This dude doesn’t have a water bill?
You may not pay a lot of attention to how much water you use if you have a well, yes.
On the other hand, if you live in northern Arizona, and you have to pay to have water trucked in, you pay REALLY close attention to how much water you use. I may not waste water by average standards, but by the standards of a person that lives in a desert, I waste enormous amounts of water.
People tend to be less zealous stewards of resources when their lives aren’t directly impacted when they personally waste those resources. When resources are managed in some way, people tend to exploit them until they’re gone or destroyed. A very real example is the deer population in Georgia; prior to the institution of game control, white-tail deer were hunted into extinction in the state. It took >40 years, and the unwavering efforts of a single DNR employee, to reintroduce white-tail deer back into Georgia.
This isn’t me saying that capitalism makes the most efficient use of resources, because it obviously doesn’t. But resources that belong to all–like clean air and water–need to be managed in some way so that they continue to be available to all.
It’s funny how billionaires all seem to have 10 houses isn’t it?
Poor dears and their scarcity mindset, overcompensating. Always needing more. Always egged on by the fear of loss and insecurity, and fear of those with less, wanting what they have.
I mean, if I had, essentially, unlimited money, and there were places in the world I liked to visit repeatedly, and I don’t mean “for a weekend” but months or seasons at a time? Hell yeah I’d buy a house there.
At a minimum, one Southern Hemisphere, one Northern Hemisphere. Never see Summer again.
Nothing is for free and that applies to communism too.
“From each according to their ability” means we gotta work for it. That’s the price that stays: labour.
Except this is exactly how billionaires operate
Just to add an anecdotal example, I used to live in a condo complex where each building contained 10 units which all shared one master meter. Instead of each unit having it’s own water meter all 10 units would be billed as one. Functionally it didn’t matter because the water bill for all the buildings was paid by the HOA through our HOA dues which were fixed at $185 per month.
Shortly before I moved the HOA was having significant issues with the water bill because while most buildings had a monthly bill of ~$600 (or $60 average per unit) two buildings had a monthly water bill of ~$2500 per month (or $250 average per unit). The HOA had had the city come out twice to look for exterior leaks and had paid three different plumbers to check for internal leaks, but either they couldn’t find one or simply there wasn’t one.
If we assume that there was no leak, and the average per unit water usage should be $60, and only one unit was spiking the water usage that would mean one unit was using $1960 per month of water.
I later heard from people I knew there that the HOA had found one unit was being rented to a family with 10 people in a 2 bedroom who was also running an illegal restaurant from the unit (as in people were coming up to the front window and buying styrofoam trays of food to go).
I don’t hate the hustle or people trying to get by, but I’ve absolutely have seen situations where people getting something for free means they over use it.
They weren’t over using it because it was free, though, that’s the thing. They were using it for a legitimate purpose: feeding others and supporting themselves financially. They didn’t choose how the complex handled billing for water, and people like this will usually happily pay their fair share given the opportunity. We as a society act like people cramming their ten person family into a two bedroom apartment are the ones taking advantage of the system when it’s 1000% the other way around.
and people like this will usually happily pay their fair share given the opportunity.
That’s speculation at best. People cramming 10 people into a 2 person home isn’t taking advantage of a system, but using 32x more water than the average user is. They were running this business out of their home without required health and safety inspections, it was in violation of the HOA rules, and almost certainly in violation of the terms of their lease. After I left, the HOA put in sub-metering so each unit did have to pay their own water bill.
Your argument is that most people are willing to do things the right way if they have the opportunity, but clearly they couldn’t have made this happen legitimately or else they would have rented a business location or started a food truck. It’s not excusable to do things the wrong way and benefit because if you had done it the right way you wouldn’t have benefited.
It’s like if I said, “I only ran this profitable illegal business because if I had done it legally it wouldn’t be profitable. Yeah, I lack the opportunities in life (like a rich family) to have done this legitimately so that totally excuses me taking advantage of my neighbors.”
