6 ms·

More things traded means more information and better prices. Runaway prices can function as a clear signal that there are problems in the water supply that need

More things traded means more information and better prices. Runaway prices can function as a clear signal that there are problems in the water supply that need to be addressed. On the other hand, a stable market will be an indication that the infrastructure works, and prices will reflect that trade-off between speculators and market participants bearing risk, versus commercial users hedging to get stable future costs. Markets are a wonderful creation and should be welcomed.

logicchains 6y ago
>Markets are a wonderful creation and should be welcomed. No, markets are evil, because my left-leaning university professors told me they are, and having a high-paying tech jobs makes me an expert at things I know nothing about.
jacobwilliamroy 6y ago
I just wish people would actually put effort into achieving these side effects instead of just alleging that they will emerge naturally out of the behavior of a bunch of random people betting on water scarcity. I am extremely skeptical the market will do all these extra things you claim it will do.
- logicchains 6y ago
  >I am extremely skeptical the market will do all these extra things you claim it will do. Why are you so sceptical it won't do those things for water when it's done those things for other commodities? Ask a large scale farmer how worse off they'd be if they couldn't hedge their harvest risks with futures.
  - jacobwilliamroy 6y ago
    Because those other commodities are not water and Americans have a very bad habit of using cherry-picked anecdotes to justify poor management and decision-making. Just stop pretending like you give a shit about anything other than money. I'm sick of being gaslit by people like you. Talk about prices. Play your money games. But please stop pretending like you actually know anything about the real world, just because you play with money all day.
    - xondono 6y ago
      Actually there's a pretty nice natural experiment in the US, because of the Onions Futures Act. There are several studies and some division between the experts on the details, but there's a strong case to be made for futures contracts reducing the volatility in these markets. One thing that people don't tend to realize is that speculation happens anyway, it's just not made in a public manner and through other types of contracts. In fact, if futures do reduce volatility then they reduce speculation, since it's volatility what drives speculation profits.
      - jacobwilliamroy 6y ago
        Water is not onions. Bechtel managed to acquire control over water rights in Cochabamba, Bolivia in 1999. They started charging a licensing fee just to collect rainwater. Within a year there were hundreds of thousands out on the streets demonstrating, as the speculation didn't actually fix the water scarcity in the city. It just made it worse, with over half the population lacking access to fresh water. Water is not onions. You cannot just talk about onions and pretend like you've said anything substantial about water futures.
        xondono 6y ago
        What you are talking has nothing to do with a futures market, in fact is exactly the opposite, since what you are talking is a monopoly on water. By the way, the reason the US has a prohibition for onion futures is that someone did actually corner the market for onions. Off course that would be very hard to reproduce nowadays.
    - efdee 6y ago
      People trying to explain to you why you are wrong is not the same as people gaslighting you. Your judgment seems to be heavily influenced by how you feel about people partaking in the stock market. When you're done with the ad hominems, try reading and understanding what people are saying.
      - 6y ago
- mikaeluman 6y ago
