The race to buy up the world's water • Hacker News Board

Re: The race to buy up the world's water

#31

Post by route66 » Sun, Oct 10, 2010, 2:40 PM UTC

hugh3 wrote: post #29

ars wrote: post #16

Do your part to conserve water: Use plastic, not paper. Don't recycle. If you have a septic system replace it with a sewer. Do not buy local, but from wherever is able to most efficiently grow the crop. Making paper uses tons of water. So does washing the plastic for recycling. Water is far more precious than energy/oil right now. A septic system wastes all it's water, but a sewer system recycles almost all of it. Gr…

Or just live somewhere where there's plenty of water. Water falls from the sky, and in many parts of the world it's not a scarce resource at all.

I'm not so sure about that: lots of water around means that your drinking water has a high risk of becoming polluted with industrial sewage (as now did happen in Hungary) or salty water in areas close to the sea. Abundance of water != drinking water.

Re: The race to buy up the world's water

#32

Post by jacquesm » Sun, Oct 10, 2010, 2:49 PM UTC

ovi256 wrote: post #30

mmaro wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're trying to extract the maximum value out of a resource you own, why would you not preserve it?

ITT: people who do not understand the tragedy of the commons.

Privatization usually does not translate in to 'the people that use the resource will own it', it usually translates in to 'big-corp' in 'some other country' now owns a resource you depend on and will make you pay through the nose for it.

If the situation were such that each of us gets to be responsible for their little chunk of the planet then I wouldn't have a problem with it, in practice that is not how it works. Hence overfishing and all kinds of other issues that could have been avoided.

One of the major problems seems to be that there simply are too many of us, that's a very harsh thing to say according to plenty of folks but it may very well be that the only real long term solution leading to better stewardship of the environment is to reduce the number of people that consume resources. Not a very popular point of view, that's for sure.

Re: The race to buy up the world's water

#33

Post by route66 » Sun, Oct 10, 2010, 3:04 PM UTC

stretchwithme wrote: post #5

The market is the only mechanism that can allocate scarce resources equitably. And the only alternative is politics. In California, those with influence have secured water for agriculture at below market rates, water delivered with infrastructure built by taxpayer dollars. When people can get a resource for less than the cost of delivering it, they use it with less discretion. And the prices of the things they produc…

> Private ownership is not the cause of all of the political wars over water. It is their solution.

Is as untrue as it can be. Currently water conflicts emerge around the situation that there where no (or only a traditional) market exists, a market for multinationals is created forcibly . IMF and World Bank connect loan conditions directly to water exploitation rights in developing countries. This looks very much like interventionism to me: creating a "market" and installing it's major players at the same time. I can't see the "invisible hand" here ...

Re: The race to buy up the world's water

#34

Post by pyre » Sun, Oct 10, 2010, 3:39 PM UTC

dctoedt wrote: post #24

stretchwithme wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true of everything. I'd much rather pay for what I need from a competitive marketplace that is constantly driving down the cost of everything than leave it up to monopolistic government to hand out the privilege of drinking water. The market works damn well for the vast majority of things with which government has not blessed with its involvement. Water is no different than most things. In fact, it falls out o…

> The free market is people peacefully trading with each other. Then few if any free markets actually exist. Some traders are indeed "peaceful." The brute fact, though, is that that many market participants actively seek out ways: A) to inhibit competition, or even prevent it completely, for example by anticompetitive business practices; and/or ... B) to make the public pick up the tab for costs while keeping revenue…

I agree with everything except:

  > But governmental regulation, selectively applied, can also be at
  > least a partial solution, to the extent it can help keep market
  > predators from doing A, B, and C above.

I would postulate that this is probably nigh impossible due to the human nature of the legistators/regulators themselves. In other words, it's impossible to prevent market predators for using government to their benefit.

Re: The race to buy up the world's water

#35

Post by stretchwithme » Sun, Oct 10, 2010, 3:46 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #32

ovi256 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ITT: people who do not understand the tragedy of the commons.

