Some of this seems a little scary to me. Like ammunition for people who see population as the #1 issue of all, yet are reluctant to make the personal sacrifice to help solve it
Dislike overpopulation? Install a true freemarket, stop subsidizing the people who in a way are baby farmers. Those who can afford a big family the option will be available, if they can’t afford it and make bad choices do not use the public purse to bail them out. Poor choices need real consequences, this is not cruel.
Privatization of water only scares me if governments are used to enforce something that is abusive. Other utilities and requirements for modern-day life like Internet, electricity, food, and fuel are working in the marketplace even with governments messing with the price of currency. Water wouldn’t be any different. You probably ate today right - the government didn’t raise the plants and animals you ate.
Your water company has the governments to enforce for you? Awesome for you, charge whatever you want and if the little guys can’t pay - the government will no problems!
Your water company (and likely your competitors omg) does not have the government to enforce for you, rather you must compete in the freemarket? Over charge your customers? They leave and you fail. Constantly have infrastructure and service issues? Customers leave and you fail. You are negligent as an owner or employee and customers get hurt or sick etc? You get sued and the goodwill of your company goes to crap.
In a true freemarket economy companies have a very hard time abusing those they serve for a living. Reputation actually matters, competition would be a thing, risk of failure would be high, risk would be real because the governments wouldn’t be entangled.
You as a water company owner would strive to provide safe, clean, uninterrupted water to those you serve. If you failed to do so in a freemarket you’d be replaced and you’d be left massively in debt. You couldn’t overcharge, someone more economical than you or the customers themselves would overthrow your business.
Stop looking to gov’ as the answer. It doesn’t work, it hasn’t worked for decades, and it isn’t going to start to. #endrant I’m sorry
Nightwatchman,
I have little faith in government at this point but even less faith in a 'free market' existing without one. If you haven't noticed, since the government stopped doing the things to support a free market (breaking up monopolies, prosecuting fraud (banks!), monitoring product quality (FDA)) the approximation of a free market that we did have has become completely perverted.
A free market dies with both too much government regulation/intervention and too little because Adam Smith's invisible hand of enlightened self interest will cheat consumers (or producers) if it can get away with it. People often forget that a 'free market' requires a perfect and honest balance of supply and demand with true and plentiful competition wherein consumers have 'true' knowledge of all of the competitors products and prices with the flexibility to switch between them at will. Has anyone seen anything approaching that, ever? We have fallen into oligarchy, competition has all but died as industries are monopolized more and more each year (one 'merger' at a time), advantage doesn't come from better products or more efficient business models, if comes from corruption and buying political influence. Consumers are disenfranchised by companies that flat out lie about their products (name your pharmaceutical company) or actively prey on their own clients (see Goldman Sachs…) with government regulators that turn a blind eye to these and similar practices.
In the case of water, you really have no choice. If your home is tied into a municipal system then you really don't have the ability to use any sort of 'free market' to your advantage unless you plan on showering and doing your washing with bottled water. You are trapped by a monopoly and will suffer by its choices whether they are market based or government based (see Flint Michigan for example).
Stop looking to gov' as the answer. It doesn't work, it hasn't worked for decades, and it isn't going to start to.I agree with you but unfortunately you can't look to the 'free market' either because it hasn't existed for at least as long and won't ever be even a shadow of what we need until something changes at the government level. I do not believe that there are any universal, simple and absolute answers. The government will not save you but neither will the 'free market'. We have to make both the government and the markets respect people that comprise them again for this insanity to end IMHO.
Without debt, businesses would follow Liebig's (law of the minimum) where a business' success would be defined by it's ability to survive the most troubling years rather than the good years. This is a law that every living organism is ruled by. For example, deer populations are defined by the availability of browse in the winter rather than the available flora in the summer.
With high oil prices (and crap snow) there have been way too many bad years for the ski industry and only about 10% of ski resorts are actually consistently returning a solid profit (http://ski.curbed.com/2015/1/29/9997450/ski-industry-expert-says-31-of-todays-ski-areas-are-dying) . The state of New Hampshire owns a ski resort called Cannon Mountain that has been such a losing investment for the state. The mountain now has a net loss of over $8 million with an annual revenue of about $7.5 million. There is no logical reason for the state to hold this "asset."
Why is this continuing and how much longer can this continue?
Another company, CNL Lifestyle Properties, holding both Sunday River and Loon Mountain (two of the biggest in New England) as well as several other noteworthy resorts are desperately trying to sell off these financial burdens.
The death of the ski industry is going to be a sad thing to watch.
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