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In my last post, I wrote about the hidden implications of the reconciliation tax proposal. Since then, I’ve seen another series of implications of things discussed: environmental implications. In particular, a new argument as to why both Bitcoin and Porn are bad: they use too much electricity.

Stay with me, this is complicated.

For Bitcoin, new coins are created by solving complex math problems. With the high value of bitcoin, everyone wants to mine. But, according to Wired, that could be a significant draw on the electrical infrastructure:

In a report last week, the cryptocurrency website Digiconomics said that worldwide bitcoin mining was using more electricity than Serbia. The country. Writing for Grist, Eric Holthaus calculated that by July 2019, the Bitcoin peer-to-peer network—remember BitTorrent? Like that—would require more electricity than all of the United States. And by November of 2020, it’d use more electricity than the entire world does today.

All this for a currency that doesn’t really exist. Making paper money costs a lot less.

As for Porn: We have moved from a world where people bought DVDs or videocassettes and watched at home, or in shared spaces like theatres, to individual consumption over streaming networks for free. And that, my friends, may not be good for the environment (who cares about morals, or the actors):

Using a formula that Netflix published on its blog in 2015, Nathan Ensmenger, a professor at Indiana University who is writing a book about the environmental history of the computer, calculates that if Pornhub streams video as efficiently as Netflix (0.0013 kWh per streaming hour), it used 5.967 million kWh in 2016. For comparison, that’s about the same amount of energy 11,000 light bulbs would use if left on for a year. And operating with Netflix’s efficiency would be a best-case scenario for the porn site, Ensmenger believes.

and later in the article:

For Ensmenger, this epitomizes the problem with the digital economy, where so many of the costs are outsourced or hidden that consumers believe everything is free. Most sites offer their free videos by selling advertising to companies that track consumer behavior, and these cookies require a considerable amount of energy. More importantly, consumers don’t have to think about the significant environmental costs of constructing and destructing electrical products, such as screens, servers, and hard drives.

This is actually pretty interesting: costs being hidden from the consumers and shifted onto someone else (in this case, likely taxpayers and ratepayers who build the power plants).

Now broaden the picture: “cutting the cord”, as we know, doesn’t reduce costs. It just means you write more checks, and possibly even more if net neutrality goes away. But there is also the cost of all those streaming servers and the cost of the bandwidth, and who will end up paying for it?

As historians like to say, “It’s complicated”. Much more complicated than you likely thought.

This entry was originally posted on Observations Along the Road as Environmental Warriors by cahwyguy. Although you can comment on DW, please make comments on original post at the Wordpress blog using the link to the left. You can sign in with your LJ, DW, FB, or a myriad of other accounts. Note: Subsequent changes made to the post on the blog are not propagated by the SNAP Crossposter; please visit the original post to see the latest version. P.S.: If you see share buttons above, note that they do not work outside of the Wordpress blog.

I subscribe to many things: some unpaid, like political philosophies (which are worth every penny that I don’t pay), and some paid. The paid subscriptions are generally media — magazines, newspapers (Los Angeles Times, New York Times), and theatre. They all have the common characteristics of constantly bringing me something new.

Enter Quicken.

I’ve been using Quicken to track my checkbook and investments since the early to mid-1990s (I want to say my first version was Quicken 3 or 4). At some point I started downloading stock prices and transactions — first with an external program, then using Quicken mechanisms. Since then, I’ve been updating Quicken every three years, because Quicken designed their system so that you could no longer download into a version older than three years.

Last year was an upgrade year, so I moved to Quicken 2016. It’s been one of the worst versions I’ve used: slow, bug prone, non-responsive. Yet I’ve stuck with it and felt no urge to update to Quicken 2017. Perhaps Quicken 2019, when it comes out.

But then I was reading my RSS feeds, including an article about how Quicken (in Canada) is shifting to a subscription model. Quicken Home and Business will be CDN$90 per year. The core software must be installed on a Windows device, and will, Quicken said, be updated “to make sure you’re always on the newest version.” More importantly, however, is that the subscription offers one year of what Quicken dubbed “Connected Service,” the back end that supports transaction downloads from banks, credit card companies and other financial organizations.

