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As this thread will ultimately will end up discussing the corporate evil that Nestlé apparently is, I want to, for the sake of the discussion, point out the rea
by mrleiter 9y ago
As this thread will ultimately will end up discussing the corporate evil that Nestlé apparently is, I want to, for the sake of the discussion, point out the reasonableness of the CEOs statement regarding water as a human right:
He argues water should have a market value so that it is treated more like a resource that should be well managed. Of course a state can also do this and in my opinion should, but of course as a company they want to fill this role. If water is treated as a market asset then more investment will happen (which can also happen through a state entity) - a good thing. In a later video, after the 2005 video was a total PR disaster, he tries to clarify his argument by saying that water should be a human right to humans who need it for living, but not for gardening or washing a car. To me that seems like a valid case.
- saint_fiasco 9y agoThat sounds fair. After all, you can't use food stamps to feed your cattle so why should government subsidize the water for agriculture?
- Alex3917 9y ago> He argues water should have a market value so that it is treated more like a resource that should be well managed. Sounds like a good case for cap-and-trade. That is, don't allow people to withdraw groundwater faster than it's being replenished, and don't allow people to withdraw enough surface water to harm fish populations. And then let folks trade their allocations.
- jakelarkin 9y agorather have underpriced water be available to people for gardening, washing cars, swimming pools than it be given away for free in corrupt government contracts to a mega-corporation so they can grow rice in the California desert or bottle ground water and sell it at inflated prices.
- ShabbosGoy 9y agoYou didn't hear it from me, but the first person to make a market for water futures will be very wealthy.
- jakelarkin 9y agothere's no Cushing, Oklahoma for water. most water delivery dams, pipelines, plants are owned by govt entities and are vertically integrated to serve a particular locale. Theres not often ways to switch delivery and commercialize it. the closest analog is the Colorado river basin but the various state's government agencies sort that out themselves without the need for intermediary market markers.
- brm 9y agoHe might have a point on water, but... Where are his statements on their practices regarding infant formula, the use of child slavery for chocolate, the use of general slavery in their seafood production in Thailand, and the intimidation of workers who wish to unionize in India?
- Lewisssss 9y agoHe only cares about the profits.
- wavefunction 9y agoOr how they steal public water and sell it while also claiming to not be subject to the laws governing that water.[0] [0]http://www.bbc.com/news/business-36161580 http://www.bbc.com/news/business-36161580
- Johnny555 9y agoAre they really stealing it? The US Forest service seems to think they have a valid permit: Yet the firm's permit to operate this seven-mile pipeline in the mountains expired in 1988, though since it pays its yearly $524, the licence is still considered valid by the US Forest Service and by Nestle.... However, activists consider the permit expired and the US government is now reviewing Nestle's licence. A public comment period has just closed and this month a federal hearing will consider the legality of the permit. Later that year a federal judge sided with the Forest Service and declared the permit legal: A federal judge on Wednesday ruled in favor of the U.S. Forest Service, declaring valid Nestlé’s permit for water-bottling operations in the San Bernardino Mountains, on a motion filed by three environmental groups that sought to shut down the company’s efforts until its effects on the environment could be evaluated. http://www.sbsun.com/2016/09/21/why-nestl-can-continue-to-bottle-water-in-the-san-bernardino-mountains/ http://www.sbsun.com/2016/09/21/why-nestl-can-continue-to-bo...
- jieiieifnfj88 9y agoOh well ok then! Because you know, the government would never engage in quid pro quo for the benefit of capitalism over humanity Why can't local groups be given the tax benefits and other handouts to manage this? Are the people at Nestle THAT good at this? No one else can figure out the logistics? The whole notion that my community, a metro area of 3 million residents, multiple universities and tech companies, needs this redundancy But if Uncle Sam says so! Well who am I to question them!?
- ceejayoz 9y ago> He argues water should have a market value so that it is treated more like a resource that should be well managed. They could start with themselves. They pay $200/year to suck 130M gallons of Michigan water, and fight attempts to charge a fair rate for it. http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2016/12/why_nestle_pays_next_to_nothin.html http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2016/12/why_nestle_pays_...
- icebraining 9y agoWhere does that article say they have fought attempts to charge for it? What that article says is some environmental law experts claim it would likely be fought, and a statement by Nestle saying they are ready to discuss an amount if the state wants to. The fight it talks about is about a cap on the quantity of water, not on a price.
- ceejayoz 9y agoThe article discusses a previous court case they fought that gives them the ammo to fight usage restrictions. > Now, "Nestle can argue under the Michigan Court of Appeals decision in 2005 that its pumping is within the scope of its reasonable use, to the extent it isn't harming anybody," he said. "And it doesn't have to pay for it."
- icebraining 9y agoThat's what I said. The court case was about a cap, not payment. Nowhere in the article says they fought against a fee for taking out water.
- minikites 9y agoWhat about all of their other corporate abuses, including pitching infant formula as safer and better than breastfeeding (an outright lie no matter how you spin it)? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestl%C3%A9_boycott#Baby_milk_issue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestl%C3%A9_boycott#Baby_milk_...
- ChuckMcM 9y agoSmall nit, some folks without water for 'gardening' can't live. See some of the city farms for examples of this.
- saint_fiasco 9y agoIt might be cheaper to give them water and food for consumption instead of water for highly inefficient 'gardening'.
