Key insights
- The author's decision to invest in hard assets like solar panels and heat pumps reflects a belief that these assets offer protection against inflation, taxes, and energy disruptions. While this individual action has minimal direct impact, it mirrors a broader trend of consumers seeking inflation hedges, potentially shifting spending away from discretionary items and impacting corporate earnings in the long run. The focus on renewable energy also aligns with long-term trends but is unlikely to cause immediate market shifts.
We took a chunk of our retirement portfolio and cashed it in to buy as large a solar array as we could, heat pumps for everything, a battery, and a plug-in hybrid. Our reasoning was that
- Hard assets are safe from inflation. 2. The energy bill savings are better than a good safe return on that money. 3. Saving money is untaxed, income is taxed. 4. We will have long-term security by buying twenty years of energy now at today's prices. 5. Self-generated power is uninterrupted by local, regional or world events. 6. World events only reinforce the need for secure energy. 7. Rate hikes just make the investment that much more profitable.
Market correction? We've protected a chunk of our savings. Supply interruptions? We are safe.
And our kids are delighted at the 4000 tons of CO2 we will not be producing.