But here’s the kicker: According to Quicken (at least in Canada): “if customers do not renew their subscription, they will lose more than just access to downloads from their bank. “While you can continue to access your data and run reports, you’ll no longer be able to download transactions, or add manual transactions [emphasis added],” a FAQ said in reply to a question about what happens when access to Connected Service ends.” Got that? Don’t pay up, and you can’t even use the software offline.

They haven’t said this is coming to the US Market, but you know it will. Further, it is something up with which I will not put.

So now the debate comes: Should I get Quicken 2017 to try to stave things off one year, or find another program. If the latter, what program? What are you using to keep track of personal finances? The program is worth $90 every three years, but not every year.

This entry was originally posted on Observations Along The Road (on cahighways.org) as this entry by cahwyguy. Although you can comment on DW, please make comments on original post at the Wordpress blog using the link below; you can sign in with your LJ, FB, or a myriad of other accounts. There are currently comments on the Wordpress blog. PS: If you see share buttons above, note that they do not work outside of the Wordpress blog.

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This morning, while I was in the shower, an odd question popped into my head:

• If President Trump or a Cabinet Head elects to take no salary, are they a government employee?

Here’s why that question occurred to me: Ethics rules, disclosure rules, conflict of interest rules, rules about accepting gifts, and all other sorts of regulations apply to government employees. But Trump is nominating millionaires and billionaires who don’t need the salary. Many of them have publicly said they will not take a salary. So does this make them exempt from all the regulations that apply to government employees? Further, note that it means they will not have taxes taken from their salaries (avoiding taxes), and their income will be primarily capital gains on investments (which is a much lower tax rate, and can be offset by losses reducing taxes even further). No salary, and income primarily from capital gains also puts them in a lower tax bracket (I think — I could be wrong there).

So, by refusing a salary, could they both avoid those pesky regulations and lower their taxes? Could this be why we are seeing so many millionaires and billionaires being nominated?

[ETA: Conclusion: (•) Salaries are defined by statute, and must be paid — then they can be subsequently donated, returned to the Treasury, etc.; (•) Volunteering for government service is not allow, so they have to accept a token of $1; (•) even if they did volunteer, there are volunteer agreements to cover ethics.]

This entry was originally posted on Observations Along The Road (on cahighways.org) as this entry by cahwyguy. Although you can comment on DW, please make comments on original post at the Wordpress blog using the link below; you can sign in with your LJ, FB, or a myriad of other accounts. There are currently comments on the Wordpress blog. PS: If you see share buttons above, note that they do not work outside of the Wordpress blog.

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We’re continuing to swab the deck of this pesky news chum. This time, we’re making some things that might be of retirement age walk the plank. Let’s see if they sink or swim:

• The Boeing 747. One of the books I keep rereading from the early 1970s deals with the birth of the Boeing 747. After 45 years, the old lady of aviation (of the current “models” in heavy use, only the 737 is older) may be ready to retire. It’s engineering is from the past: people are astonished when they see the analogue instruments. The flight controls are all dependent on old-fashioned mechanical linkages. A 747 captain once explained that, if hydraulic assistance on the control yoke is lost, you can still put your feet on the instrument panel, give a big tug and wrench the plane about the sky. You cannot do that on a solid-state Airbus. Airline economics have also changed: International flights can now avoid the big hubs and go directly on long, thin routes between secondary cities. The first generation of high-bypass turbofans made the original 747-100 possible, but it was only ever economical when fully loaded, its efficiency tumbling disproportionately as seats were left empty. In the 45 years since its first flight, engine reliability has so dramatically improved there is no need for four thirsty engines. In any case, the fundamental appeal of the original 747 was its range rather than its capacity. Boeing’s own efficient long-range modern twinjets, the 777 and 787 have made it redundant. And the A380 makes it look crude.
• Quicken. If you are like me, you probably have years and years of data in Quicken. I think I started using it back in 1994, perhaps even a bit earlier, with a version running on MS-DOS. Well the markets have changed, and you and I are dinosaurs. All the cool kids use online money management, and Intuit (born of Quicken) has put Quicken on the market. Intuit has decided to focus on its small business and tax software, represented by QuickBooks and TurboTax, respectively — both have strong cloud- and subscription-based businesses — and is ditching Quicken because, as a strictly desktop product, it has neither.  Some predict Quicken to be dead in two years. After all, the three units Intuit plans to sell — Quicken, QuickBase and Demandforce — accounted for less than 6% of the firm’s fiscal 2015 revenue, and just 2% of its net income during the same period. For the last 12 months, Quicken contributed just $51 million to the company’s total revenue of nearly $4.2 billion.  They want a buyer that will keep the brand up. It will be interesting to see. I still use Quicken — and their long-retired Medical Insurance Tracking software — and it would be a pain to transition that data (and the data does not belong online).
• Vinyl Records. On the other hand, vinyl records (which were written off for dead), are seeing a comeback. The NY Times reports that the business of record pressing is now experiencing so many orders they cannot keep up (warning: autoplay video). The problem: how to capitalize on the popularity of vinyl records when the machines that make them are decades old, and often require delicate and expensive maintenance. The few dozen plants around the world that press the records have strained to keep up with the exploding demand, resulting in long delays and other production problems. It is now common for plants to take up to six months to turn around a vinyl order. Still, vinyl is a niche market, albeit a valuable one.

