Slashdot Mirror
Free-As-In-Beer Electricity In Greece?
PolygamousRanchKid writes New Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will lay out his radical left-wing government's policies in a speech later on Sunday, firmly rejecting any more austerity forced on his debt-strapped country by its euro zone partners. In his first major speech to parliament as premier, Tsipras is expected to say that Greece wants no more bailout money, plans to renegotiate its debt deal and wants a "bridge agreement" to tide the country over until a new pact is sealed. A second part of the speech will touch on his government's social and fiscal policy over the longer term and is likely to repeat pledges for such things as a rise in the minimum wage and free electricity for poorer Greeks. Which gets me to thinking: with free electricity, wouldn't that be a great business opportunity, to build a cloud of servers in poorer Greeks' basements? Maybe that is the real plan behind the free electricity idea.
How many failed socialist experiments do we need to see before it's written off as a failure?
I suppose as long as there's 1 more sucker, it will keep working.
So, he doesn't want any more bailout money, but he DOES want them to give him money to "bridge" things over?
I take it that what he really means is that he doesn't want any more money with strings attached (like an obligation to pay it back), but he's happy to accept money with no strings....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
why do rich and poor people always get things for "free"??? Be it a rich guy who gets a goodie bag at an award show woth thousands of dollars such as at the grammys, Or giving the "poor" free food and electricity. All of this, on the backs of the actual hard working middle class. Its wrong, the government should not be taking money from X and giving it to Y
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
If you're using the heat of the pc to keep warm, then there's no inefficiency in using the power to generate bitcoins.
The problem is that when dealing with heating and cooling, pure resistive heating is about the worst way to go about it. Its true, it is 100% efficient at converting the electrical energy to heat energy, but that electrical energy suffered many losses in becoming electrical energy.
A more economical solution is to take the fuel that was used to create the electricity and burn it directly to create heat. (Generally about 20%-30% more efficient overall).
An even better solution is to use that electricity to move Already existing heat around. This is by far the most efficient use of the energy in the first place.
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
Let's exploit the already-screwed Greek government for some 'free' CPU time to run your own business..
Actually, I believe a more accurate statement would be that the Greek government has been exploiting the rest of the EU for free money.
But, as the famous economist John Maynard Keynes said, "If I owe the bank 100 pounds . . . I have a problem. If I owe the bank 100,000 pounds . . . the bank has a problem."
Right now, Angela Merkel has a problem, because she guaranteed the German public that all the money that they lent to Greece would be eventually paid back.
Alexis Tsipras has stated that he wants Greece to stay in the Eurozone. I don't believe him. What he wants most, if for Greece to be free from old debts to the EU. The EU is not going write off the old debts, and let Greece stay in the Eurozone. So his other choice would be to let the bus crash and default on the debts. The EU would then have to toss the Greeks out of the Eurozone. Then Tsipras could claim that he wanted to stay in the Eurozone, and that it was the evil EU who kicked them out.
When the Greeks go back to their own Drachma, instead of the Euro, they can then print as many of them as they like. They can distribute them as they wish, and make everyone in Greece rich!
Of course, the Drachmas will be close to worthless on the world financial markets . . . so the Greeks would not be able to purchase things that they think they need from foreign countries . . . like TVs, cars, washing machines, etc.
But at least they would be free from the Euro yoke, and have control over their own fate . . . and have nobody else to blame, if they don't like how it turns out.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
The problem is that when dealing with heating and cooling, pure resistive heating is about the worst way to go about it.
In this case, it is the BEST way to go about it. Normally, you have to consider both the one-time cost of the equipment, and the ongoing cost of electricity. But if the electricity is FREE, then the cost of the equipment is the only consideration. If it is wasteful, that is not your problem.
The Greeks are continuing to engage in the same sort of economic insanity that got them in trouble in the first place. If you want to help the poor, then give them money and let them choose what to buy. If you give them "stuff" instead, they will have no incentive not to squander it. It will cost more, and provide fewer benefits.
