Privatize Water!
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Blue_Nose @ Mon Nov 21, 2005 8:11 pm
The fact that the article actually addresses the dissenting issues doesn't do much for the argument that they're completely one-sided....
Toro @ Mon Nov 21, 2005 8:42 pm
Thematic-Device Thematic-Device:
Wow, it just baffles me how you can have so many logical inconsistancies in your reasoning... The statement that utilities tend to be marginally profitable as a whole... Whether there are a few sources where they are not does not disprove the trend. Nor do profitable companies in the UK disprove my assertion that companes will not be profitable in areas which are not conducive to water irrigation in general when the people are incredibly poor to begin with.
For the sake of argument, let's assume you are correct - and you may be, I don't know. But what if its profitable to invest in water systems in the areas where it is profitable? There are many, many, many cities in the emerging world with concentrated populations where scale and efficiency are not difficult to attain. Should we not invest in those cities because we cannot get water to irrigate the land profitably? We should not improve the lot of some when we cannot improve the lot of everyone? And besides, I'm not talking about irrigation.
Thematic-Device Thematic-Device:
And thus like I said, utilities tend to return relatively small amounts of profit. Granted they provide very [i]stable amounts of profit hence why people still buy them as stocks. But they provide less.
But so what if they produce a small amount of return? Its not up to you or me to determine if the return is high enough. That's up to the investors to decide. And they make a lower return for the reason you said - because the returns are very stable since they're regulated monopolies. But that's what we want, right? Your criticism seems to be that they don't earn enough profits while others are saying that they earn too much! Which is it?
Thematic-Device Thematic-Device:
They are marginally profitable to provide adequates of amounts of water here. In Africa it isn't profitable to provide to much of anyone outside of the cities (which benefit from being easy to lay pipelines for due to their closeness) and areas which already have easily accessible water. Without regulation they simply won't venture outside of what has already been provided.
Again, even if you're correct, that means we shouldn't try to improve life inside cities?
Thematic-Device Thematic-Device:
I can find academics still arguing of how minimum wage causes unemployment despite extensive evidence to the contrary.
Well, what is that evidence? Is the evidence rigourous academic research? Like the paper I posted?
I really want to emphasize this next paragraph because it presents a false argument that must be cleared up
Thematic-Device Thematic-Device:
I have posted the reasons why all working water supplies are either heavily regulated or government owned. If the laissez faire approach to water supplies works so wonderfully, howcome the US, Canada, the UK or indeed most any successful nation hasn't undertaken it?
I am not - repeat NOT - arguing for unregulated markets in water. On the contrary, since they are monopolies, they should be regulated. Nor am I saying that government should not own utilities. What I am saying is that where government capital is lacking to invest in infrastructure, the private sector offers another alternative.
And BTW the UK has undertaken water privatization. Interesting that the Labour Party hasn't re-nationalized the water utilities, isn't it?
Thematic-Device Thematic-Device:
Private investment only cares about the areas where it is profitable. The areas where it is profitable already have water because they were the easiest to supply in the first place.
... and where the government has not had the capital to maintain the infrascture. Again, from the paper
$1:
The privatization was also intended to reverse a long period of physical infrastructure neglect (Chisari et al, 1999). During the 1970s and 1980s there was little capital investment in most public utilities and indeed much of the physical infrastructure had seriously depreciated. After this long period of negative net investments, huge capital inflows were needed to improve both the quality and access to SOE services. While the public sector had no capacity to finance those capital investments, private firms generating positive cash-flows were able to obtain private financing. Indeed, the transfer of the SOEs to the private sector, mostly to large foreign companies, greatly improved the firms’ investment and access to credit markets (Heymann and Kosacoff, 2000; Galiani et al, 2002). Most of the privatized firms sold equity and bonds in international capital markets.
Toro @ Mon Nov 21, 2005 8:45 pm
IceOwl IceOwl:
Read the two paragraphs again. If the Argentinian water privatization project existed through the 1990s, and by 1999 the top ten causes of infant mortality were waterborne disease, what does that tell you??
Dude. Follow slowly. What was it before privatization. Did the situation in aggregate improve because of privatization or not? According to the authors, it did. What you are arguing is tantamount to saying, "Well, there was cancer before Medicare, and there is still cancer, so I guess Medicare isn't working. Let's scrap it."
Toro @ Mon Nov 21, 2005 8:49 pm
IceOwl IceOwl:
Toro Toro:
Thematic-Device Thematic-Device:
Blue_Nose Blue_Nose:
The regulations, at least in Canada and the US, on private water sale are equivelent to those of municipal water systems. What sort of regulations other countries have, I don't know.
Third world countries are often pressured by the IMF and world bank to have absolutely none, because those might discourage business.
This false.
Incredible. Not only do you totally fail at grammar in that sentence, you don't even try to back it up. Let's see some evidence, snowblowerboy.
Prove that the IMF pressures countries to have "absolutely none". This is Fringe propoganda, of which you seem to be fully immersed in.
Toro @ Mon Nov 21, 2005 8:52 pm
Avro Avro:
Sounds to me like you support complete privatization with that comment, hope you're not hiding behind a lie because I am trying to meet you half way on this.
No, I do not support complete privatization, as I've said a few times on this thread. What I am arguing is that in countries that do not have the capital, private investment is a legitamite, and sometimes better option.
Arctic_Menace @ Mon Nov 21, 2005 9:14 pm
Privatize water, eh?
.
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