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California Is Giving Away Free Solar Panels To Its Poorest Residents
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."
How can he afford to even eat on a mere $70k/year?!
What is median?
by taking money from other people... that isn't free.
$70K a year is poor?
I'm poor too then. I had no idea.
>> 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.)
Since fucking when does a guy who makes $70,000 a year fall into the category of "California's poorest residents"?
You've got to be fucking kidding me. That's MIDDLE CLASS, bitch.
Gee, I hope next they give out sets of bar accessories to the area homeless. Seems about as practical and economically efficient.
an income of $70k/year?
Besides, the poorest and most downtrodden no longer own, they get to rent. And not houses, but trailers at inflated prices.
1600 solar panels have shown up at local pawn shops.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
...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.
"Who are you?" "No one of consequence." "I must know." "Get used to disappointment."
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?
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.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
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?
eBay is flooded with solar panels for sale.
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.
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.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
Because California has so much money and isn't in debt?...
In Canada, the official poverty level is around $25,000 per year for single persons. It shows you how rich the Californians are compared to the rest of the world and even compared to other states.
What utter bullshit.
This is the same kind of crap that de-legitimizes (that a word?) the real good alternative energy can be.
I'm not sure if I'd feel comfortable using the Bay Area as a barometer for the economic conditions throughout the U.S. Most Californians would object to being thusly lumped. We should give the Bay Area its own flag and declare it sovereign from the U.S.
Why don't you buy him a Prius as well? It saves gas and money, right?
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.
to do what? Charge their free iphones?
I'm not inherently against this... but this money has to come from somewhere, and I'd wonder if most would be better off with a subsidization of their electricity bill and the panels put elsewhere.
I live in a low-income neighborhood, and sadly anything cheap not nailed down will get stolen. Anything worth more that is nailed or chained down will get stolen, if there's any market for pawning or recycling them. A few months ago, a neighbor half a block away came home from work to find someone had cut down his old 90ft tv antenna while he was at work, probably to sell for scrap. My neighbors were gone over the 3 day weekend, and came back to half the metal in their house being gone... even the DishTV satellite on the back of the roof. ...just, I dunno. I have a feeling this needs a pilot program to see what is/could going wrong they haven't thought of, and then go from there.
I am against helping the poor in this way. Offer job opportunities, free education on certain things, etc. The problem is that many poor are not motivated to push themselves out of poverty.
For example, here in CA, a coworker I knew helped donate his time to the poor Hispanic community (English language learning, job opportunities placement, etc). Most of the folks would at first be very interested in those FREE programs but then wouldn't show up and it would of been a great benefit to them. Instead they would contact him to translate stuff or negotiate things. They had no interest assimilating here, or trying to get a better job if it meant some (minor) schooling.
After several years of donating his time, he got so tired of the whole thing he just gave up and told me how ashamed he was at 'his' race being so lazy. He at one point was so well known in the community that he thought to run as a local representative, but told me he abandoned that idea, since many of his ideas were out of sync with Hispanics. He told me many felt that CA belonged to them historically, etc and all sorts of things that he could never agree with in his mind. He family is Latino, but they assimilated the US way of life here.
I think the same can be said for whites and most anyone who is poor. Few have a drive to be better off. The rest just want to mooch....
But...but...but...
I already have a solar panel in the rear window of my car^whome.
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.
I love this idea, especially since it pisses off all the republitarians here!
Go CA!
"Poorest residents"
:|
"three-bedroom home"
Don't forget the dollar difference makes it even worse.
$70k in no way puts you in the "poorest residents" category in California. That income places him at the very top of the third quintile, above the median state income, which is around $60k.
In some areas, $60k/year is homeless.
70k a year puts you in "poorest residents" ? Where the hell does that put people who makes less than 25k a year... Dead when winter comes?
Government here to help you.
70k/yr. is poor.
Green energy.
I left California off the list, but it actually ties the whole troll aspect up in neat little bundle. This has potential to be one of Slashdot's most commented on articles. After 20 years of reading Slashdot (yes, i'm a big fan), i've been conditioned to spot the troll articles. HINT: they are the ones that make it off the firehose section. I enjoy slashdot comments a lot more these days because I'm over 50 now and realize that I am closer to the end. All the pressure is off me. I no longer have to concoct bizzare explantions in an effort to coexist with a society that is too uncomfortable to be around. Now i just wake up every day and think, maybe today is the day i get the fuck out of here. Even better, half the goofballs on this site will throw a party when i go. It's a "win-win". Isn't that a favorite expresion
Spent 4 years living on 25k in a 1-bedroom. They pay sth like 65% of the power bill for people who make that little. Started raising a kid on 30k. That was tighter, but still put away money every month, thanks to medi-cal covering insurance (employer healthcare demolished my savings the one time I tried it). Just never eat out or own a car. Don't travel. Just work and buy groceries. So glad I moved away to a better job.
