I’ve been noticing my energy bill creeping up each month. Over the past year it’s up significantly from where it was. It’s just my wife and me living there so I don’t think we’re using any more energy. It’s got to be the rates going up. While my bill is going up, I recently met a lady that doesn’t even get a bill. She and her husband live in north Arkansas in the Buffalo River country. There is no electricity to her house so they use a solar system with a backup hydro system utilizing a nearby creek. She then starts telling me an even better system would be to use windmills since they live on a mountain. I don’t know anything about energy but I was ready to nominate her for the head of the Energy department after hearing her discussion. So I started thinking about ways to save some money on energy costs. Continue Reading…
Odds and Ends On the Economic Stimulus Plan
In the previous column, I wrote about how you’ll get an extra $8 per week in your paycheck due to what I described as a payroll tax cut. One reader properly noted to me that the $8 is coming from an income tax cut, not a payroll tax cut. So instead of the $8 coming out of the Social Security leaky bucket, your extra funds will actually be coming from the U.S. Treasury’s seemingly bottomless pit. Bottom line, you’re still getting to enjoy the extra pizza or movie each week, one that your grandkids will eventually pay for. Continue Reading…
So What Are You Going to Do With Your Extra $8?
Last week Congress passed the largest economic stimulus package in our nation’s history. Chances are you didn’t feel a thing even though we just obligated ourselves for some spending that our grandkids and beyond will be paying on. Your Congressional representative probably didn’t feel anything either. Word is most of them haven’t read the bill. Is this bill going to stimulate the economy? My thinking is yes, given the sheer size of the package at $787 billion. How quickly and to what extent I don’t know. Continue Reading…