Preparing for blackouts, water shortages

All the doomsayers of recent years who have warned about the energy crisis probably feel so vindicated today. What now? I’m pretty sure the finger pointing and the “if-only” arguments will appear in newspaper columns and editorials shortly. People can talk about whose fault the energy crisis is; I would rather discuss what the people could do now to prepare. After super-typhoon Milenyo in 2006, I wrote about how to prepare from for disaster. Blackouts and power shortages are not as scary as a super typhoon, but they can disrupt businesses, put homes in danger, and can be very inconvenient for journalists trying to make a living, hehe. In that article, I recommended investing in emergency power supplies like rechargeable electric fans and lighting equipment. Here is the usual list of items that you need to prepare:

1. Flashlight with extra batteries (preferably fully-charged rechargeable batteries)
2. Candles and matches
3. Battery-powered radio
4. Battery-powered electric fans (should always be on a mommy’s list!)

These items are always in short supply AND expensive AFTER a power outage. People, get these things in your home while there’s still power. Remember the droves of people that trooped to malls after Milenyo? There’s a human weakness to double lock the doors after the thief has taken what he wanted. That’s costly and totally un-moneysmart. Generators are expensive, but expect that with more outages coming soon, they will sell like pancakes. Law of supply and demand again – expect prices to go up. If you want to be creative and avoid running up the gerbil wheel of consumerism, try creating your own! I’m no engineer but these tips from the Emergency Preparedness Information Center look so simple to do. Click here for tips on how to buy a generator and how to analyze whether you need one. The salesman at the store will always pitch the one with the higher horsepower (and of course more expensive). This article tells you why you should think twice. Once you lose power, especially in the middle of the night or while tucking Junior in, things will go haywire with kids screaming in your ear. Whatever you do, cut the main circuit breaker first. When power comes back, power spikes can fry your expensive flat-screen television sets and refrigerators. That’s an ouchie you don’t have to live with. Just turn off the main circuit breaker, please. Ya know where it is? Water shortages I always store water at home good for two to three days of consumption, disaster or not. Get a food-grade container for water and not just a typical plastic container. Water is best stored in cool, dark places (light causes bacteria to multiply more quickly). It’s amusing how Metro Manila is struggling with water shortage problems AND thinking of polluting its existing water supply at the same time. Philippine Daily Inquirer’s editorial points out that polluted water coming from the proposed housing project of the MWSS will, due to gravity, pollute the water from La Mesa and will find its way into our faucets. Eew. Who would want to stay in a community that will pollute the rest of Manila’s water supply? Do you think Filipinos’ collective conscience is strong enough to refuse living in such a housing project? What has conscience got to do with economics? Will the economists in the house please speak up… After being questioned about how the government can finance the SONA’s P1.7 trillion spending plan, fiscal managers say BIR, BoC and other revenue-generating agencies have been tasked to collect P1.236 trillion in taxes in 2008 to plug the deficit. Either that figure will come from an expanding economy or the BIR would have get its act together and collect taxes more efficiently. I know, I know, sounds like an old rerun of X-files. Big property developers continue to get a big slice of the OFW pie as much as they can, Ayala Land just launching its P5-billion Celadon Manila located in the San Lazaro racetrack of Manila Jockey Club. Did you see the huge ads from real estate companies in the papers today? Makes me wonder whether size and name of company matters to Filipino property buyers, whether for their own consumption or for investment. We also have Meralco reporting a huge jump in profit in the second quarter, indicating that a lot of our money was spent on electricity last summer. You tell me, my Meralco bill spiked in the second quarter. Petron, however, reported a slow growth in profit. GMA Network’s initial public offering seems to be a smashing hit. I hope there are less flippers in the market than long-term investors. Bloggers have some pretty interesting offers today, too. AllFinancialMatters lists down a comprehensive list of retirement planning tools and calculators online, using a review by the Wall Street Journal as a springboard. Oprah earns P1 million per day, check out this article from MSNBC. Now that’s the kind of spectacular “return” I can’t argue with. She’s earning, because she is creating economic value – attracting ads, page views, selling airtime, etc. Her shows are consumerized, if you ask me, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that it’s a legitimate way to make money. Let’s all be television talk show hosts! Hehe. Entrepinoy’s business tip today is how to start a business making pandesal, Follow the Process will hold a stock investing and net marketing seminar on Saturday (is it free, jomar?) My Money Blog observes how tip jars are everywhere. I see that here, too, but more often than not restaurants nowadays already have a “service charge” of 10% tucked into the bill. That’s on top of the VAT charge of 12%, that’s why eating out should be considered a luxury. I do use dining out as a way of giving myself a pat on the back after a job well done as long as it does not take away money from my savings kitty :-). My Money Blog feels no shame in not giving tips, except when he feels like it or I guess when the service is extra good. He also talks about how one parent and teacher used this idea of tipping:

As a teacher it had never occurred to me to put one of these jars on my desk. And so I decided to conduct an experiment. The next day, when I entered the classroom, I casually pulled a small jelly jar from my bag and placed it on my desk. On the front was a neat label, “Tips.” I didn’t do anything else to draw my students’ attention to it and ignored the low mumble that the act incited. At the end of the lecture, as the students filed out, I’ll be darned if a few of them didn’t throw their loose change into the jar. I gave it all back, of course, but their quiet gestures did lend me a small thrill, a sense that my teaching efforts were worth more than my salary alone. Well, I still don’t put money in tip jars, but I have put one of these jars in my son’s room. Sometimes, when he does something positive or helpful without being told, I throw a couple of quarters in. He appreciates this and looks for opportunities to lend a hand wherever he can. I think that as long as we can keep this under control, I will not have created unreasonable expectations. But mum’s the word.

Very intriguing, but be careful exactly of what he said: creating unreasonable expectations.