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.
Hey fucker I live in fly over country and my 45k puts me in the highest tax bracket. Do not judge the US based on the coasts.
I live in Colorado, hardly a cheap area to live in relative to a lot of places in the country. 70K would be very comfortable here.
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.
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 costs for it to get carried down the wires back to the utility company.
In general, what I've observed around here is that quite a few people who are more "middle class" than "rich" are the ones with PV solar on their roofs. Most of the time, they did a solar lease or "PPA" agreement so their up-front cost to have the panels installed was as little as zero, or as much as maybe a few thousand dollars paid up front in order to secure a better deal on the terms of the lease agreement.
I'm one of the exceptions in our town who decided to buy my panels straight out, but our family couldn't really afford to do that either. I had to get a "solar loan" from a lender offering it, after scraping up about $9,000 to pay upon completion of the work. (That will come back to me as the Federal tax credit for going solar, but they pay it back in stages, at least given my own tax situation. So I have to wait until next tax year to recoup the rest of the credit.) The rest of the cost will get paid off over the next 12 years on this solar loan, at an interest rate of close to 8%. So essentially, I'm gambling here on whether or not the whole project EVER really gives me a positive return on my investment. I *think* it can, but it's really a long term projection..... They estimate the panels will last as long as 25-30 years, and I bought SunPower branded stuff (which has a little less performance drop-off over time than many other cheaper panels). The inverters will almost surely need to be replaced once or twice during that length of time ... but they're under warranty for the first 10 years. By then, you've got to think they'll have better and/or cheaper replacements available to put in their place than what's available today.
Meanwhile, what will power cost in 20 years? The same price as today or close to it? Somehow I doubt that.... and I doubt that enough to take this type of bet as insurance against higher costs on it. But in any case, my system only covers about 60-68% of our total energy usage needs. There's just not enough usable roof space facing the right direction for it to be cost effective to add more capacity. (A problem I see with MANY homes doing solar.)
I guess my point, though, is this: PV solar isn't typically going to make this massive energy savings that some people think when they see the "cool looking solar panels" all over a property. When govt. started with the subsidies on it, it was because the tech. made NO economic sense at all without that padding added to the equation and they were just trying to use our tax money to jump start the whole industry.
Today, I think it *can* make some sense, but the wealthy really won't care about the small savings we're talking about seeing with it! If they do solar, it's merely for show and to give off that "feel good, eco friendly" vibe. The upper class can easily afford to pay their electric bills as a very SMALL part of their total income.
I'll give you $50 cash for each of them.
Most will be sold by the end of the summer.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
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.
$26k in 1995 is roughly equivalent to $40k in todays dollars.
In Australia it became a huge middle class gravy train and the working poor ended up worse off as their electricity bills increased to fund the grid upgrades required to deal with all the decentralised power production. Most of the working poor live in rental properties and there were no incentives to put panels on those properties, this excluded almost all of the people who should have benefited most. Giving power systems directly to the poor helps a lot, but what if they don't even own their own home?
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 areas as a vote buying exercise is a different story.
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.
and trailer parks. Anywhere you go you find them. I'm in Phoenix and we have million dollar homes across the street from them. Rich people don't like to pay top dollar for folks who can afford to live near them. I used to wonder how they kept all the poverty and human misery from spilling over until I realized that's what our drug policy is for. Any time the lower class gets out of line you can send the cops in to bust some heads and use the few ounces of pot that at least 1 person in your house probably has on hand as a pretext...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
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).
Washington DC just announced they're going to implement green energy generators that run directly on poor people running on a giant hamster wheel.
It would be $40,364 in today's dollars.
So now $70000 is below the poverty level. Give me a solar panel, I qualify.
Who the fuck is this Kevin de León dickhead?
