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> Economics are true whether or not your ideology agrees This is not true. Hence the old name Political economy. There's no such thing as objective economics -

by jahaja 10y ago

> Economics are true whether or not your ideology agrees This is not true. Hence the old name Political economy. There's no such thing as objective economics - much to the annoyance of usually libertarians. And to add to this discussion there's no way that this would happen and not be fixed where I live no matter the profitability of the municipality itself. If the municipality couldn't pay for it, the state would. And the sustainability, or "is it worth it? profitable?", question would barely come up because access to clean water is culturally deemed more or less a right.

chii 10y ago
people are just arguing over each other because the other's point of view is unimaginable. on the one hand, providing basic necessities which is deemed a basic human right, like clean water, is a no brainer. it should be done regardless, and if the city cannot afford it, it ought to be subsidized by an out of city entity like the state. on the other hand, what's the worth of these human lives? if it cost more money to keep a city running than the productivity it produces, it makes sense to cut it out. it leaves the resources that would've been allocated to be used elsewhere.
- jahaja 10y ago
  Yes, the latter is deeply unethical in my book. If the same standards of "economical/business sense" are applied to more things, of equal necessity, it would create a completely dystopian society.
- bmelton 10y ago
  For me, it's less a question of ideology and more of a question of where the money comes from. If the money is there, and will be there again in the future, then it doesn't really matter where it comes from, and I'm not suggesting that people should be denied access to water. However, if (in what I suspect is an extreme hypothetical) this $100 million dollars only guarantees water access for a few years, and they'll be asking for handouts when this money is spent, then the question of whether or not its sustainable should probably be asked. My only objection to the OP's assertion is that you can just build infrastructure out of tax dollars and call that sustainable. You can't, and it's been shown time and time again that it isn't tenable without some very special circumstances or conditions. There are circumstances applicable to Keynesian economics, but just paying one group of people to shovel holes in the day, and another group of people to fill them back up in the night time just doesn't work unless somebody, somewhere is producing something of value enough that it can subsidize this behavior. Perhaps I'm reading it wrong, or perhaps he's not stating his case clearly, but that seems to be basically what he's suggesting.

by jahaja 10y ago

chii 10y ago

people are just arguing over each other because the other's point of view is unimaginable. on the one hand, providing basic necessities which is deemed a basic human right, like clean water, is a no brainer. it should be done regardless, and if the city cannot afford it, it ought to be subsidized by an out of city entity like the state. on the other hand, what's the worth of these human lives? if it cost more money to keep a city running than the productivity it produces, it makes sense to cut it out. it leaves the resources that would've been allocated to be used elsewhere.

jahaja 10y ago
Yes, the latter is deeply unethical in my book. If the same standards of "economical/business sense" are applied to more things, of equal necessity, it would create a completely dystopian society.
bmelton 10y ago
For me, it's less a question of ideology and more of a question of where the money comes from. If the money is there, and will be there again in the future, then it doesn't really matter where it comes from, and I'm not suggesting that people should be denied access to water. However, if (in what I suspect is an extreme hypothetical) this $100 million dollars only guarantees water access for a few years, and they'll be asking for handouts when this money is spent, then the question of whether or not its sustainable should probably be asked. My only objection to the OP's assertion is that you can just build infrastructure out of tax dollars and call that sustainable. You can't, and it's been shown time and time again that it isn't tenable without some very special circumstances or conditions. There are circumstances applicable to Keynesian economics, but just paying one group of people to shovel holes in the day, and another group of people to fill them back up in the night time just doesn't work unless somebody, somewhere is producing something of value enough that it can subsidize this behavior. Perhaps I'm reading it wrong, or perhaps he's not stating his case clearly, but that seems to be basically what he's suggesting.