With the "energy crisis" affecting nearly all of us globally(whether it should or not), it was interesting to note that Finland is predicted to become electricity self-sufficient within the next two years. At the moment, ongoing testing at the new Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant which should be at full capacity by Christmas is happening, which due to a number of factors, is almost fourteen years behind schedule.
This should provide about 14% of the countries electricity needs, but interestingly, wind power generation has also ramped up in recent years and will meet about 12% of the country's needs. On top of this, there are also plans to further connect the Finnish and Swedish supplies in the north by 2025, which will benefit both sides.
However, little of this is going to help the immediate price rises that are to come, where for example in my region, there is a 300-400% increase in the electricity costs and further rises expected. This means that we are going to have to think through how and when we use electricity and once we have installed some insulation into the basement, we will hopefully make the winter more comfortable, with less energy inputs. Still, I feel it is going to be a "lean winter" for us and many.
I was reading that in the US, almost 20% of the population are behind on their utility bills and are seeking for ways to make ends meet, which inevitably, is turning to credit cards. Funny that. In fact, it has seen the monthly debt expansion move from an average of 2.5 billion in the decade prior, to 20 billion in 2022 - that is an 800% increase.
How many globally are going to follow suit?
Over the last few years with all of the government handouts to some people, credit card debt fell significantly as people paid off their cards and used the incoming streams to buy, rather than on credit alone. However, what this did was set up a process of consumer spending and once living large is habitual, belt-tightening is magnitudes harder and, I suspect many are going to struggle to scale back.
I wonder how many iPhone 14s are going to sell.
Considering that in Australia for example, the larger model iPhone 14 is going to be about 8% of the price of a new Toyota Yaris, it really shouldn't have too many buyers at a time like this, yet - it will. Tech gadgets are no longer luxuries, they are considered necessities and the psychological pressure to continually upgrade to the latest model, supported and encouraged through advertising and perceived peer judgement is strong, especially for the younger generations - the generations who are simultaneously "quiet quitting" and using "Buy Now Pay Later" services to satisfy their consumer desires.
Financial control is no longer a thing in much of the younger generations, which isn't necessarily their fault, as the older generations have conditioned them to be avid consumers, feeding the profit generation models of the businesses that offer nothing for something.
Facebook is free!
No it is not, you idiot. If these "free" platforms were actually free, they wouldn't be the unicorn companies they are, it is just that the cost to use is an indirect cost through advertising and data models. But, worse than that, much of the value they generate is derived through quite useless consumption, that adds very little sustainable value for consumers.
It doesn't matter what level of Candy Crush you get to, you can't sell it.
Yet now that times have "changed" (inevitably) from periods of low interest rates and incoming government handouts, many people are finding themselves somewhat financially stranded, with few options to build generative wealth, because that has to be done before the bad times arrive. Waiting until they hit is going to mean that there are going to be increasing costs that will erode investment potential, so it is largely too late for most people and then, they will fall into the credit trap to make ends meet.
This means that when things recover, they are going to be stranded again, lagging behind the prepared, because they are going to have to service their debt, leaving them with less investment potential again, missing the early mover boat, again. And by the time many of us are able to get into the game, we are just compounding the gains by the early movers and it won't be too long until the next downward shift arrives, eroding our investment and leaving us in the same predicament, scrambling to make ends meet.
For those who were prepared though, they have benefited from years of early investment and passive incomes, so when those hard times arrive, they have stocks of resources to meet the needs and expand their investments as the valuations of what they used to hold but sold, drop again to a point they are willing to get back in.
Unfortunately for me, I am in between these points, not prepared enough, but not totally prepared and with the cost of renovations still affecting our potential, not with enough reserves to cover *everything easily, and not enough to buy the dip. However, also not in severe debt to service and with income streams from jobs that means that we will be able to survive and possibly even invest a little at the bottoms.
But, those bottoms to buy are also bottoms to sell and someone is selling there because they find themselves in a position where they have no other option in order to make their financial ends meet. However, for at least some of those people, I wonder what they would find if they were to look back at their consumer habits over the last five years and whether, they would do anything differently.
In some ways, a starving person might look back at the food they once had an opportunity to eat, but didn't as a loss, but food doesn't travel across time well. When it comes to money (economic value) however, that can be used to transport and generate wealth over time, so those who eat and store" their wealth well, will have incoming streams in the future, so they are far less likely to go financially hungry.
