In 3 Years, 3 TVs
Mar. 7th, 2008 08:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peristaltorThat's right, folks, I've gotten three different television sets in as many years. What's interesting, though, is that each newer set came to us free. Gratis. Cuestan nada. Also interesting: Each newer set got bigger and better. It also brought to mind a quirky personal statistic, that though I have never been without a television in any home in which I've lived, I've never bought a set. Whether there was already a set owned and made available by a roommate, or someone gave me an older set, or both, the glass teats have always presented themselves to my suckling eyes without cost.
TV sets represent only one such boon for me. I have also never purchased:
A disclaimer: I'm a bit of a collector. When someone else wants to get rid of stuff, they come to me. I don't mind. Sometimes the items come in handy, and I can always say no. I'm not bragging here. Storage can be a bit of a problem.
However, after the last TV set got hauled through the door last night, without prior arrangement or announcement, I started to realize I was just someone on the receiving end of a glut of sets this area -- and perhaps this country -- currently experiences. What we have here is a major consumption trend. People have been upgrading their appliances and tools so fast the older goods they replace, though they still have a great deal of utility, essentially have no resale value and must be either discarded . . . or given to eccentric collector friends and neighbors.
This gives me a bit of hope. It shows there is right now enough extra expendable income floating around to (for example) revamp our energy infrastructure. All we need to do now: give folks a good reason to postpone that next plasma screen or stainless deep freeze and call the solar panel installer. We need incentives. The appliances give pleasure for a variety of reasons; the panels merely prepay for about twenty years worth of electricity, provided one takes the time and expense to make sure they're clean and well-maintained. One gets only bragging rights: "Look at me, look at me! I has solar!"
Before I hear a raft of corrections, I realize that there are incentives, but the term "Balkanized" comes to mind. Some states and utilities have great incentives; other utilities are revamping their previous incentives apparently to avoid actually reimbursing the folks that make the significant solar residential investment. This just happened to a friend of mine in California, and boy-oh-boy is he bitter. Some $20K later, he's got that Do The Right Thing and Get Totally Hosed feeling right now.
As much as would love to be that solar bragging guy, I just can't justify the expense and risk involved with so little return so far available, and with the future returns likely to dry up with a single uncontestable rate schedule change. Instead, I take barely used televisions off of folks' hands so they can get on with their flat-panel lives. . . and pass the sets they replace on to other friends with the same acquisition-restraint deficit I suffer.
Addendum, the next morning: I've decided we need a new word for items with utility that one gets from folks who would otherwise simply dispose of them, simply toss them away. How about
Toss-me-downs?
TV sets represent only one such boon for me. I have also never purchased:
My two table saws; Two washer/dryer sets; and Half of the computers I've owned
A disclaimer: I'm a bit of a collector. When someone else wants to get rid of stuff, they come to me. I don't mind. Sometimes the items come in handy, and I can always say no. I'm not bragging here. Storage can be a bit of a problem.
However, after the last TV set got hauled through the door last night, without prior arrangement or announcement, I started to realize I was just someone on the receiving end of a glut of sets this area -- and perhaps this country -- currently experiences. What we have here is a major consumption trend. People have been upgrading their appliances and tools so fast the older goods they replace, though they still have a great deal of utility, essentially have no resale value and must be either discarded . . . or given to eccentric collector friends and neighbors.
This gives me a bit of hope. It shows there is right now enough extra expendable income floating around to (for example) revamp our energy infrastructure. All we need to do now: give folks a good reason to postpone that next plasma screen or stainless deep freeze and call the solar panel installer. We need incentives. The appliances give pleasure for a variety of reasons; the panels merely prepay for about twenty years worth of electricity, provided one takes the time and expense to make sure they're clean and well-maintained. One gets only bragging rights: "Look at me, look at me! I has solar!"
Before I hear a raft of corrections, I realize that there are incentives, but the term "Balkanized" comes to mind. Some states and utilities have great incentives; other utilities are revamping their previous incentives apparently to avoid actually reimbursing the folks that make the significant solar residential investment. This just happened to a friend of mine in California, and boy-oh-boy is he bitter. Some $20K later, he's got that Do The Right Thing and Get Totally Hosed feeling right now.
As much as would love to be that solar bragging guy, I just can't justify the expense and risk involved with so little return so far available, and with the future returns likely to dry up with a single uncontestable rate schedule change. Instead, I take barely used televisions off of folks' hands so they can get on with their flat-panel lives. . . and pass the sets they replace on to other friends with the same acquisition-restraint deficit I suffer.
Addendum, the next morning: I've decided we need a new word for items with utility that one gets from folks who would otherwise simply dispose of them, simply toss them away. How about