For me, I had to find $350-$400/month for electricity, every month. I was lucky and got $10k inheritance. Various subsidies allowed me to install a $20k 3kw system (practical input about 2.3 kwh about 5 years ago. Legislature subsidy gave me 64c/kwh, dropping to 60c/kwh presently. As soon as my contract expires (any time now), I'll be paid 20c/kwh which is almost retail where I am (Australia). For the first few years it knocked 65% off my usage. Then when I got rid of the kids (sold for scientific experiments), I started to achieve credit in the summer months, almost evening out my winter usage, so I can say that I almost get a net 0 cost/year. It won't last though. When I get forced onto the reduced rate of 20c, my power bills will increase, but nowhere near what it was originally.
Now I didn't care too much *wasting* the $10k on the system because I didn't have to find $400/month, every month. That means that I had money for other things and much reduced stress on the family. After 5 years I worked out that I have almost paid the $10k back (there were 4 failures* in that time).
Doesn't matter about the capital expense! The long term savings in money and more importantly stress has paid for the system.
Failures:
The street voltage was too high for the inverter, so the inverter couldn't pump the power to the grid (2x). This was fixed by choking the street's line transformer.
The Inverter (cheap chinese shit) broke.
Birds ripped off the cover of a buss box on the roof and it filled with water.
Total cost to repair after insurance was about $500.
Loss of income from downtimes: $500 estimated.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
None of this desalination plant nonsense. We need more solar panels.
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.
Ken
If net metering were a good deal for the electric utilities, they wouldn't be fighting it tooth and nail.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
And what is $0K/yr? You know, like all the unemployed folks in the Bay Area earn?
Ken
FYI, here in Oz, in the state of Victoria, we pay just under 26cents per KWH, with a daily connection fee of $1.13.
If you generate power via solar, the power company will generously buy it for 8cents, and I have heard it will be going down to 6cents per KWH.
The feed in tariff was high when the solar was first being installed (66cents!!!) and while we had that on our old house, it really was not fair to the other consumers.
But now, the 8 or 6cents if not fair to the solar owners,
There is some gov. assistance to install the solar generation and usually the installing company keeps the carbon credits so that comes off the installation bill.
We installed a 10KW system on our home for $14,000 a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, the installing company did a lousy job, did not wire it correctly, failed to put in the paperwork and caused our roof to leak. Now they has disappeared.
So we are going to be stuck with a further bill to get our complete system rewired, tested and officially passed. Also we will have to get the roof fixed as the insurance company will only fix the damage, dot the cause.
There is a possibility we will not be allowed to run a 10KW system here, even though it has been running tor 2 years while I have been battling with the company concerned.
If you get solar, make sure it is a tried and true company!
My son had a fault develop in one of his panels and his company came and replaced them all at no cost to him. I wish now I went with that company!!!
In the USA, the poverty level is about $14,000 per year for single persons.
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What they are fighting tooth and nail is kW/h that they cannot bill you for. If that means building huge new installations that only run for a couple of hours a day then they will happily do it so long as the consumer pays for it.
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.
So why is the government coming in and spending taxpayer money on something business and the market already provides? Companies like Solar City come in and install panels on YOUR hour for free but you have to agree to pay them for much cheaper electricity for a bunch of years.
I don't get this.
So now we'll be seeing solar panels on shopping carts?
Have gnu, will travel.
Solar panels are inherently defuse power sources.
A nuclear powerplant that can supply power to millions can be relatively small. Most of the size of a plant is concerned with containment and not the reactor itself. But solar power plants are relatively enourmous.
It doesn't make sense to centralize and concentrate them. Rather, just put panels on every roof in town.
There is also no logistical reason to centralize. With nuclear power you want to keep dangerous materials out of the hands of idiots and you want the system overseen by someone that knows what they're doing. With coal or gasoline you need to worry about the logistics of fuel delivery and storage and you need to be concerned about the exhaust not washing over houses.
None of these things are relevant for solar. Rather than dumping billions into solar farms, we should instead LOAN panels to the community. Retain ownership of them since the government is paying for them or the utility is paying for them. But install them on the houses rather than concentrating them.
here someone will say "but that requires a control box at every house to allow each house to feed power back into the system"... yep. But that also normalizes that practice as being standard and to be expected rather than as the exception to the rule. That changes the way the grid words and that is change for the better.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I have always thought they had only richest ones!
I also heard that California state was essentially bankrupt. How does that compute with the current headline, I have no idea.
So many of the people who whine about how the rich are hated are hating on someone wealthy.
Isn't it ironic, don't you think?
As a California taxpayer who's always getting hosed, I challenge the term "free".
