Juggling Dynamite

Trying to stop people from using solar energy for their own empowerment and financial betterment is a fool’s game that will serve to drive more families and businesses off conventional grids and on to self-sufficient home stored power systems.  Utility companies can either embrace evolution or be increasingly rendered superfluous. See this Bloomberg article:  Musk vs Buffett: who owns the sun.

First, NV Energy deployed its lobbyists to limit the total amount of energy homeowners and small businesses were allowed to generate to 3 percent of peak capacity for all utilities. Then it expertly argued its case before regulators, who rewrote the rules for net-metering customers. In December it scored a major win: Nevada’s Public Utilities Commission (PUC) imposed rules that not only make it more expensive to go solar, but also make it uneconomical for those who’ve already signed up. Similar regulatory skirmishes are playing out in dozens of other states, but no other has gone as far as Nevada to undermine homeowners who’ve already installed solar arrays.

All this has enraged independent, free-market, and environmentally conscious Nevadans:…“If it goes totally haywire, I’m going to look at batteries,” he says. “I’d love to just go off the grid totally, and tell them to f— off.”

As the market awaits another nonsensical, much hyped dispatch from the US central bank, it is always entertaining to watch Faber and and Stockman deliver some antidote to the ‘how do we play this?’ on-air personalities.

Gloom, Boom & Doom Report author, Marc Faber argues that central bank policy intervention and slowing commodities demand in China have contributed to a low-growth environment globally. He said that China’s economic influence has increased “dramatically,” with the world’s second-largest economy contributing to both boom and bust in natural resource–producing nations.  Here is a direct video link.

David Stockman did an energetic summary in this segment on the latest market conditions and the possibility for a recession. Here is a direct video link.

Danielle was a guest today with Kerry Lutz on The Financial Survival Network talking about recent trends in the world economy and markets.   You can listen to an audio clip of the segment here.