Privatization usually does not translate in to 'the people that use the resource will own it', it usually translates in to 'big-corp' in 'some other country' now owns a resource you depend on and will make you pay through the nose for it. If the situation were such that each of us gets to be responsible for their little chunk of the planet then I wouldn't have a problem with it, in practice that is not how it works.…

you go first.

More can be done with less and that sort of improvement is happening all of the time. freedom and innovation is the solution, not limiting people's freedom

when I see tiny, populated, resource-poor, rich countries, its clear to me that trade and the rule of law are the solution to a great many problems many insist are unsolvable in other places that lack freedom

The situation you describe where deals are made with foreign corporations for control of resources are typically made by governments that have such control themselves. when resources are controlled by individuals in a competitive market, its very difficult for corporations, foreign or domestic, to bribe officials to sell out for far less than a resource is actually worth

Re: The race to buy up the world's water

#36

Post by ethyreal » Sun, Oct 10, 2010, 3:54 PM UTC

mmaro wrote: post #27

jacquesm wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Private ownership is not the cause of all of the political wars over water. It is their solution. That bullshit gets trotted out with some regularity but it is clearly nonsense. Have a read here and draw your own conclusions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Cochabamba_protests If someone owns a resource they have an interest in extracting maximum value out of it, not in preserving it. I've seen the case made for…

If you're trying to extract the maximum value out of a resource you own, why would you not preserve it?

The same short term profit paradigm that seems to prevent most corporations from engaging in sustainable business practices. Only if you forget short term profits and look to enduring sustainable profits does any sort of sustainable business model work.

Re: The race to buy up the world's water

#37

Post by olegkikin » Sun, Oct 10, 2010, 6:06 PM UTC

Isn't it easier and cheaper to desalinate ocean water using solar energy?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_desalination

Re: The race to buy up the world's water

#38

Post by lzw » Sun, Oct 10, 2010, 7:39 PM UTC

pyre wrote: post #34

dctoedt wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The free market is people peacefully trading with each other. Then few if any free markets actually exist. Some traders are indeed "peaceful." The brute fact, though, is that that many market participants actively seek out ways: A) to inhibit competition, or even prevent it completely, for example by anticompetitive business practices; and/or ... B) to make the public pick up the tab for costs while keeping revenue…

I agree with everything except: > But governmental regulation, selectively applied, can also be at > least a partial solution, to the extent it can help keep market > predators from doing A, B, and C above. I would postulate that this is probably nigh impossible due to the human nature of the legistators/regulators themselves. In other words, it's impossible to prevent market predators for using government to their b…

Right, in reality, government regulation is the cheapest way to make he public pay for the costs while keeping the profits.

However, those who propose government regulation seem to not perceive government as anything other than an objective benevolent force, and when they are presented with evidence of government being corrupt, they blame the corporations for corrupting them.

Re: The race to buy up the world's water

#39

Post by lzw » Sun, Oct 10, 2010, 7:42 PM UTC

stretchwithme wrote: post #21

lurchpop wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not entirely true if you're talking about a poor area whose market can't bear a price which makes supplying them profitable. The article also mentions that conservation is forced disproportionately on the poor given the examples of Cal in the 80s.

forced by who? nature? it is not the well off that created conditions of scarcity. They've only figured out ways of remedying scarcity by innovating and trading. Sure, the are many instances where people have been dispossessed of their land or resources. But this is hardly the free market. It is the ultimate expression of the idea that might makes right and that who gets what should be determined politically.

Another, good useful response modded down to being below zero because it isn't politically correct.

Re: The race to buy up the world's water

#40

Post by glork » Sun, Oct 10, 2010, 8:22 PM UTC

So we have 1) governments that sell water at prices too low to match the reality of scarcity, 2) private corporations who would sacrifice the environment and consumers for profits, and 3) a populace that consumes too much and is resistant to change. Are we all fucked?