But, we are all encouraged to consume and we are prone to being influenced to do so, at every level of who we are. This means that in order to be financially healthy, we also have to be financially controlled, just like how we have to watch what we eat and do, if we want to be physically healthy.
The coming winter is going to bite hard into our budget, but I do still feel that we will be able to at least hold our ground without losing too much, even if we can't invest more. But, come the upturn, I want to be ready to jump, ready to take advantage of the future, so my family will never have to worry about things like the price of electricity again.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
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It’s going to be tough for the northern part coming into winter, so glad we are coming into summer.
Yep. It is going to be interesting to see how many are willing to turn the aircon on though.
Energy here (Manchester) has made traveliving much less enjoyable. Rent is £775 and the lights are £400. We already had Sept 30 our exit date and received notification a couple weeks ago energy will increase 70% October 1. £400 will be £680. Energy and rent are about equal, peace tf out UK!
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It is crazy - my sister-in-law's electricity at their cottage has gone from 13c a Kw to 1€. Gotta wonder though - how it is all possible - was Europe really that reliant on Russia for energy? And if so, why?
It was never about being that reliant on Russia, the goal was to transition so they could have many global competitors to choose from. That's why I said this goes back on to the European Commission basically because they are in charge of commerce across Europe and one of the most expensive items was the cost of energy. This really has nothing to do with green energy either really....but like I said I'll let you catch up first.
I have a pretty good idea of how the EC and the ECB works here, as well as the energy costs across Europe. A lot of people stateside seem to lump it all in together too, where they think that "Europe" is a single country - it is not - there is still a lot of differentiation between individual members.
Yeah I've argued that point to some out on the blogs. They seem to think that all the countries of Europe are signatories to a European Union Constitution and they are not. They've tried but thus far have failed to get all countries to agree to a set of terms.
What they are looking at here is what Trump termed "expansionist foreign power", within Germany with the European Commission acting as the catalyst.
I haven't done my part 4 of my Last Barrel Standing series but you could catch up to a few things if you took the time to stroll over and take a look at parts 1 through 3. Part four will be about the global partnerships and how they work.
In essence how it works is that they've gone to using development bank monies to guarantee investors (or back investors) into investing in green technologies. Germany over the last decade, with the assistance of the European Commission who were the catalyst behind it, has backed investments in green technologies, this has allowed investors to develop companies who sell these technologies and services for these technologies. So when a country is in need of money Germany sends a representative there and in exchange for the monies through the development banks they have to agree to some form of transitioning to green energy. All the services and goods are sold and paid from a portion of the development bank monies granted to other countries into the companies who agreed to the backed guarantees from the development banks and started green energy technology companies. When you mention the completion of the infrastructure by 2025 in your area well a lot of it has already been completed in other areas of Europe over the last decade and now it's pay back time. You guys are not only paying for the energy but you are paying back these investors who have spent billions setting it up. These are guaranteed no loss proposals to the investors, who, by the way, are kept confidential. If these investors fail the development banks have to folk over the monies. If they had to folk over monies on the losses they couldn't keep building the green energy transition, it'd sink. These are monies you guys have already paid through government funding to assistant countries in trouble. It should be highly illegal to do that to people not to mention the fact this is basically bribery and coercion upon countries in need. This is an incredible scheme that also allows them to keep these transactions off traditional banking systems whom governments have had to bail out time and time again. So it's a win win for the governments and investors but it sucks to be the people who are being misled about why their energy bills are sky rocketing and it's their very own tax monies being used to screw them.
It's worse than you think but I'll let you go catch up first before I describe some more of the dastardly things they have been up to and what is going to follow.
The Last Barrel Standing Part 1
https://hive.blog/deepdives/@sunlit7/the-last-barrel-standing-part-1
The Last Barrel Standing, Part 2: The Catalytic State
https://hive.blog/deepdives/@sunlit7/the-last-barrel-standing-part-2-the-catalytic-state
The Last Barrel Standing, Part 3, The Deceptions
https://hive.blog/deepdives/@sunlit7/the-last-barrel-standing-part-3-the-deceptions
I've been meaning to get part four done but have had a lot of distractions in my life the last month. By the way your post was an interesting read.
I don't consider anything as been free because something in between have to be beneficial in making returns or profits. I don't consider Facebook as been free either because for you to have access you need to subscribe which requires money to do so.