- ErikVandeWater 9y agoAnd I don't get exactly what it means to declare water a human right. There are certainly people in the world not getting the clean water they need. But how do you solve this? You set up an international agency to acquire water for them. But where do you get the funding for this agency? If it really is a _human_ right, is this agency above local laws? What are the restrictions on this agency? Can this agency ban the building of a dam that would deprive even one person of a suitable source of water? It's weird because other rights are what others _can't_ do to you, but this right is what others _must provide_ you. Who and how just aren't clear.
- Armisael16 9y agoPositive rights are very much a thing - we have a positive right to at least some education in the first world.
- ythn 9y agoThey exist, yes, (and I've even heard some ridiculous ones like the human right to internet access), but how do you make the "rights" a reality?
- jamestimmins 9y agoI personally distinguish between 1)Human Rights, 2) rights as a member of a specific society, and 3) simply things that are "right" to do for peoples in the moral sense. 1. Something that can't be taken away by someone else. 2. A contract between an individual and the country/state with which they are a citizen. In return for paying taxes and following laws, they can expect services, utilities, military, education, etc. 3. These things are not something you're entitled to morally (like water, as there's no one to sue if you don't have water in your region), but societies should recognize the need for water, and thus it is moral and right to help ensure that all people have access.
- Armisael16 9y agoIf you do that you're using words differently than many other people, the UN included. By your definition the right to a fair trial isn't a human right (which isn't a particularly widely held opinion).
- throwayit 9y agoYes, but that doesn't address the terrible terrible things Nestle did with formula in the 3rd world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestl%C3%A9_boycott#Baby_milk_issue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestl%C3%A9_boycott#Baby_milk_...
- sergers 9y agoThen we should charge Neste more for extracting the water. Here in BC, numerous articles in past, they are paying like 2-3$ per million litres of water extracted. That's cheaper than a single small water bottle in many stores which aren't even 1 litre size
- okreallywtf 9y agoHe may seem reasonable, but in a lot of cases like this companies seem to take the line of "we're following the rules and complying with all government regulations, we will happily follow any rules limiting X and Y if the state chooses to create them.", but at the same time they have a huge influence over especially local and state governments, but also the federal government. Like a lot of companies, they probably take a hand at writing legislation that is favorable to them, and then try to get it introduced [1]. I'm not familiar with the site in [1], but I was looking for a quick guide to lobbying efforts and it certainly seems plausible but I haven't vetted the info for myself. The reality is they make huge amounts of money selling something that people can get for next to nothing from their cities and towns and pay next to nothing for it, at the expense of the people living where the water is taken and where it is sold at insane margins. Yeah, it is on us for letting them do it, but like everything they hold a lot more cards than we do, so they are just one more huge powerful corporation that will have to be challenged by the people which will take another gargantuan effort of education and activism. [1] http://www.mintpressnews.com/nestle-spent-11m-lobbying-congress-to-control-water-cocoa-trade-since-2013/220853/ http://www.mintpressnews.com/nestle-spent-11m-lobbying-congr...
- BartSaM 9y agoI always postulated that a cubic meter of water should be a constitutional right to every human for free. Every water company etc. should allow one cubic meter of water to every citizen for free. Everything above can be paid. This would give people in extreme conditions at least some way to ease their chances to survive. Why it sounds like a small amount, it would help less fortunate. People should not worry about basic income more than it should about the constitutional right to basic products first like water, education, food and the internet.
- amelius 9y agoIs that per day?
- BartSaM 9y agoPer month. Not everyone lives in 1st world country. Cubic meter is a lot for many people.
- twothamendment 9y agoAbout 8.5 gallons per day or 32 liters. A few gallons per day in an emergency is plenty for drinking, cooking and hygiene so 4x that much is a good start.
- vaishaksuresh 9y ago>water should be a human right to humans who need it for living, but not for gardening or washing a car Isn't water already a managed resource? People pay for the water they use to garden or wash cars right? Sure it is the same amount irrespective of what you use the water for, but it is still not free right?
- bufordsharkley 9y agoThis is absolutely true in the general sense, but is negated by the rents being given to those who own water rights due to prior appropriation. In the absence of a payment for these water rights (analogous to the payment we pay for spectrum rights on radio frequencies), there is going to be a misallocation of water and waste. An essay about the issue: https://www.progress.org/articles/water-creates-rent https://www.progress.org/articles/water-creates-rent
- samstave 9y agoThere are a range of other factors. My family owns a water company in Lake Tahoe. We are precluded from bottling or otherwise selling our water by the PUD to anyone other than the homes for which our water serves. The bullshit factr in this is that PUDs (public utility districts) have made deals with companies like Nestle to allow them to slurp up thousands of litres per penny from wells/springs/aquifers and then sell that water for thousands % more than they pay... Yet they limit small water companies who own their full infra and prevent them from going after market value for their water. So as a small family water company, fuck nestle. I find your argument BS from the front lines of regulations that favor mega-corps and fuck over small companies. We have been trying to get our Tahoe water bottled for decades - but it takes big money. And our water comes from a natural spring, not from the lake - and should not be regulated the way it is.
- jieiieifnfj88 9y agoI agree with his position Still don't want him or the company he manages anywhere near any of it
- gldalmaso 9y agoWater can be treated as a market asset and companies will pump as much as they can depleting the supply for everyone else in the region (this is already the case some places). In order for it to work out there needs to be a ton of regulations in that market, but once the market is set, they will just lobby it for decades until regulations are essentially gone. People like the CEO say that it should have market value, because they are the ones that can only see value in markets. The rest of the world does not need to but a price tag in something to see value in it. Also, habitats all around include millions of plants and animals without a dime to spend, a water market will see no value in catering to them, we should just trust these companies with abysmal track record to ensure habitats are maintained?