Re:Israel Proves the Desalination Era Is Here
by vmateixeira on Saturday July 30, 2016 @05:52AM
(#12192334)
I think he has a point if water market didn't need to generate profit for a private company.
Re:Israel Proves the Desalination Era Is Here
by RobertKerans on Saturday July 30, 2016 @07:11AM
(#12192503)
So then you get to have all the fun issues surrounding nationalised utilities ! (nb I personally feel there are some things that should be public goods, water being one of them, but saying it's a simple solution is naïve)
Re:Israel Proves the Desalination Era Is Here
by Houshalter on Saturday July 30, 2016 @12:25PM
(#12193593)
The water can be nationalized. But the government still needs to put a price on it to prevent overuse. If the price is higher than the operating costs of the water system, then they have profit they can redistribute to the people.
Re:Israel Proves the Desalination Era Is Here
by RobertKerans on Wednesday August 03, 2016 @03:20AM
(#12216231)
Metering water seems reasonable but there are upfront costs to more widespread adoption (financial + political/social) + a bureaucratic layer (with all the associated complexity/corruption issues) that would need to be implemented for metering plus nationalisation, so while I'm [quite possibly naïvely] personally in favour, it opens a very large can of worms.
Edit: initially, I didn't think your first plan works, but then I realized people need water to survive. You can charge anyone an arbitrary amount if the alternative is death by dehydration.