I’m all for saying fuck corporations, but this is just hurting your direct neighbors and breaking health and safety laws that are meant to keep people safe.
That’s speculation at best.
I mean that’s what you’re doing, too. That’s part of having a conversation. There are statistics that back my speculation, but at the end of the day we’re discussing strangers.
That being said, people making the best of their situation are never taking advantage of a system, especially a system designed specifically to keep them down. You think they’re crammed into that condo, five to a bedroom, by choice? The 32x water usage is nothing compared to what corporations take from us every second of every minute of every day when they’re actually taking advantage of the system. This family is, again, feeding people and simply trying to survive. The system wants you to condemn the family of immigrants rather than the single billionaires taking exponentially more from each of us and doing exponentially more damage. And that’s not speculation, that’s how it is. And they should have had individual meters in the first place, so let’s not act like that’s the consequence of some grave injustice, either. Would have prevented the whole issue in the first place.
I mean that’s what you’re doing, too. That’s part of having a conversation. There are statistics that back my speculation
Except I’m not speculating, this isn’t a statistic or something that has room for negotiation. I’m telling you a series of events which occurred and had real world impacts on immediate neighbors. You’re glossing over most of my argument because on a large scale statistics point to an out come that supports your belief rather than the event that happened to me.
You then are dismissing microscale misuse because corporations do worse as if that makes it ok? If your poor neighbor steals your car to survive, but I tell you that big corporations have stolen more from you that doesn’t change the fact that your neighbor stole your car!
Also, I never said they were immigrants, that was your assumption and they weren’t. Also, why does their immigration status matter in this argument?
Also, why should they have individual meters in the first place when the existing system had worked for over a decade without issue and was functionally cheaper. This is an HOA, these units were owned primarily by single owners with a handful of rentals. Adding individual meters meant the homeowners had to pay to have them put into their own homes, they had to then pay a third party sub-metering service, and then they had to pay the actual bill itself.
All in all the HOA gave the homeowners the option to either raise everyone’s HOA dues by 20%, ban renting in the complex, or install sub-metering and the community decided to go with sub-metering.
Let me put it into perspective, these two abnormal building bills accounted for $47,000 a year in extra water charges or about 20% of the HOA’s annual budget (and that’s just the excess, not the rest of the bill).
But yeah, it’s ok to fuck over your neighbors because you’re struggling and corporations are worse.
You’re correct in that you never said they were immigrants. You said they were a family living 10 people to a two bedroom and running a restaurant that sells food out the window. This is an extremely common immigration tactic, and doesn’t occur much outside of that scenario, but okay I will withdraw my assumption. The rest, however, remains the same. These people weren’t stealing cars, they weren’t stealing anything from anyone. Their water use wasn’t stealing. Their water use didn’t take water out of your house and it didn’t adversely affect anyone or anything aside from a poorly planned HOA water monitoring system. Like you said, these units are owned primarily by single owners. Why shouldn’t they have individual meters? $180 a month is a miserable HOA fee and a high water bill for a single person in a condo alone as well. I don’t know why they’d have to pay for their own meter or monitoring service, that’s never been the case anywhere I’ve ever lived, but I’m positive they saved money in the long run assuming the HOA reflected the change in their monthly dues. But again, they didn’t steal and they didn’t fuck over their neighbors. They fed people, boosted the local economy, and shone a light on shitty HOA practices.
Also, why should they have individual meters in the first place when the existing system had worked for over a decade without issue
So any system that has functioned historically should never be reconsidered or replaced? Who exactly was it working for? Are you worried about the bottom line of your HOA?
Let me put it into perspective, these two abnormal building bills accounted for $47,000 a year in extra water charges or about 20% of the HOA’s annual budget (and that’s just the excess, not the rest of the bill).
But yeah, it’s ok to fuck over your neighbors because you’re struggling and corporations are worse.
I’ve gotta say, it sounds like the only ones doing the fucking over here are the HOA to it’s tenants, then using the totally not migrant renters as a scapegoat. pretty typical HOA stuff in my experience.
