I would be intrested to know where you got those figures and how they break down.

As a side note I will mention that southern states uses more electricity than the northern states (think air conditioning) but use less natural gas / oil (think heating) so the north actually uses a bit more energy. We can parse these figures even more finally but I still suspect that even if Germany is more energy efficient than America, Germany could probably wring more benefits though improved efficiency than with more solar cells using today's technology.

No, expensive is expensive when there are cheaper and better options available.

If I can cut a ton of carbon emissions by switching to solar for a $40 subsidy or by adding insulation to an attic for $20 why chose the more expensive option? Why not opt for more wind power or more efficient appliances? I have found that many Greens focus on feel good actions instead of focusing on the cold hard results. Actions (and money) is spent on nice sounding projects with mushy ill-defined goals and measurements.

In particular, why spend money subsidizing solar if adding more solar is not going to reduce carbon emissions or other issues with coal? Now you are just burring money for no good reasons. In Germany's case, it implies that money needs to be spent in other areas such as upgrading the power grid to efficiently use the solar and wind power that they already currently have.

This is one of the reasons why I advocate a carbon tax. Or, if you have a different concern, tax & regulate that.

Because you want to get the most bang for your buck. I can sympathize because I am in the same boat.

I live in the northern latitudes. In the winter I have high energy demands (some electrical heating) and very short periods of daylight. Assuming the storage issue was solved, I would still need to build a huge array that I would use for only 3 months of the year. During the summer 90% of the array would be idle. I am in a specialized case, but for the more general case in my area the numbers would be somewhere in the 50% to 75% range.

Solar power has large upfront costs so this is extremely wasteful in northern climates.

As for Germany being a large economy, what is your point? I have seen estimates that going aggressively green will cut 1 to 2 % off of GNP growth per year. In an era of 2 to 3% growth that is a huge cut.

Is it a good sign? Why? It is my understanding that Germany has passed the point where solar makes any sense.

Solar tends to be expensive in relation to other electrical sources. The only reason why German has so much solar is because of expensive subsides from the government - which I would argue could be spent better on improving the efficiencies on the user side..

Also, adding more solar won't cut down on C02 emissions. Solar power is variable and in Germany is backstopped by coal power plants. Coal power plants in standby mode still chomp though a fair bit of coal, so adding more solar is not going to help there.

Of course, all of what I am saying is based on how things are today. I hope and believe that tomorrow's technology will address these issues. But for today..

For a tax audit, Quicken et. al. only helps you a little. It is just a program with imputed numbers. Who is to say that the inputted numbers are valid? Normally you want original documentation.

There are expectations if you are running a business. Mileage forms, etc. Expect that if it is a ongoing business then the spouse / business partner would normally have access to the accounting system prior to death or would have access to the printed (or al least PDFed) year end documents that were generated. I mean you should not be preparing new tax reports for a tax audit - Those should be generated from the base data when the taxes and done.

Which kind of speaks to my point. From my personal experience, the spouse (usually the wife) is going to adopt a new accounting system that they are more comfortable with. And my definition of accounting systems run from custom enterprise jobbies to the shoe box variety. All they need at that point are the last statements to update their accounts. Rarely is there a strong need to have access to the old accounting system.

I would tend to doubt that.

Quicken, and things like this, are good at handling internal flow data. How much am I spending on overpriced coffee drinks? What is my internal rate of return on investments? Etc. This data is most helpful for a continuous, ongoing business. The wife continues to run the personal finances; the business partner continues to run the business. However, this kind of implies that these people had access, and were using, Quicken prior to the death. So no change there.

On the other hand, I feel that the situation we are talking about represent "breaks" instead of "continuous" business. A new person enters the picture and inherits the assets. Normally they don't care what the deceased spent on coffee or what their old investments returns were. They might need prior knowledge of what is going on, but the normal course of action is for the new person to load the inhered data into their own accounting systems.

I think you are slightly off my point so let me try to restate. When I am talking about diesels, I am trying to compare diesels to other diesels.

As to your point, diesels tend to more durable then gas engines because they are simpler. Diesels tend to have higher compression ratios because it is the compression that ignites the fuel, not sparkplugs. However one has real problems when the diesels engine can no longer hold pressure.

