah, sad to say, he'
Re: That poor man (Score:2)
And there's no one in California poorer than this fellow with his $70K salary?
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Anyone who owns a home, other than perhaps a total shack they inherited, is not poor. Not even close. As usual, this is a giveaway to the upper middle class.
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Note that he owns his home and in Calf there is the Prop 13 thing that effectively
freezes his property tax to levels as much as decades ago.
Except my tax rate went up 17% last year in San Mateo for special assessments.
A good thing... sure. A smart thing I suspect not.
California revenue is largely based on the performance of the tech stock market (all of the employees stock plans are taxed as employment, and they have 10% income tax), so when the market tanks, Sacramento passes all of these emergency measures to 'make sure the schools are well-funded' and raise all the rates by a percent or more. Then the market goes up, and the newly raised rates stay constant...I love the land of California,
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....
Except my tax rate went up 17% last year in San Mateo for special assessments.
Well San Mateo... that puts you in harms way of water department fines
and fee abuses.
If it does not rain up on the hills the SF bay area will have a handy dandy
excuse to reset the entire water delivery fee structure.
Almond growers are being vilified yet the domestic water delivery system
and the agriculture water systems are parted off way way upstream and
little is going to fix this issue and not kill a couple oddball fish in the delta.
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The state giveth, the state taketh, all hail the state!
Re:That poor man (Score:4, Interesting)
Wow, merchant seamen make 50%+ more than the VB coder positions I see in emails
Re:That poor man (Score:4, Funny)
Re:That poor man (Score:4, Insightful)
The amount they will save is overstated. Cal residential rates average about 15cents/kwh, a 2.5KWH panel would need about 17.8 cents per kwh to save them $818 in the first year. They also assume power rates increase for stating the total 30 year savings of $22K, but don't talk about who covers insurance/damage/maintenance, etc. How will the lucky few be selected? Who pays for panel removal/replacement when the roof needs repairs?
If you take the 14.7 million and divide by 1600, you get >$9K per system. What solar company is benefiting from selling these at such a high cost?
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No, the poorest do not rent. The poorest sleep on park benches and in alleys. Naturally, those people don't count, for some reason.
Re:Since fucking when (Score:5, Funny)
No way, man. He can only afford a new iPhone every other year! That's bordering the poverty line.
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In Canada, the official poverty level is around $25,000 per year for single persons. It shows you how rich the Americans are compared to the rest of the world, even compared to another first-world country.
Hey don't lump the rest of us in with those Bay Area folks.
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That's poor for the Bay Area. I assure you, that's not the poverty line in the US. We have plenty of minimum wage workers who make nowhere near 70K a year.
Hell, I made only $26K a year in my first job and I had to cut corners to pay my school loans, but mostly I did okay. Granted that was almost 20 years ago now, but inflation hasn't been *that* bad.
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In Canada, the official poverty level is around $25,000 per year for single persons. It shows you how rich the Americans are compared to the rest of the world, even compared to another first-world country.
In California, at least anywhere south of the Bay area, somebody making $25k/year is probably living in their car. $70k is hardly poor, but it's not much more than a comfortable middle class living.
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Re: Holy hell (Score:2)
And what is $0K/yr? You know, like all the unemployed folks in the Bay Area earn?
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Average rent in Orange County for a studio - no actual bedroom - is, last time I checked, over $1,000/month. Cars are not cheap, nor is the insurance it is a crime to drive without. Food, other expenses, taxes, it adds up. yeah, it's possible to live on it, but to live alone is, at best, difficult. And is a very shitty way to live.
Plus,
but still put away money every month, thanks to medi-cal covering insurance
translates to "thanks to welfare paid for by other people who make more than $25k/year." You've actually agreed it's damned difficult to get by on that amount.
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In the USA, the poverty level is about $14,000 per year for single persons.
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It is, however, misleading. Giving stuff to poor people is fine, but the word "free" does imply that it comes from some government largess that is somehow magically separated from the actual taxes that people pay.
Of course, it's all okay, because it's the rich people who are paying for it and they have plenty of money.
Except of course, it isn't. It's mostly the middle class paying for this sort of thing because there aren't enough rich people out there to have even their higher tax assessments (when they
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By the restrictive "no cost to anyone anywhere" definition, there's nothing free, so the word is meaningless. If the word is meaningless, then it shouldn't exist. As it does exist, the most common "no cost to the user" definition is the obvious one to use.
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Air is free. I've never had to pay anyone to produce it for my respiration.
Piped and treated water is not free, but water that you catch in a sufficiently clean container is free.
There are some actually free things out there. I can collect firewood on public land, if there are no applicable regulations preventing me, and it used to be that there was common areas available for pastures.
Let's not pretend that there is no such thing as free just because we're regulated and enclosed our resources. We've made
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Collecting rainwater is illegal in several states. The state can sell exclusive collection rights to a water utility company - they have the sole right to any water that falls on that area, and your container in the rain is stealing their water.
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The word "free" means "not in bondage" and "unrestrained in movement". It stands for "free" in the sense of liberty and free software.
The term "for free" in the sense of "at no charge" is meaningless, confusing, and manipulative. The sooner we get rid of that sense from the English language, the better.
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The term "for free" in the sense of "at no charge" is meaningless, confusing,
I've never seen anyone confused by it. Just the argumentative people on Slashdot
and manipulative
Ah, the real objection. It doesn't give a sufficiently evil connotation for those who hate the term.
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Re: free... (Score:2)
Citation please.
The top 5% earn 20% of all Income and pay 40% of all income taxes...
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Next up, free food for "poor" people making $70K.
It's called Soylent Green, and it is what CA plans to do with the people who make less than $25K a year.
"It's the People's Food, that's why it's made with 100% People!"
Re: learned something about myself I never knew (Score:2)
He's not only 'poor' he's among the poorest in California... Apparently he earns less than his unemployed neighbors.