Just gonna point out, if the HOA owns the water system for the neighborhood privately, then submetered utilities will need to be measured and reported by the HOA or a third party in contract with the HOA. Thus, submetering service costs increases an individual’s monthly cost of water (though they were like also overpaying for the water before, so that the HOA funds have a buffer).
Also the $180 HOA fee certainly was not just for water.
then using the totally not migrant renters as a scapegoat
Wow that is incredibly racist
Their water use didn’t take water out of your house and it didn’t adversely affect anyone or anything aside from a poorly planned HOA water monitoring system
Who do you think pays the HOA? It’s not an outside entity, it’s a democratically elected board of homeowners. The funds for the HOA come from homeowners. Overusing resources from a common community fund hurts the community.
Like you said, these units are owned primarily by single owners. Why shouldn’t they have individual meters
Well before 2008 it was apartments and a developer bought it up to convert into low cost condos. At that time the apartments had sub-metering, but when the developer bought it he let go of the sub-metering because adding a middle man service increases costs such as service and metering fees. When you pay for services as a group it’s generally cheaper as a whole than everyone doing it themselves.
$180 a month is a miserable HOA fee and a high water bill for a single person in a condo alone as well.
$185 a month covered all outdoor grounds keeping, the parking lot, the pool, the club house, the outside building maintenance (siding, shutters, etc), the roof, and the water bill. That’s an absolutely phenomenal rate and you don’t know what you’re talking about.
I don’t know why they’d have to pay for their own meter or monitoring service, that’s never been the case anywhere I’ve ever lived
Well I don’t know what to tell you, but it’s generally the case for any surprise bills at every HOA I’ve heard of. It’s called a Special Assessment.
I’m positive they saved money in the long run assuming the HOA reflected the change in their monthly dues
The HOA at this point had not raised rates in 5 years and they were due to do so. The water usage issue was further exacerbating the issue. The HOA board proposed either raising rates to $225 and doing no metering changes or installing sub-metering and only raising rates to $200. I can’t be certain, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it came out as a wash for sub-metering.
shone a light on shitty HOA practices
the only ones doing the fucking over here are the HOA to it’s tenants
Do you not know what an HOA is? The HOA didn’t have any tenants, it’s an elected board of people who live in the community and make business decisions for them. HOAs are popular in the US because their goal is to take care of communal needs efficiently and to preserve the value of everyone’s property. HOAs get a lot of crap because of nosey neighbors and Karens with a god complex, but almost any new neighborhood/condo/community you buy into will have an HOA for the communal benefit. People have horror stories, but they are still the most popular option for new home buyers.
The tenants were because about 35% of the units were owned by individuals who then privately rented them out. This HOA had a restriction that no more than 40% of units could be rented out and no one could own more than 2 units. Most of the landlords were people who had previously lived there and moved elsewhere, not major organizations.
Maybe you’re thinking of property management companies?
Who exactly was it working for? Are you worried about the bottom line of your HOA?
Yes, as a property owner living in an HOA community I was concerned about the bottom line of the HOA community fund. If your HOA doesn’t have adequate savings and contributions to a savings account they lose FHA compliance and it becomes infinitely harder to sell your property when the time comes. If your HOA doesn’t meet FHA requirements your property value will plummet. What do you think an HOA does?
And you’re sure that the HOA isn’t just using it as an excuse to get extra cash? It’s an EU law to have individual metering, and it should in reality save everyone money (after the initial install costs). Unless you’re consuming more than anyone else, IDM should only save you money and is better for the environment by giving more incentive to be efficient.
I assume you already have electricity individually metered, right? Why should water be any different, if it’s so expensive? I can’t think of any reason why your bill would now be significantly more expensive, unless you yourself are a high-user, or your HOA is ripping you off.
In a lot of cities it is a rule, but only at a municipal level. Some states might have rules, but it’s by no means universal. At the time the average water bill for a family for 3 was $80 per month. It’s entirely possible that your water bill could on an individual level be lower, but it’s nearly negligible, especially after you add the third party sub-metering service that runs that program.