Subscription isn't a cost in many places - however in some countries, it is the way they get internet access. It is a forced subscription.
I know I am not looking forward to the winter months. We heat with oil and electricity and they are both pretty expensive. With the on going health issues, surviving is going to be tough and I know there will be no savings to speak of. It has almost been totally eaten up by doctors and hospitals.
I am glad for the insurance I do have, but it does not cover everything.People often wonder about how valuable they are, if I were to look back at all the medical bills then the medical profession would value me at well north of 500,000 dollars. I wish I could have that money to invest, but I did pay for it through all the years I paid into the insurance industry.
Insurance is a must at times and I am glad we got it for our daughter prior to her being born, as from day one, there were complications that would have potentially excluded her. However, it is only useful when they pay and I have heard some horror stories from some countries.
Hopefully, this period of insane energy prices is short lived, but who knows, perhaps it will also lead to some better development, like it did in the 70s.
I have seen a lot of stories on battery improvement. Once they get to a point of batteries being able to take thousands of recharges without breaking down then we will see a lot of new development and migration of people I think. No need to be tied into a standard electrical grid when you can use solar or wind and charge long lasting batteries for use.
Nothing is free. Even non-profit organization has at least income to get back what they did. Some people just don't know what they give to them and think it's free.
Yeah - not even love :)
I agree with you that people don't consider phone a luxury again but not in all parts of the world, some Africans still see iPhones as signs of wealth. Even though the price of things has gone up by crazy percent people are still buying gadgets based on the love they have for it.
Nothing is free in this life, even hive is not free
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If you value your time. Yes then Hive is not free. But also, if you value your time, Twitter and Facebook et. al are about infinitely worse.
I agree. Besides those who are already celebrities - I wonder how much time it takes to monetize on other platforms?
I guess it varies, but most of all it's hit-and-miss. From what I've heard, you are basically either required to grow your audience to few tens of thousands before you can get any reasonable ad-revenue, or have enough luck to create something that goes viral. And even then you may lose your audience (and revenues) as fast as you can gain it.
On Hive the growth is very very slow, especially at start, but it's still growth. I've started to think it's a bit like a having compounding interest. If you don't make any huge mistakes (like plagiarism), you're almost guaranteed to gain a pretty sustainable income stream eventually.
I have understood the same - it isn't as easy as some people have been led to believe, which is why so very few people (in the grand scheme) can actually live off it. I have heard that many of those "influencers" travelling the world in bikinis, are actually living off their parents.
And yep.. it compounds and adds up fast. I know a lot of people who have realized this and have grown their accounts over the last years significantly, whilst still putting the effort into content.
This right here just hit me hard💔
Apt
A lot of people see it this way - I don't understand firstly why people think gadgets are a sign of anything, let alone those who judge them to be significant.
Facebook is blocked in Russia, electricity is almost free - a lot of land, water and food - move to us man - we will be glad!
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I don't think I am allowed to cross the border! :D
A condition that is very "dependence".
In terms of energy, we can never be free to determine the price, we only have the freedom to use it, limiting its use according to our needs and according to the money we have.
In developing countries the conditions are much worse, even the absence of electricity is not a problem for households, but not for production. They are big factories.
When electricity is reduced, the priority of consumption is for those who produce, household electricity is entirely for consumption.
Thankfully there is no winter here, if it's too hot, just take off your clothes and soak in the flowing rivers. LOL
Yes - it comes down to what we are used to and what we are used to not having. Though in Finland, it is very difficult without heating :)
But, just like dipping in a river, when cold, it is always possible to more clothes on.
The push to believe “nothing is free” and “Free things don’t last”. Well, Truth is we need money to make more money. We need resources to make an invest. So I don’t feel bad when I see an ad with “not free”. It’s very understandable. I don’t think the cost of electricity has risen that much in Nigeria yet we still pay through our noses😑 I can only imagine. The whole world is crazy💆♀️
The trick is, to have enough left over at the end of the month so as to invest it consistently, because nothin in the future is going to be any freer.
Have the costs stayed lower because of the oil industry?
nothing the common man can do, they just have to pay everything.
We are reliant.
I think if they know how to cuts their coats according to their clothes, credit card is a very useful instrument.
They are useful, for those who can control their usage and manage the repayments.
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Wow interesting this is beautiful I must say