Is electricity "stuff"? Or does it enable the use of stuff?
Anyway, I don't think they've looked far enough east for inspiration. I remember reading a few years ago that in one of the south-east Asian cities (Kuala Lumpur maybe? Singapore?) there was two-tier pricing on electricity -- dirt cheap up to X kWh so that everyone could have lighting and basic usage, but then ramping up to very expensive so that the rich buggers running air conditioning all day long were effectively subsidising the poor.
Although, on reflection, that's not really a solution for Greece seeing as it's not a matter of a large wealth gap as a severe lack of wealth....
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
We firmly reject any policies that might move us toward fiscal responsibility.
No, Greece rejects any policies that won't lead to recovery. Austerity economics is madness, ignoring all the evidence from economic theory and history that says that recovery is hastened by putting money in the hands of those who will spend it quickest (ie the poor). After WWII the UK nationalised a multitude of private industries under the Keynes plan, and we grew. Austerity economics proposes the exact opposite of what worked previously, looking at national infrastructure as liquid assets to be sold. It's the wrong way round.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Europe is composed of socialist countries and has been for about 60 years or so for the ones that weren't communist and the rest became socialist when the communist regime fell. Germany? Socialist. France? Socialist. Sweden, the land of Ikea, Swedish meatballs, and the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo? Socialist. Britain, that bastion of capitalism? Socialist. That big ass VAT they pay in Britain? That's to support their socialist regime. Take a look at the health care and welfare systems provided by the European countries. They're socialist.
Taking into account things like technology available to the common people, things like internet access and mobile phone technology, I would have to say that things are a hell of lot better than in the U.S.
So how exactly have they failed?
In Malaysia there are 5 tiers for electricity pricing (until recently it was 9), and if your total bill for the month comes to less than RM20 (around USD 7), the government covers it.
Care to explain why Cuba is a failure when health care and education are on a much higher level (and much cheaper) than in the USA albeit being under a boycott and other sanctions from the USA the last 70 years?
I don't know, why don't we ask the hundred of thousands of Cubans who fled that paradise and decided to live in Miami instead? Just to be fair and balanced we could also get the opinion of Americans who fled the USA and went to live in Cuba (if you can find one that's not a wanted felon).
lucm, indeed.
Then why didn't it work the last 60 years? Money is debt, and throwing more debt into the old equation will result in bankruptcy.
The UK used the debt to rebuild the wealth that was destroyed during the war. Greece spent the money in entitlement. Unfortunately the next generation will have to pay. Listen to the solutions offered by the new Greek PM it basically reinstate the old but this time they promise they will not steal. Fingers crossed.
Austerity is imposing honesty into the equation and it will take another 10-20 years to fix properly. Greeks need to pay taxes for the services their government offers. They need to work to create wealth and not just a night out on the town. Greece was the grasshopper and now they need to become more like the ant because winter has come. If Europe was not part of this equation, austerity, the earnings of the Greeks would have disappeared as their currency would have no value.
I agree somewhat to your statement "Austerity economics is madness" and that is when the society generates more wealth than they produce otherwise they are leaving their bills and their debt for their children to pay. History has also told us that trying to maintain an unbalanced situation will only result is a larger disaster later on as was seen in the great depression. We need to put aside some wealth so we can avoid austerity when times are tough.
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
Why do we have to choose between capitalism and socialism? Both have their benefits and both have their problems but they are NOT mutually exclusive. Most countries used to have a progressive tax system with high rates of tax on high earners. CEOs and the like still made more money than the rest of us and did well for themselves but the higher taxes these people paid helped provide common services that we all used e.g. healthcare, transport infrastructure, free university education etc.
This system put both socialism and capitalism in balance. You have the freedom to use your (free) education to go an make money and will directly benefit yourself from doing that but society also benefits and uses the higher taxes you pay to educate the workers you employ, provide the infrastructure to transport the goods you make etc. The trick is to make sure that the high tax payers also benefit from how the taxes are spent even if they don't necessarily benefit as much.