Solar panels require components which cost money and assembly, both of which cost money.
Solar panel components require processed materials and fabrication, both of which cost money.
Processed materials require raw materials and processing, both of which cost money.
Once the panels exist, they require transport and installation, both of which cost money.
Unless we live in a slave nation where nobody gets paid for any of the above, then these things are most-certainly NOT FREE. Like "Free healthcare", "free food", "free phones", "free housing", etc these things are all "free" to the recipients but they are purchased using money taken at gun-point from the taxpayers. I DARE any left-winger who denies this to:
1. Do not pay your taxes.
2. Do not allow the government to garnish your wages or take your assets when it notices you have taken step #1.
3. Refuse to be evicted/foreclosed when the government notices you have taken step #2.
4. Resist arrest when the government's people show up at your door after step #3.
5. Resist when the government agents are pointing a gun at your head after they have exhausted all other options to rob you.
Remember: a thief in a back alley will also first ask you to "voluntarily" hand-over your money. Many thieves only brandish a gun after their victims refuse to comply to the demand that they "pay their fair share", and most do not shoot their victims unless the victims refuse to hand-over the loot after a gun has been pointed. Same thing.
how much would be paid in subsidies for fossil fuels if he had not had solar panels installed ?
this answer is very hard to work out because of the complex politics of energy subsidies but my hunch is that its not far off the cost of solar installations per person
over a lifetime.
[site]
Give them free(mandatory) birth control BEFORE you give them the latest handout and you will finally start reducing poverty with government welfare.
If 70k is poor then I guess I must be completely and irredeemably destitute. And yet somehow I managed to afford solar panels on my last house. Odd that.
Someone must be giving bankers modpoints. Or maybe Bing employees. Or maybe just some crybaby who also hasn't learned to internet.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
He got that from the suffering of others (I mean, sure Pacquiano suffered some, but he also got about $200M for his efforts)? Through the labor of others? He & Pacquiano didn't "earn it"? Who did Michael Jordan (billionaire) oppress? How about Oprah Winfrey? Who'd she make suffer to get her billions (other than husbands of women devoted to her shows)?
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. Tears down the empire (never mind the people the empire employs) and spreads out the wealth quickly, right? And, it gives you someone to point at and ridicule for being a stupid fuck--he had it all given to him and he pissed it all away.
"A corporation may write its check to the Internal Revenue Service for payment of the corporate income tax, but that money must come from somewhere: from reduced returns to investors in the company, lower wages to its workers, or higher prices that consumers pay for the products the company produces."
Congressional Budget Office report "THE INCIDENCE OF THE CORPORATE INCOME TAX"
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 the rich don't buy stuff from poor people. They shop on different streets than poor people, let alone in different stores.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
there has to be something wrong with it. Or it has to somehow ban guns.
afew years ago you'd be saying, "who did Bill Cosby oppress". Your ignorant if you think there are good rich. There are, used to be, good rich. Power corrupts and we've allowed it to accumulate.
Cheap storage VM.
1) Not California, but a non-profit based in Oakland???
2) Poorest residents making 70,000$ who can't afford solar panels???
3) ???
4) PROFIT!
....would have been ideal for this.
Too bad the company literally destroyed them when the bankruptcy folks were closing in:
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.c...
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
Every person in California who buys or uses ANYTHING is paying a Cap-And-Trade tax, since EVERYTHING is either powered by, made with, or transported using at least SOME energy that is subjected to the artificial inflation of Cap-and-Trade.
Cap-and-Trade is the Enron-created scam that was designed to be one more step into evil beyond the European VAT tax. Both scams are designed to fool the taxpayers into paying an ever-increasing tax burden while re-directing the anger at the private sector that is forced to be a secret tax collector (both acts hide the bulk of the tax cost by embedding it into the products and services by applying it in the manufacturing and supplying stages as well as at the retail point. Enron out-did VAT with their Cap-and-Trade scheme by adding the power of the marketplace and then, in an act that would embarrass even the worst 2008 Wall St bankers, based the whole thing on buying and selling completely imaginary things.
Trickle-down can work - hell, that's half the reason Keynesian economics gives to justify its existence. Rich people buy from other, less rich people, who in turn buy from people less rich than themselves, and so on. Just because you can't see more than one link in a chain doesn't mean they don't exist.
And "share your wealth or they will share their poverty"? Sounds an awful lot like a mafia shakedown to me...