Music: The Slightly Fabulous Limelighters: “Aravah, Aravah” (The Limeliters )

This entry was originally posted on Observations Along The Road (on cahighways.org) as this entry by cahwyguy. Although you can comment on DW, please make comments on original post at the Wordpress blog using the link below; you can sign in with your LJ, FB, or a myriad of other accounts. There are currently comments on the Wordpress blog. PS: If you see share buttons above, note that they do not work outside of the Wordpress blog.

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It’s Saturday. Time to clear out the bookmarks from the week that didn’t form into otherwise coherent themes. As always, these are news articles or other items that came across my RSS feed during the week:

• Where Does Your Money Go? Have you ever wondered, as you buy things from corporate America, exactly which billionaire’s pockets you were lining? This special report from Forbes allows you to map corporate brands to the wealthy people behind them. Some of these I knew, such as the folks behind Aldi being behind Trader Joes as well. Some I didn’t, such as the Koch Brothers being behind Brawny, or some of the same folks being behind both Burger King and Budweiser. It’s like a giant game of concentration.
• Historical Money. In the musical Tenderloin, one of the songs makes reference to a “double eagle”, and I’ve always wondered what that was. I found my answer in this Mental Floss article, which looks at 10 of the lesser known coins in the US. This is more than just Suzies and Sacajaweas. It is things like Gold Buffalos, Unions, Stellas, and various odd coin denominations such as ½¢, 2¢, 3¢, 20¢, half-dimes, and $3. Speaking of the ½¢, here’s another related item: Why are coupons worth ¹/₁₀₀^th of a cent? Hint: The answer goes back to trading stamps. Remember those?
• Food Issues. Another twofer of food items. The first looks at a niche in the world of Chinese restaurants in Monterey Park, CA: Organic Chinese Food. Monterey Park is an Asian community east of Los Angeles, home to loads and loads of great Chinese restaurants. Many of these place the emphasis on quick and cheap. A few are bucking the trend attempting to go for organic and healthy cuisine (something that would go well in West LA), and the article looks at their struggles. Also food-related is a petition effort from a number of food bloggers to get Kraft to remove the food dyes from their Mac&Cheese. Of course, what they fail to realize is that one eats Kraft Mac & Cheese expressly for the food dye (it’s a food group, don’tcha know?); if you want healthy food for your family, don’t depend on the corporations — make it yourself! Great mac and cheese isn’t hard to make.
• Plumbing Issues. This one I discovered through Boing Boing: An article about a fellow who buys a new house, has a drain problem, calls a plumber, and enters into the rabbit hole of plumbing problems. This is something I’ve run into — especially the situation of tarpaper sewage pipes, which we had in our front yard (our house was built in 1962). Plumbing is one of the reasons I hate houses built on concrete slabs — I still remember, as a kid, having plumbing leaks under the slab and having to rip up the carpets and jackhammer the floor.
• Body Issues and Acceptance. One of the folks I read on Livejournal is TheFerrett. A wonderful writer, he often has very insightful essays (for example, his recent essay on being the dumb one in the room). This week he reposted an essay he had originally posted over at Fetlife, a fetish-oriented bulletin board. This essay looked at body image from the genitalia point of view, noting that whatever you’ve got, there’s someone else that finds it sexy. This essay hit a nerve with a lot of people — it is a very positive statement of body acceptance, and one that many people need to remember. It is something to think about everytime you see a couple and go: Why is he/she with her/him? The answer is because each has something the other loves. Related to this: The Nu Project kickstarter, as of when I write this, has about 3 hours left. This is your last chance to get the Nu Project book at a discounted price; the Nu project presents pictures of women of all shapes and sizes, taken in their homes, demonstrating that all bodies are beautiful.