  Modern financial markets are extremely complicated. Not because all parts of the subject are complicated, but more of a result of a layer-upon-layer-upon-layer effect mixed with jargon. Anyway, regarding this contract. What happens if a bunch of random people bet on water scarcity? Well, if there is no water scarcity they will simply lose all their money. If there is water scarcity, however, this will be a clear signal of trouble ahead several weeks (or even months) before the scarcity becomes a real problem for real people. Yes, these greedy speculators will earn a lot of money (from people hedging and from other speculators); but it will not be because of losses of ordinary people using water on a day-to-day basis. Those people, if water scarcity sets in, will have to ask their supplier (the state I suppose? or are there private companies in CA?) why this is happening and solve the problem.
  - jacobwilliamroy 6y ago
    You offer no guarantees. I'm sick of gambling and I don't trust you. I don't care about gambling. I just want to conserve water and distribute it efficiently. That's what I care about. I don't need to be tied up in the stock market in order to do that. Just shut your dumb mouth and go read about what Bechtel did to Bolivia. That's what happens when you start screwing around with water and treating it like it's some stupid useless commodity like onions. You know nothing about the real world clearly. Real life rarely lines up with these abstract economic simulations you read in your textbooks. You're like a Christian, conflating scripture with facts. Put down your finance textbook and maybe take a look out in the real world. And stop gaslighting everyone. You have no idea how much that pisses me off. If I could reach through this screen, grab your shoulders and shake you I would.
    - marshray 6y ago
      In the real world, farmers and consumers have been using standardized forward contracts to stabilize prices for eggs, butter, wheat, and corn since 1864.
karol 6y ago
You are kindly ignoring speculation. What you presented is an efficient market hypothesis, however markets are not efficient. They invite speculation bubbles and they do crash.
- chii 6y ago
  The market crashing over speculation is not going to harm the consumers of said commodity. Speculation is a tool to smooth out the price for the people who _don't_ want the risk, and offload it to those who _do_ want the risk!
  - kace91 6y ago
    Honest question, from an economically ignorant perspective: If people hold houses to speculate with the price of real state, that makes the price I pay for the necessity of a place to live way more expensive than it would be otherwise (this is something I empirically know to be true). Why doesn't the same logic apply to water once it's possible to speculate with it?
    - mikaeluman 6y ago
      To your example. During the US housing price bubble (so called) that deflated 08; it was generally much cheaper to rent. So a user did not necessarily have to buy a house. And when you purchase real estate far beyond what is needed, then obviously you will have to rent because you can't occupy it all by yourself. The true price of living hasn't changed just because people are overvaluing real estate. Consider water. Say a speculator drives the price way up in the sky to the extent that ordinary people are affected. What will said speculator do with these contracts? Either she will sell them (and the price rebounds), or she will be stuck with tons of water which is burdensome and incurs costs to store. So clearly she will want to sell this water and at that point be subject to the market demand for it. In other words, undue speculation drives you out of business. Now, regarding this future contract it is financially settled based on the actual index value of what water costs. So it's not capable of being driven by silly speculation at all.
    - 6y ago
Krasnol 6y ago
The fact that it's 2020 and this comment is not buried in downvotes is what makes those times really scary.

