My consumption is mostly limited to "all you can watch" buffet type services and waiting until the movies are on sale for $5.

There is a lot of free content being created as well. (Like the harry potter and the methods of rationality, all the youtube videos).

I am now retired and I literally cannot keep up with all the content being created. So with rare exceptions, I just stay back on the less expensive end of the curve.

I would estimate that last year I saw a dozen movies for $4.25 on matinee and maybe 3? at full fare (including the hobbit as part of a special marathon showing of all three hobbit movies back to back).

And I'm slowly reading the original three musketeers in french.

I think a lot of young people are going to buy things until they come to the same realization I did. I was spending about $60 a week on DVD's back in 2001 and I realized I *wasn't* rewatching them. Since then I've bought 1 DVD and 2 Bluray's. And .. I didn't rewatch them either (one was inception). It's just rare to find something like Moulin Rouge or Silverado that I can watch over and over.

Another thing that has faded away is actually doing things at the same time as my friends. Until I was 30, we used to do things together and share them. Now it's all asynchronous. No shared social group scene.

Google is painfully slow over comcast landline but StartPage is fine. Google on my smartphone over the Tmobile network is okay.
Spigotmc is painfully slow but Slashdot is fine.

It's like about 10% of the sites are taking over 30 seconds to respond.
Haven't seen any news about an ongoing DDOS attack on Google or any backbones.

Its sort of a hoteling concept.

Friend of mine, they only allocated 48 work stations for 80ish workers.

He mostly works from home, but when he comes in- he takes over an arbitrary workstation while he's there for the day.

In this case, she got some kind of samsung tablet with better than retina resolution. I hope she got insurance because samsung has been sketchy on long term durability. I'm okay with them but I have a friend who won't buy samsung any more based on reliability and he's pretty sharp.

I rewarded my sacrifice with retirement at 51. It was much sweeter than a staying cutting edge on everything.

Everyone needs different rewards to be happy. The frugal path I took would be too painful for many.

See the above response for full details but briefly...

http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/t...

(broadly) it looks like if you file for bankruptcy AND a judge agrees to cancel the debt, then you may file a form 982 to avoid it.

As your other responder said, a forgiven debt counts as income for you unless it is discharged under bankruptcy. I can see abuse where a company gives you it's profits as a loan and then forgives the debt and files it as a loss. This would be an easy way to avoid paying taxes every year.

That is great information. The cases I heard of said the the people didn't have a way to discharge the tax. Perhaps they didn't know about the form 982. I've never heard of it before.

Perhaps they didn't file chapter 7?

In any case, good to know!

So looking this up now... here's what I find

http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/t...

Canceled debts that meet the requirements for any of the following exceptions or exclusions are not taxable.
Debt Cancellations or Reductions that Qualify for EXCEPTION to Inclusion in Gross Income:

        Amounts specifically excluded from income by law such as gifts, bequests, devises or inheritances
        Cancellation of certain qualified student loans
        Canceled debt, that if it were paid by a cash basis taxpayer, would be deductible
        A qualified purchase price reduction given by a seller
        Any Pay-for-Performance Success Payments that reduce the principal balance of your home mortgage under the Home Affordable Modification Program

Canceled Debt that Qualifies for EXCLUSION from Gross Income:

        Debt canceled in a Title 11 bankruptcy case
        Debt canceled during insolvency
        Cancellation of qualified farm indebtedness
        Cancellation of qualified real property business indebtedness
        Cancellation of qualified principal residence indebtedness

  NOTE: The exclusion for cancellation of qualified principal residence indebtedness expired December 31, 2013. You may claim it on your tax year 2013 tax return if you qualify. Under current law, the exclusion is not available for tax years after 2013.

If you meet these, you get to file a form 982.

Friend just spend $525 on a tablet and I was like "what the hell!???!". I get everything I need out of a tablet sub $200 and then a year later can buy the table she bought for sub $200. Never understood being on the bleeding edge of technology.

Business spent 3.24 Billion dollars in 2013 lobbying (and about that same inflation amount every year before that too for at least a decade).

They do this expecting to get a return on the money. Indeed, some prior studies have shown lobbying has a roughly 30:1 multiplier so that means they got about 100 billion dollars of "excess" profits in return for their 3.24 billion spent.

