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I remember hearing about Michael Burry [1] also looking into aquifers and future water shortages. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Burry https://en.wi

by tdons 6y ago

I remember hearing about Michael Burry [1] also looking into aquifers and future water shortages. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Burry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Burry > Burry has focused much of his attention on investing in water, gold, and farm land. Burry has been quoted saying "Fresh, clean water cannot be taken for granted. And it is not—water is political, and litigious."[20] At the end of the 2015 biographical dramedy film The Big Short, a statement regarding Burry's current interest reads, "The small investing he still does is all focused on one commodity: water."[20]

jansan 6y ago
Michael Burry is one of the people I like listening to, just like Peter Thiel. He always has interesting ideas.
- jeffreyrogers 6y ago
  Careful, you're not allowed to praise Thiel too heavily on HN :) I'll have to look into Burry some more. He sounds interesting.
tsimionescu 6y ago
Reminds me of a famous video[0] of the CEO of Nestle explaining that there exists an "extreme position" that water is human right that everyone should have access to. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR_KXZZc13U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR_KXZZc13U
- yodelshady 6y ago
  How much water is a human right? We know what happens if you don't set a per-person limit to, at least, how much is free. But that's rationing (?) and evil, apparently. I'm not entirely sure of the terminology, and I suspect there's a deliberate effort to ensure the idea of both government and free market supplies in tandem stays out of popular consciousness. See "death panels" for healthcare... if you can't compete with government, perhaps your business just isn't very good. Alternatively, Universal Basic Income. Then, assuming your goal is to ensure people aren't dying due to lacking basics, you've only got one parameter to tune and one to monitor.
- gruez 6y ago
  That sounds outrageous at first, but it makes sense if you think about it. Are there any mainstream political parties in the west that thinks food (arguably as essential as water) should be a human right (ie. the government provides it to anyone who wants it unconditionally)?
  - xyzzy123 6y ago
    Yes. Most welfare states. I cannot find any recent reports of anyone starving to death in New Zealand, for example. It would be national news if it happened and (rightfully) generate a lot of hand-wringing and introspection. Just that the implementation gets complicated and politicised for various reasons. Distributing food nationally is hard (consider cold chain, warehousing, distribution, managing expiry, dietary requirements, demand), so most welfare states distribute money instead and rely on the private sector to provide the infrastructure. Giving people "free money" has it's own problems. It gets political. People moralise. Beneficiaries never have enough, they might not spend on food, and they often have worse food choices available to them. Since the government distribute money and not food directly, they have to add strings to stop people "rorting the system". Those conditions can be a problem. See for example "food grants": https://www.workandincome.govt.nz/eligibility/urgent-costs/food.html https://www.workandincome.govt.nz/eligibility/urgent-costs/f... Food banks and free kitchens have to fill in the gaps where people inevitably fall through the beauracratic cracks in the welfare system. People do go hungry when the system fails. But the public view (multi-partisan) in well-off welfare states is that of course people have a right to live, and access to food is a part of that. It would be political suicide to suggest that anyone should be left to starve.
    - gruez 6y ago
      > Yes. Most welfare states. Is it guaranteed? ie. do you have to be disabled/retired to qualify, or is it open to everyone? >Distributing food nationally is hard (consider cold chain, warehousing, distribution, managing expiry, dietary requirements, demand), so most welfare states distribute money instead and rely on the private sector to provide the infrastructure. But then the food isn't guaranteed, is it? You're only really guaranteed money, which could be converted to food. Consider a hypothetical: let's say a country has a poll tax of $100 per person, then offsets it by giving everyone $100, is it fair to say that you have the right to vote in that country? Feel free to replace "right to vote" with other rights, such as freedom of speech, right to not self-incriminate, protection against unreasonable search and seizure.
- oh_sigh 6y ago
  This just seems like the classic confusion between positive and negative rights. Many people view "rights" as only being negative rights - IE someone else/the government can't do X to you. Any talk of positive rights devolves into slavery, because at some point someone needs to do work to provide you with your positive rights, and what if they just don't want to? That is - if water is a human right, is providing water to people required for that right? Who is on the hook for that? Who pays for the pipes, the drilling, all of the infrastructure and operations to extract and transport it? If the answer is the government, then that is fair enough since it is just really a collective of every member of society mutually providing each other their rights. But is Nestle denying someone their human rights if they don't give them a free glass of water?
itsoktocry 6y ago
So far Mr. Burry has been a one-trick pony. His latest target is Tesla, which is a graveyard for shortsellers. I guess we will see.
- jansan 6y ago
  He is usually right, but tends to be right a bit too early.
  - wittyreference 6y ago
    In anything with a cyclical component, being right "too early" and being wrong are very nearly the same thing, and certainly close enough as to make no difference. Do you have an overview of his trading history that suggests he's "usually right"?
    - hchz 6y ago
      Why would he place a naive bet on Tesla's performance across all factors and not hedge non-idiosyncratic cyclical macro factors? Wikipedia says the guy's made $300M investing, as a notable contrarian - not making his buck from beta. Can you point to an overview of his trading history that suggests he's "not usually right"?