In all reality $185 a month was a good rate because it included all outdoor maintenance (grounds, swimming pool, parking lot, roofs, siding, etc) and when you take into account that $60-80 of it was likely for water services it made sense. In general when you share costs across a group the overall cost is lower then when handled individually.
Also, in most US municipalities the bulk of your bill will be fixed rate costs such as metering and availability fees. Depending on your municipality it could be anywhere from 25-75% of your actual bill. I just went and looked up this city’s current rate and for 0-4 CCF (Centi Cubic Feet, 748 gallons, or 2300 liters) it’s $2.78 per CCF, for 5-10 CCF it’s $9.26, and for >10 CCF it’s $12.34. The fixed rate for a 2 inch meter is $12 and the service charge for a 2 inch line is $40. So the city sets a master meter which generates these rates, if you then add a private sub-metering service you then have to install meters and now you get 10 extra service fees and 10 extra meter fees per building. Cutting out the middle man cuts down costs.
In my discussion earlier I was only talking about the usage fees because the fixed prices are fixed and relatively small in comparison to the elevated usage fees. Back calculating from this math the average 10 unit building would have been using ~53 CCF per month but this building was using 207 CCF. If we then know how much the average building is using (53 CCF/10 units) then we can deduce that this individual unit was using ~154 CCF per month on its own.
As to your second question, water is typically handled by the local municipality where as electricity is handled by a large state mandated and regulated monopoly. How your water is metered has no guarantee for how your electricity will be metered.
Well, in some apartment complex the water is included in the rent. It assumes everyone uses roughly the same amount but of course some uses more then others. Often the water consumption decreases when the apartments are updated and have to pay for their own water.
One specific case that was in the media a couple of years ago. He lived in an apartment where the water was included and he had a tortoise. He tortoise liked warm water so the guy filled up his bathtub and had the tortoise in it, and in order to keep the water warm he let the warm water flow continuously. Of course this resulted in a huge water bill for the company which owned the apartments and they sued the guy. If I remember correctly the court ruled that he used such a vast amount that he should have known it was not included and he was forced to pay back all the water.
There is no problem if the resource is abundant, the problem is when resource is limited and not enough for everybody
Such as
Gold , Rare earth minerals, Money , Certain land on certain area, no of seats in Colleges , No of High paying jobs , No of seats in train, buses.
For most of those things you can just… make more… or wait your turn.
I dont pay for sewage and I crap as much as I want, too.
You definitely do pay for it in your taxes
You absolutely monster
Having good health care means you just consume as much medicine as you can. I get vaccinated every day, I own 500 pairs of glasses, and all my teeth have been root canaled
I do chemo recreationally
I get vaccines for diseases that don’t even exist… Everyone has the small poxs vaccine but I also have medium poxs and even large poxs vaccination.
I will say one I don’t recommend is I got the mumps vaccine so I figured I should get a dumps vaccine… It just made me really constipated.
/s this is a joke, yes get your vaccines but only ones for real diseases…
Unironically did get my son the measles shot three months early, because he was starting daycare.
He still needed to get shots at 1 year and 18 months, but it let me sleep a little easier
Good idea with the spread these days.
Jokes aside, “great pox” is siphilis. I don’t know if there a medium pox…
If you have both does siphilis and small pox does it become mega or epic pox?
I’d rather not find out!
This reads like an excerpt from a Roald Dahl book.
I’ve gotten 17 fresh new hip replacements since I was 8.
I didn’t replace them, I just added them. I now have 19 hips. They don’t lie.
Something interesting about this is that Bourgeois neoclassical economics manages to acknowledge that people won’t simply consume greedily, even if things are free.
Marginal Utility asserts that people will only consume commodities such that they satisfy some want or need. If I’m hungry, I’ll buy a banana, maybe a bunch to have later.
But my hunger won’t drive me to buy 800 bunches in one go, because that many bananas has a deminishing return in their marginal utility to satiate my hunger.