Within diesels engines, diesels with lower compression ratios tend to last longer than diesels with higher compression ratios. The durability of 1950s John Deere tractors are legendary, big bores and low compression, less stress on the block. They can run for decades. It is a simple, robust design. Newer tractors have higher compression ratios so more power and higher efficiency. However this causes more stress and causes more pressure leaks, ergo their engines last for a shorter time.

Simple engineering. Higher compression ratios means that the engine is running hotter and under more stress, ergo shorter life spans all things being equal.

You are probably thinking of current day where they have mastered the engineering. If you look at the Japanese auto manufactures you can see small steady increases in engineering, fuel economy and higher engine economy. They were selling cheap, dependable, fuel efficient cars – they had to master the engineering. Contract that to the North American auto manufactures which tried to increase engine compression – lots of issues there.

That being said, I would argue that today's highly reliable high compression engines have a shorter life span than GM's late 60s 455 cu in V/8. Very low compression, very low stress, very long lifespan. And it could be easily fixed. Overall carbon emissions are probably higher overall than a comparable car today even factoring in the longer time span. As they said, it "could pass anything on the highway expect a gas station".

Another good place is to look diesel engines. Once they lose the ability to retain compress it is time to junk them – not much can be done to rehabilitee them. Go on any farm and you can probably find a 1950s era 2 piston diesel tractor still running on the place. Once again those engines run on very low compression.

Let us your example of timing belts. One can use a chain, less prone to mechanical failure but it is heavier and takes up more room – both affecting fuel efficient. Or one can use a belt, which is basically a glorified rubber band, which is lighter, smaller, but more prone to mechanical failure. And because the current engine compartment is so compact on today's cars it is a real bugger to replace in most cars.

Just one example of many. My personal favorite is engine compression. All things being equal, the higher the compression, the better the fuel mileage and the shorter the life of engine.

There are trade-offs. If you want to increase durability you need to use larger, less efficient parts or more expensive parts. Of course, using more expensive parts to increase durability my not decrease maintenance costs. Increasing durability does not automatically reduce total operating costs or total carbon emissions.

Buyers will not demand cheaper, more easily repaired body parts.

Today's cars are designed to crumple in a impact, vastly increasing the cost of repairing a car and drastically reducing the costs associated with deaths and injury. Today, even minor accidents can cause a car to total out.

Also, to meet mileage guidelines, car makers have to cram every small engines in smaller spaces with lower tolerances and higher compression, resulting in harder to maintain engines.

Don't get me wrong – I think durability has increased – but it is a lower goal then passage safety and gas mileage.

Then there is the reverse Dutch auction, people put in their bids, the auctioneer figures out the price to clear the market, and everybody who bid above that price pays that price. It works best when you have many lots that are basically the same. I would hope they would use this method – but then again I would hope that there would be more and smaller lots.

Google use this method when the IPOed their stock. Unlike other dot coms where the price pops after a IPO (implying they left money on the table), Google's price initially slumped (which implies that they did not.)

You can sell something either at retail or wholesale. Retail has higher overhead so things cost more. And I am not sure how much retail business the government should be in.

To your point, when you sell cars at wholesale you tend to do it by the car. That is the natural lot size.

The government would only be favoring the reach and well-connected if the spread between auction price and the market price was higher – which can be hard to tell when you are dumping a huge supply of something – but the principle holds. If the spread is lower than the cost of running a retail store then action it should be. (That being said, I would think more and smaller lots should be the way to go - ,su)

Why would "rapidly placed and cancelled orders" by itself effect the market? It is because they are front running.

What you said was true but this is no longer true since the SEC has required brokers to operate on a best price instead of a best execution for trading. I will point you to Michael Lewis's "Flash Boys" – there are summaries floating out on the web. Because there are now multiple markets, a HFT can tease out information on a big order by offering a low price on a small lot (or, as you imply "rapidly placed and cancelled orders"). They then race ahead to other exchanges, front running the larger order.

Now, HFT is one of those words which encompass many different things. There are legitimate high speed traders that operate as market makers. Are these HFT? Langue is fluid. The front running HFTs are not adding value – they are just shaving pennies off of trades.

No they can't. Read further up the thread. Most cities, and all the cities the article cites, have a limit on the number of cabs. All of these cities have hit their limit ages ago. When new licenses are issued they are costly. Last I heard New York was selling newly minted licenses at over a million.

The entire points of the licenses are to constrain the number of cabs out there at an artificially low level – that is the limiting factor on new competitors. I am arguing it should be the free market that determines it.

See this link for more info.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money...