Please can someone explain why our priorities are out of whack?

Something I don't understand.

People will buy (expensive) cars that they don't need, go on extravagant holidays, spend money on new cell phones, buy the latest toys, and then complain that electricity is expensive and water is expensive, etc.

For 5 decades, governments and utilities have made us think of 50 cent per kWh electricity and 5 kL of "free" water. And now it's out of control at R2 per kWh (+ 20%?) and R4 per kL (plus Sewerage Charge) to just get going.

And so what I don't get is that when I spend R20,000 on my water system, and I my wife and I continue to drive our 20 year old cars, whilst my colleague buys a new R200,000 car, he says, "Wow: 20K is really expensive just for this water system", and I think "hey: what about the R200,000 car you are driving?"

Also people plan for retirement in 10, 20 or 30 years time, but aren't concerned about being alive next week. If I want to be alive next week, I should ensure that I have adequate water, electricity, food, etc, backup systems in place.

Please can someone explain to me what I am missing? Why are people concerned if I pay R2 per kWh for my electricity when they were paying 50 cents per kWh (this 10 years ago when I installed my PV and battery system), and now if I pay R50 per kL for my 10 kL of water when I could be paying R4 per kL? Why this fixation on "out of context" costs. Yes, perhaps it is expensive to pay R50 per kL when I could be paying R4 per kL, but I (will) have water.

My colleague drives his car for one hour a day. That works out at R170 per hour to drive his car. Plus insurance, petrol, maintenance, etc. Lunacy.

Looking forward to understanding why our priorities are so completely out of whack.

Life or Death Matter. David Lipschitz letter to the Cape Times published Tue 8 Mar 2016

According to the City of Cape Town web site, dam levels are at 38.7 percent and last week they were at 40.5 percent. In 2014 they were at 81.2 percent. Theoretically Cape Town has 21 months of water left, assuming no rain, but with dams silting up, who knows how much water we really have?

See http://www.capetown.gov.za/en/water/pages/weeklydamlevels.aspx

Cape Town's dramatic population increase over the past 20 years, together with hardly any increase in dams, combined with the drought over the past two years, and lack of imagination in the City of Cape Town council and at provincial level, had led to the problem.

Some people are calling for "Level 3" water savings. If the City implements Level 3 water savings, there will be an even more dramatic reduction in income for the City.

Many people have already installed pool covers and with a reduction in watering allowances on gardens, people are seeing a 50 percent-plus drop in water consumption, with an associated decrease in income going to the City, even with the massive price increases for large, home based water users.

At Level 3, people might find ways to stop buying City water altogether! People and organisations are already finding ways not to buy electricity due to the massive price increases, together with less Eskom and municipality electricity being available. Cape Town's lack of water is a big problem, made much worse by decades of bad planning, and bad thinking! Desalination could solve our problem, but government isn't thinking about that - yet.

If people were allowed to install rooftop solar electric systems on their houses, and if we were allowed to feed our excess electricity into the grid at a reasonable price, the excess electricity could be used to desalinate water. This is much cheaper than building new dams, and dams take years to build and need rain and mountain water - and we just don't have this time, nor, with climate change, can we expect the needed rain to materialise anytime soon.

If the City runs out of water, we'll all be dead within four days, so perhaps allowing rooftop electricity is truly the answer to many of our problems! Many people have planned their retirement, but isn't it better to plan to be alive next week?

Social Capital in an African Energy System

On Thursday 22nd, I am talking on "Social capital in an African renewable energy system" at the Sub Saharan Power Summit

Good timing due to the university student strikes going on at the moment.

I will be presenting an alternative paradigm where Africa can use its matric students and inherent African knowledge to solve its problems. We don't have enough university students in Africa to follow the European and rest of the world's economic paradigm.

How can we solve this problem?

You might also like to read: 2 billion jobs to disappear by 2030

What I am presenting discusses how we can solve this particular problem.

I don't expect success overnight as I have been discussing this in one form or another since 2009 and my wife and I have been practicing this concept since 1999 when I cancelled all my pension policies, and we decided to look after our own pension and our own interests, which paradoxically require us to work with quite a few other people.

Note my saying: "The rich are rich because they socialise. The poor socialists are poor because they don't socialise." What I'm saying is that the rich talk and share and work together, hence the main reason they are rich. All us poor and middle class people try to do everything ourselves, and we fail, generally.

See my RepairYourWorld BLOG for essays I have written since 2008. Search this page for "retire". Note one of the questions I ask: "Why does there need to be a cost of living?"

Perhaps this is scary for the big monopolies who want us to channel all our money via them. But if 2 billion jobs will disappear in the next 20 years, then the monopolies are out of date and we need a new (old) paradigm.

Thanks for all your ongoing support as I continue down this lonely path.

Please let me know if you'd like me to present to you or your company or your organisation?