If that’s true, it doesn’t require market mechanisms for the distribution of goods and services to continue being true. Re: your healthcare example
With food, in particular, the value is in the supply chain not the ability to horde individual commodities. I don’t want 800 bananas, but I do want a banana stand on my corner where I can get fresh bananas daily.
In theory, markets are supposed to organically generate these social amenities and price them at the prevailing wage rate for the community, such that individuals bid into/out of existence goods and services through a pseudo-collective “expressed demand”.
In practice, choke points in the supply chain create opportunities for arbitrage and price fixing. So goods that should be cheap and abundant - like fruit - suddenly become expensive and scarce when a single enormous conglomerate (like the United Fruit Company) holds a vertical monopoly on the commodity.
This artificial scarcity is then used to justify price-rationing of the commodity. And pretty soon you’re selling people $500 Bijin Hime strawberries in a Japanese mega-mall, while working class people can’t afford basics.
There’s actually limits on the frequency you can do stuff. From somewhere that has mostly feee healthcare.
I think they’re being sarcastic
Talking to a lot of Americans that is what they think though.
yep. also people wont do any work if they dont have to because all their needs are met. this is why all rich people are retired.
this is why all rich people are retired.
Veblen discusses how the pursuit and the possession of wealth affects human behavior, that the contemporary lords of the manor, the businessmen who own the means of production, have employed themselves in the economically unproductive practices of conspicuous consumption and conspicuous leisure, which are useless activities that contribute neither to the economy nor to the material production of the useful goods and services required for the functioning of society.
Functionally retired.
You see it all the time among Tech plutocracy, with Bezos’s Venice Wedding and Zuck’s endless home construction.
ok but elon musk works like 100 hours a day, so
And is still homeless
Aka the entirety of formula one (or any major sporting league really)
And don’t want us to have a 4-day week or work remote.
This is so wrong. I don‘t know where you live, but at least in Germany tap water is not free. Of course everyone drinks roughly the same amount of water, but most water is consumed in other ways where it totally matters to price it. For example taking a bath consumes much more water than showering. People have private pools where one fill-up can easily double the water consumption of a year.
The water pricing is actually progressive so the more you consume the more you have to pay per amount. This allows cheap prices for the average consumer and discourages to overconsume.
Water is precious and shouldn‘t be treated as an abundance.
Idk of this happens in Germany but in the U.S. some landlords, mostly smaller ones, will fold the water bill into the rent. So it is effectively “free” in that you are not charged by the amount you use.
In Germany that’s not a thing. You get billed separately for utilities by the landlord, and they have to show how they calculate your share from the building totals.
To add on that: I am pretty certain (not 100% sure) that it is illegal in Germany to make a profit with the utilities bill. Though some landlords try tricks to do it anyway.
But that kind fucks with rent prices no? Especially if the guy who consumes a lot of water left the building and the next person consumes next to nothing, its just an overpriced rent.
🤷♀️
Aka people will be ungrateful and I will profit less, therefore I’m not making the world a better place.
When someone says “human nature” I hear “unexamined biases necessary to keep unexamined to support my dog shit ideas” and they are always dog shit.
I know this is a joke but… Communism doesn’t mean “free stuff”. Probably the opposite of what this joke implies, it’s communal ownership. You wouldn’t waste water if you felt it was your water. People waste water when they feel it’s someone else’s water (government, landlord).
I know it’s not really your point, but I don’t think this is about homeowners. I’ve never paid for water (or behaved like this) in a rented apartment. Unless you have a well, you often do have to pay for municipal water if you own the property. Even with a well, you’re paying for any filtration based on usage.
I wasn’t talking about homeowners. I just reused the water example. In an ideal communist society, you’d still need a way to prevent people from overusing the communal resources.
If one cut out the profit motive, people may be less inclined to waste some resources. i.e. not growing unneeded food in the desert. It would not reduce some wastage due to other motivations. i.e. I won’t have access to this tomorrow, so I shall use it for non-productive usages today.
