Sadly, this is the most accurate statement in this thread.  Especially if your government offers subsidy for green energy.  I know here in Ontario I was exploring this idea a few years ago, and the gov was offering up to $.70 or $.80/KWh to encourage independents to get into it. Wish I would've got my application in before the rates started dropping, they are now halved. 

Much like miners, I would suggest going as value-driven as possible on PSU's.  I have 5 (and 4 more on the way) of the DPS 800 GB A PSU's, some using gigampz boards (you can also "hotwire" them by soldering a couple wires if you are so inclined to save the $40 for the breakout board).

If you have 240V service, you can get 1000 Watts out of them (vs 850 Watts on 120V), which allows you to run one of the AsicMiner Tubes on each, even clocked to 290 MHz and producing 875-900 GH/s (what I am running right now).  DPS 800 GB A's can be had for $20-25, the gigampz breakout boards are $40, and then some PCI cables gives you a 1000W PSU for about half price. Don't pay more than you have to, the extra few percent of power efficiency will never make up the difference in purchase price (I have read they are equivalent to 80 plus bronze ratings)

The AM tubes are the best value for equipment at this time as Phillip mentioned.  Another alternative if you have enough power to run quite a few of them, are the old Antminer S1's.  Their efficiency isn't great, but they are selling for ~$.25/GH/s. I know here in Canada even at my home with prices around $0.09/Kwh they will still produce a profit for the next few months, and offset some heating bills coming up.   Alternatively,  if power is your limiting factor The Antminer S3's are another good solution with better power/hash efficiency, but cost a bit more per GH/s than the Tubes (they use newer, more efficient 28nm chips)  Anything else on the market is essentially over-priced, under-performing, or more for status or data center hosting than for profitability.

As far as difficulty rising, IMO we have reached/passed the pinnacle in rate of growth from a hardware and network hashrate point of view.  The ASIC chips today are using very near the most current processing technology as in other devices, and the rate of hashing power should not increase proportionately to the cost of newer technology. Not to mention, many of the large farms that have decided to invest in mining have likely most all come online by now.  With the declining exchange it wouldn't make sense for many companies to decide to invest in farms in the near future.

Unlike many others on this board, I think now is a great time to be getting involved with mining.  Equipment is being priced with the expectation to ROI with high estimates of difficulty increases as has been historical, but I just don't see the difficulty increasing at the rate it has for this past year.  Anyone that tells you otherwise is trying to keep a bigger piece of the pie for themselves

My friend GAW miners are legit. This is one of the most reputable companies on the cryptocurrency market. You can't go wrong with them. Probability that you will be scammed by them is less than zero.

I like making kids. (Even better is trying to make them without succeeding.)

I've got two. The 2 year old is a nihilist; he destroys everything in sight. The 1 year old is just quietly planning her rampage when she turns 2.

This is exactly what happens when political correctness gets out of control. I am sure that none of the perpetrators will be punished. On the other hand, the victims will be told that it was all their fault and they are racist. Has there been a single incident in the United States, where black individuals were prosecuted for racism against whites? No. Not even during the murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom. (one perpetrator in that incident is due to be released from prison on December 17, 2014).

not sure if s1 was priced low.  it was going for $2-3k initially.  hell it was over 3btc when value was 1K.  i agree, s3 has a sleek design, more thought into this miner.  it looks finished, unlike the s1 which looked like a prototype.  BFL did have an awesome design too, i think all their engineering went into aesthetics, the internals were blowing up all over the place, poor soldering, poor components placements (components and metal touch each other). 

cloud mining looks to be the natural transition for the small-time miners (such as myself).

He was probably talking about the HYIP in his sig space, and it seems he did believe it was really getting 3% to 4.5% daily return from mining.

Well CEX/Ghash is killing me with the fees.

I try to buy GHs as soon as ENOUGH btc is availlable to trade, but I go in a negative balance, for a couple of hours, constantly, when they start mining Alt coins, instead of btc. They say, Alt coin mining has no fees, but I still find, btc maintenance fees, are subtracted, after a few hours of Alt coin mining. {So it is slipped in their, anyways}

I threw in a few coins, to test profitability and to gain knowledge on the subject matter. {And to see if ROI can be possible}

The CEX/Ghash "cloud mining" fees, are huge. {Profit margin for miners, are tiny}

I will continue this experiment, in the hope, that the rise in btc price, would equal my investment. {And I guess, that is what every miner are hoping for}

My best bet, would be to sell GHs at a higher price, than what I paid for it.