Lobbying often alters the rules so it is harder to enter an existing area to compete in it. Sort of like "removing the rungs of the ladder" after you have climbed up it.

The cost of an unrestricted, refundable ticket with free bags was $600 in 1975. The cost of a restricted, non-refundable ticket with narrower seats and less leg room and no bags is $508. (http://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/blog/seat2B/2014/05/don-t-believe-the-airfare-spin-cost-to-travel-is.html?page=all). If you want a flight experience similar to 1975, the cost is well above $600.

Airline companies are making good profits...
http://ir.delta.com/files/earn...

Deltaâ(TM)s pre-tax income for the September 2014 quarter was $1.6 billion, excluding special items 1 , an increase of $431 million over the Sept ember 2013 quarter on a similar basi s. Deltaâ(TM)s net income for the September 2014 quarter was $1.0 billion, or $1.20 per
diluted share, and its operating margin was 15.8 percent, excluding special items

With a 24.75% profit margin, they are very profitable (XOM under 10% when oil was still high, SYY under 2%).

Your point is valid but there is a further gotcha.

The company then files the 4 million as a loss-- which results in the irs counting it as income by you which results in taxes due on 4 million and the taxes are not forgivable by bankruptcy. After several years of harassment, wage garnishment, etc. you'll be allowed to settle the tax debt for a smaller amount. If you have the money to pay, it will be about 10 cents on the dollar. If you are really poor, you may not be able to get it forgiven and it just sorta hangs round for a very long time.

If you live in a hydro state, electricity is even cheaper (I think 6 or 7 cpkwh).

With shopping and 6 month contracts (instead of 3 year), you can get 8.3 cpkwh right now.

Short contracts are cheap,
1-2 year are more expensive.
And 3 year are less expensive but more expensive than short term contracts.

To be honest, going to LED's is a much better payoff than solar power cells right now and will probably be for several more years. They all pay for themselves within 6 months. But you have to stick with the 3100k bulbs otherwise you get wierd shades of pink and orange or intense blue white (which will keep you up at night).

Because the price is set by the last 1%.

If we can get 99% of our oil out of the ground for $40 per barrel and 1% of our oil out of the ground for $100 per barrel- then every barrel sells is if it cost $100 per barrel to get out of the ground.

And that's just in the united states. Europe also has a similar size fleet of electric vehicles.

And in Europe, for instance, while total petroleum consumption averaged over 15.3 million barrels per day in 2009, it was under 14.3 million in 2013, and has dropped further since.

We get 19 gallons of gasoline per barrel so that's so 465,000 fewer gallons of oil here (and another 465,000 fewer gallons of oil in europe) translates to 48,000 barrels a day of oil that used to be needed that isn't needed any more.

Totally- not at all. But part of the reason for lower demand? Sure.

I'm sure there are many components to the lower demand and the higher supply.

Three are roughly 600,000 to 700,000 hybrid electric cars (so about 325,000 gallons a day of gasoline not used) and about 70,000 purely electric cars (so about 140,000 gallons a day of gasoline not used). So purely electric and electric/hybrid cars have reduced demand for gasoline by roughly 465,000 gallons of gasoline per day.

What is actual electricity in Hawaii now? I was told 27 cents by a Hawaiian on another discussion board-- it sounded really high but I figured imported coal/oil or something was a factor.

4 years after you bought it, it was up to 500 mile range and getting 50 mpg.

The range increases must partially also translate to the "refill cost" so it's gotten less expensive to drive over time.

Impressed-- range of electric cars was the main challenge factor (until the recent gasoline price drop).

Electric at 12c/kwh runs about 1/4 the cost of gasoline at $3.50 ($3.50/100 miles vs $14/100 miles). My electricity runs 10.3/kwh and houston gasoline is down to $1.99 here (Waxahachi has $1.91 gasoline as of 12/21).

So about $3/100 miles electric and $8/100 miles gasoline right now.

Apparently you do NOT want electric cars in Hawaii (something like 27c/wkh).

It doesn't take many electric cars to kill 1% of oil demand and cut $40 to $50 per barrel off the top price for a barrel of oil.