by tdons 6y ago

jansan 6y ago

Michael Burry is one of the people I like listening to, just like Peter Thiel. He always has interesting ideas.

jeffreyrogers 6y ago
Careful, you're not allowed to praise Thiel too heavily on HN :) I'll have to look into Burry some more. He sounds interesting.

tsimionescu 6y ago

Reminds me of a famous video[0] of the CEO of Nestle explaining that there exists an "extreme position" that water is human right that everyone should have access to. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR_KXZZc13U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR_KXZZc13U

yodelshady 6y ago
How much water is a human right? We know what happens if you don't set a per-person limit to, at least, how much is free. But that's rationing (?) and evil, apparently. I'm not entirely sure of the terminology, and I suspect there's a deliberate effort to ensure the idea of both government and free market supplies in tandem stays out of popular consciousness. See "death panels" for healthcare... if you can't compete with government, perhaps your business just isn't very good. Alternatively, Universal Basic Income. Then, assuming your goal is to ensure people aren't dying due to lacking basics, you've only got one parameter to tune and one to monitor.
gruez 6y ago
That sounds outrageous at first, but it makes sense if you think about it. Are there any mainstream political parties in the west that thinks food (arguably as essential as water) should be a human right (ie. the government provides it to anyone who wants it unconditionally)?
- xyzzy123 6y ago
  Yes. Most welfare states. I cannot find any recent reports of anyone starving to death in New Zealand, for example. It would be national news if it happened and (rightfully) generate a lot of hand-wringing and introspection. Just that the implementation gets complicated and politicised for various reasons. Distributing food nationally is hard (consider cold chain, warehousing, distribution, managing expiry, dietary requirements, demand), so most welfare states distribute money instead and rely on the private sector to provide the infrastructure. Giving people "free money" has it's own problems. It gets political. People moralise. Beneficiaries never have enough, they might not spend on food, and they often have worse food choices available to them. Since the government distribute money and not food directly, they have to add strings to stop people "rorting the system". Those conditions can be a problem. See for example "food grants": https://www.workandincome.govt.nz/eligibility/urgent-costs/food.html https://www.workandincome.govt.nz/eligibility/urgent-costs/f... Food banks and free kitchens have to fill in the gaps where people inevitably fall through the beauracratic cracks in the welfare system. People do go hungry when the system fails. But the public view (multi-partisan) in well-off welfare states is that of course people have a right to live, and access to food is a part of that. It would be political suicide to suggest that anyone should be left to starve.
  - gruez 6y ago
    > Yes. Most welfare states. Is it guaranteed? ie. do you have to be disabled/retired to qualify, or is it open to everyone? >Distributing food nationally is hard (consider cold chain, warehousing, distribution, managing expiry, dietary requirements, demand), so most welfare states distribute money instead and rely on the private sector to provide the infrastructure. But then the food isn't guaranteed, is it? You're only really guaranteed money, which could be converted to food. Consider a hypothetical: let's say a country has a poll tax of $100 per person, then offsets it by giving everyone $100, is it fair to say that you have the right to vote in that country? Feel free to replace "right to vote" with other rights, such as freedom of speech, right to not self-incriminate, protection against unreasonable search and seizure.
oh_sigh 6y ago
This just seems like the classic confusion between positive and negative rights. Many people view "rights" as only being negative rights - IE someone else/the government can't do X to you. Any talk of positive rights devolves into slavery, because at some point someone needs to do work to provide you with your positive rights, and what if they just don't want to? That is - if water is a human right, is providing water to people required for that right? Who is on the hook for that? Who pays for the pipes, the drilling, all of the infrastructure and operations to extract and transport it? If the answer is the government, then that is fair enough since it is just really a collective of every member of society mutually providing each other their rights. But is Nestle denying someone their human rights if they don't give them a free glass of water?

itsoktocry 6y ago

So far Mr. Burry has been a one-trick pony. His latest target is Tesla, which is a graveyard for shortsellers. I guess we will see.

jansan 6y ago
He is usually right, but tends to be right a bit too early.
- wittyreference 6y ago
  In anything with a cyclical component, being right "too early" and being wrong are very nearly the same thing, and certainly close enough as to make no difference. Do you have an overview of his trading history that suggests he's "usually right"?
  - hchz 6y ago
    Why would he place a naive bet on Tesla's performance across all factors and not hedge non-idiosyncratic cyclical macro factors? Wikipedia says the guy's made $300M investing, as a notable contrarian - not making his buck from beta. Can you point to an overview of his trading history that suggests he's "not usually right"?