Day: November 12, 2025

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Fancy Sububranites Should Pay More in Taxes

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Few things annoy me more than the tacky poly vinyl chloride covered plywood McMansions located on Orchard Avenue as you drive out to Five Rivers Environmental Education Center on the outskirts of Delmar and Albany which are eating away at the farm land and woodlands on the outskirts of town.

Some of those houses are for the rich but many are just upper middle class. Many have 1kW of solar panels on their roof (even if they use 20 times their output in a day), pantries stocked with organic food and frying pans made out of certified recycled steel. Many of those people would be horrified to shop at Walmart, although their bit trash can is always full despite ever so carefully washing out their milk bottles and tin cans.

I am quite fine with these people paying more in taxes. They complain about the high cost of tuition at private schools, maintaining their SUVs, the cost of groceries and utilities. But they have a lot more than a lot of us, I think they should pay their fair share. I’m fine with them taking away their fancy house’s mortgage deductions and SALT deduction. If you can afford to live so high on the hog then you should pay more.

Fewer U.S. solar projects are reporting delays in their expected online date – U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

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Fewer U.S. solar projects are reporting delays in their expected online date – U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

In the third quarter of 2025, solar projects representing about 20% of planned capacity reported a delay, a decrease from 25% in the same period in 2024, based on data compiled from multiple Preliminary Monthly Electric Generator Inventory reports.

Solar power is the fastest-growing source of new electric generating capacity in the United States, driven by large-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) projects built by electric utilities and independent power producers. Delays in bringing these solar projects into operation have been trending down in recent months.

Despite the relatively high number of projects reporting delays in 2024, that year was a record year for U.S. solar capacity additions. Power plant developers added 31 gigawatts (GW) of utility-scale solar PV generating capacity in 2024, which increased total U.S. utility-scale solar capacity by 34%. Delays in solar project schedules tend to be relatively short in duration, and reports of delays are more common than cancellations: less than 1% of planned solar capacity is entirely cancelled in a typical month.

 

Too much safety technology?

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With all this talk of inflation as it comes to automobiles and homes, one thing rarely mentioned is the cost of all the new technology that has been mandated by government regulation. It’s funny how this was a big deal back in the early 1980s, but it seems like the current administration while often taking swipes at technology they view as liberal, has not taken a deeper look at how building codes and automobile safety standards are boosting costs. Maybe the higher costs are worthwhile – saving lives is important – and many technologies are inexpensive to adopt – but I have to wonder if we are pushing safety technologies too quickly, raising costs for what is at best dubious value.