logicchains 6y ago

>Markets are a wonderful creation and should be welcomed. No, markets are evil, because my left-leaning university professors told me they are, and having a high-paying tech jobs makes me an expert at things I know nothing about.

jacobwilliamroy 6y ago

I just wish people would actually put effort into achieving these side effects instead of just alleging that they will emerge naturally out of the behavior of a bunch of random people betting on water scarcity. I am extremely skeptical the market will do all these extra things you claim it will do.

logicchains 6y ago
>I am extremely skeptical the market will do all these extra things you claim it will do. Why are you so sceptical it won't do those things for water when it's done those things for other commodities? Ask a large scale farmer how worse off they'd be if they couldn't hedge their harvest risks with futures.
- jacobwilliamroy 6y ago
  Because those other commodities are not water and Americans have a very bad habit of using cherry-picked anecdotes to justify poor management and decision-making. Just stop pretending like you give a shit about anything other than money. I'm sick of being gaslit by people like you. Talk about prices. Play your money games. But please stop pretending like you actually know anything about the real world, just because you play with money all day.
  - xondono 6y ago
    Actually there's a pretty nice natural experiment in the US, because of the Onions Futures Act. There are several studies and some division between the experts on the details, but there's a strong case to be made for futures contracts reducing the volatility in these markets. One thing that people don't tend to realize is that speculation happens anyway, it's just not made in a public manner and through other types of contracts. In fact, if futures do reduce volatility then they reduce speculation, since it's volatility what drives speculation profits.
    - jacobwilliamroy 6y ago
      Water is not onions. Bechtel managed to acquire control over water rights in Cochabamba, Bolivia in 1999. They started charging a licensing fee just to collect rainwater. Within a year there were hundreds of thousands out on the streets demonstrating, as the speculation didn't actually fix the water scarcity in the city. It just made it worse, with over half the population lacking access to fresh water. Water is not onions. You cannot just talk about onions and pretend like you've said anything substantial about water futures.
      - xondono 6y ago
        What you are talking has nothing to do with a futures market, in fact is exactly the opposite, since what you are talking is a monopoly on water. By the way, the reason the US has a prohibition for onion futures is that someone did actually corner the market for onions. Off course that would be very hard to reproduce nowadays.
  - efdee 6y ago
    People trying to explain to you why you are wrong is not the same as people gaslighting you. Your judgment seems to be heavily influenced by how you feel about people partaking in the stock market. When you're done with the ad hominems, try reading and understanding what people are saying.
    - 6y ago
mikaeluman 6y ago
Modern financial markets are extremely complicated. Not because all parts of the subject are complicated, but more of a result of a layer-upon-layer-upon-layer effect mixed with jargon. Anyway, regarding this contract. What happens if a bunch of random people bet on water scarcity? Well, if there is no water scarcity they will simply lose all their money. If there is water scarcity, however, this will be a clear signal of trouble ahead several weeks (or even months) before the scarcity becomes a real problem for real people. Yes, these greedy speculators will earn a lot of money (from people hedging and from other speculators); but it will not be because of losses of ordinary people using water on a day-to-day basis. Those people, if water scarcity sets in, will have to ask their supplier (the state I suppose? or are there private companies in CA?) why this is happening and solve the problem.
- jacobwilliamroy 6y ago
  You offer no guarantees. I'm sick of gambling and I don't trust you. I don't care about gambling. I just want to conserve water and distribute it efficiently. That's what I care about. I don't need to be tied up in the stock market in order to do that. Just shut your dumb mouth and go read about what Bechtel did to Bolivia. That's what happens when you start screwing around with water and treating it like it's some stupid useless commodity like onions. You know nothing about the real world clearly. Real life rarely lines up with these abstract economic simulations you read in your textbooks. You're like a Christian, conflating scripture with facts. Put down your finance textbook and maybe take a look out in the real world. And stop gaslighting everyone. You have no idea how much that pisses me off. If I could reach through this screen, grab your shoulders and shake you I would.
  - marshray 6y ago
    In the real world, farmers and consumers have been using standardized forward contracts to stabilize prices for eggs, butter, wheat, and corn since 1864.

karol 6y ago

You are kindly ignoring speculation. What you presented is an efficient market hypothesis, however markets are not efficient. They invite speculation bubbles and they do crash.

chii 6y ago
The market crashing over speculation is not going to harm the consumers of said commodity. Speculation is a tool to smooth out the price for the people who _don't_ want the risk, and offload it to those who _do_ want the risk!
- kace91 6y ago
  Honest question, from an economically ignorant perspective: If people hold houses to speculate with the price of real state, that makes the price I pay for the necessity of a place to live way more expensive than it would be otherwise (this is something I empirically know to be true). Why doesn't the same logic apply to water once it's possible to speculate with it?
  - mikaeluman 6y ago
    To your example. During the US housing price bubble (so called) that deflated 08; it was generally much cheaper to rent. So a user did not necessarily have to buy a house. And when you purchase real estate far beyond what is needed, then obviously you will have to rent because you can't occupy it all by yourself. The true price of living hasn't changed just because people are overvaluing real estate. Consider water. Say a speculator drives the price way up in the sky to the extent that ordinary people are affected. What will said speculator do with these contracts? Either she will sell them (and the price rebounds), or she will be stuck with tons of water which is burdensome and incurs costs to store. So clearly she will want to sell this water and at that point be subject to the market demand for it. In other words, undue speculation drives you out of business. Now, regarding this future contract it is financially settled based on the actual index value of what water costs. So it's not capable of being driven by silly speculation at all.
  - 6y ago

Krasnol 6y ago

The fact that it's 2020 and this comment is not buried in downvotes is what makes those times really scary.