Wednesday, January 19, 2011

NYT: "Solar Firms Frustrated by Permits"

More and more like a banana republic, red tape keeps making it harder to make productive investments:

Fifteen Verengo employees, Mr. Button said, are dedicated solely to researching and tailoring permit applications to meet the bureaucratic idiosyncrasies of the dozens of towns in the company’s market.

In a new study, the industry estimates that the permit dance adds an average of $2,500 in costs to each installation...
Why do you need a "permit" to put a harmless semiconductor with no moving parts on your roof? I assume it is because of aesthetic concerns? If people think solar panels are ugly, they should see what a country with no exports besides "lolcats" looks like once it loses reserve currency status.

13 comments:

JamesDavid said...

http://cheezburger.com/View/4374183936

Taylor Conant said...

CP,

This will brighten your morning: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70E04U20110118

eahilf said...

Here's how to properly put a link in your comment. Note that any text you put after the first '>', and before the closing tag ('< / a >', but without the spaces), is what will be highlighted -- it'll be the clickable link.

Funny cat fotos are not much than that I guess. But if enough people visit the site, then it will become attractive to advertisers. So perhaps you can make money that way when you do something as banal as put funny cat fotos on the internet. How effective the advertising is, and therefore how profitable such a site can be, will be determined later.

CP said...

I'm starting an LOLDOGS! website.

CP said...

Or: LOLCREDITBUBBLE!

Stagflationary Mark said...

CP,

How about LOLGOLD!

Gold vs. All Commodities (PPI)

eahilf said...

Hmm, another of my comments seems to have disappeared. Any idea(s) why?

CP said...

I don't delete comments unless they are spam. Try posting again.

eahilf said...

Thanks for the reply. But like I said, it's happened several times now.

And TBH I had assumed you were not deleting them; I was looking for another explanation. Perhaps something to do with google? I got some BS message before about "suspicious activity" in my account. Don't know what that could be, as other than to comment here I have not used it to date.

No patience to post that particular comment again.

whydibuy said...

Was that the big selloff the charts were telling you about??

Alas, its all over as we recover from the blip and all the buy the dippers get rewarded. As usual. Another gift sale price on stocks from the bears I guess.

Those indicators such as put-call ratio really pay off don't it?

Stagflationary Mark said...

CP,

You might try checking to see if Blogger's SPAM detector is making the comments vanish.

I've had that problem on my blog. I'd wander in there every now and then and see perfectly good posts flagged as SPAM just sitting there waiting for me to rescue them. Go figure.

CP said...

Aha! That was the problem.

Thanks, Marc. Now Eric can fire away!

eahilf said...

I'm starting an LOLDOGS! website.

Generate enuf traffic and maybe you can make some $.

"It makes no difference, it don't make any difference to me what a man does for a living, you understand."