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Why not? What harm could possibly be done?
"No. That is the one aspect that should be maintained by the city. " — in response to whether water services should be privatized….which is effectively the same question.
What have you done with Jared? Why do your opinions and beliefs change from one phrasing to the next on the same issues? I suppose its possible this is an acknowledgment that the price system exists even where municipal services are concerned… but given that I've recently had to explain the pricing system of the market, and price controls as well, I rather doubt it.
Since two thirds of this planet is covered in water, just WHO are you going to trade it to?
Not all water is created equal. So it doesn't matter how much of the stuff there is. Some of it is still valuable.
Additionally water rights are a huge issue where rivers or lakes create borders or flow between several countries, as an example. Or where you have competing demands on limited supplies (for example in…Arizona… or California especially), such as agriculture versus civilian use, or different types of agriculture (rice versus grapes or ranching).
California spends billions of dollars every year taking water from the northern part of the state and pumping it to the southern part, something I have never understood why they do since California's western border is the Pacific Ocean. The cost of desalinization is about a third of what they now spend but the argument has always been that it would be cost prohibitive.
I do not understand why anyone would want to make something that is so plentiful and essential to life in general a "trading commodity" . . . but then, unlike most politicians in this world, I am not motivated by pure adulterated greed.
I'm actually against this. Water rights are notoriously vague and unless you own an entire body of water it leads to a "tragedy of the commons" sort of approach. Allowing people to profit personally off of public resources is wrong. (Ohmygod, I sound like a socialist!)
It seems to me that allowing the government to own and distribute the water according to its own set price doesn't improve the commons problem.
In fact (as PD points out, sort of accidentally), it very often exacerbates the problem by creating a depressed price point and leads to water shortages.