Music: If Not Now When? (Debbie Friedman): “Kumi Lach”

This entry was originally posted on Observations Along The Road (on cahighways.org) as this entry by cahwyguy. Although you can comment on DW, please make comments on original post at the Wordpress blog using the link below; you can sign in with your LJ, FB, or a myriad of other accounts. There are currently comments on the Wordpress blog. PS: If you see share buttons above, note that they do not work outside of the Wordpress blog.

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As I’m reading various news sites over lunch, I’m seeing article after article about the next fiscal problem — the debt ceiling. Every time this comes up I realize that many people don’t understand what the real issues are here. Here’s a little primer to help. Note that throughout this discussion I’m not going to talk about what the government spends money on; I’m just going to presume it is spending it on something. We can argue the what later. I’ll note that much of this was learned by listening to NPR’s excellent Planet Money podcast. I’ll link where I can.

The government spends money through the appropriation process. In this process, Congress dictates how much money each Federal agency can spend over the next fiscal year (October 1 to September 30). Once the appropriation bills are signed, the agencies can spend the money. They don’t have to wait for the income to be received from taxpayers.

The budget for any year may run a surplus or deficit. This reflects whether the anticipated income is sufficient to cover all the money appropriated. If the anticipated income is not sufficient, the budget is running a deficit and money must be borrowed to cover authorized expenditures. If there is a surplus, this means that there is extra money that can be used as Congress sees fit — extra appropriations, paying down the debt, etc.

The Federal debt is what the government owes to those who have lent it money. How does the government lend money? Via government bonds, which are one of the safest investments around. These are instruments such as savings bonds and T-bills. Do you have savings bonds? Then you own government debt. Do you have investments, such as 401(K)s or pensions? Do you have savings accounts? Those put their money in T-bills because they are safe. This is one reason you do not want the Federal debt to go to nothing. There would be no safe investment for you to put your money in. If the Federal debt went to zero, there would be no savings bonds or treasury notes — which would be disastrous for the economy.

There’s another reason you don’t want the Federal debt to go to zero. Credit-worthiness. Economic markets prefer if there is some manageable level of debt; you get better interest rates that way. So the goal in paying down the debt should be not to eliminate it, but to bring it to a manageable level. There has 0nly been one time in the country’s history when we haven’t had a debt — during Andrew Jackson’s presidency — and it was disastrous for the economy (see here and here on Planet Money).

So what is the debt ceiling? There’s a simple answer: Congress has authorized spending money, but it doesn’t always have that money to spend. This could be because tax receipts haven’t arrived yet, or more likely, Congress authorized spending money with a known deficit. In the early days of the US, the Treasury had to come to Congress for each loan individually, and that became a burden for Congress (which would debate the terms and conditions for each individual loan). At some point, Congress authorized the Treasury department to create the loans without coming to Congress… up to a certain amount about of national debt. Each time that amount had to be raised to borrow money that Congress previously authorized spending, the Treasury department came back and said “Mother May I” (see here and here on Planet Money). So right now, that’s what we’re fighting about: raising the borrowing limit to cover the money that Congress previously authorized.

So, when you hear some critter on TV talking about reducing the deficit, realize they aren’t talking about reducing the national debt. They are only talking about increasing the debt at a slower rate (see, you do use calculus in real life). To reduce the national debt, you need many consecutive years of a budget surplus, with that surplus being applied to the debt in a regular manner. We all know how reliable Congress is when presented with extra money. They’re just like you and me: we always pay our bills instead of buying the new and shiny. Right?

Now for the big question: Is the debt a problem? Not necessarily. Further, the debt problem won’t be solved overnight, and may require temporary spending to get the economy moving again… which generates more revenue that can pay down the debt without slowing the economy.

I hope this helped you to understand things.

This entry was originally posted on Observations Along The Road (on cahighways.org) as this entry by cahwyguy. Although you can comment on DW, please make comments on original post at the Wordpress blog using the link below; you can sign in with your LJ, FB, or a myriad of other accounts. There are currently comments on the Wordpress blog. PS: If you see share buttons above, note that they do not work outside of the Wordpress blog.

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