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How someone clearly intelligent enough to design parts at Boeing can parrot statements like that does my head in. I'm not an economist at all, but I have at lea

How someone clearly intelligent enough to design parts at Boeing can parrot statements like that does my head in. I'm not an economist at all, but I have at least a passing familiarity with elasticity of demand (which is pretty damn low for water, given it's a basic biological need with zero satisfactory substitutes, and that the excess use of brings little immediate gratification). If you want to claim higher prices for water guarantee that free enterprise will always invest what's necessary to ensure its availability I'd like to see the evidence for it.

nickpp 4y ago
The fact that you are so nonchalantly dismissing the statement of someone like Walter should make you take a long hard look at yourself, your beliefs and your though processes. Water usage is just as elastic as any other consumption behavior. Heck, I halved mine this year by simply selectively letting parts of my yard dry up in this hot summer. And enterprises can pass increased prices on to the final product.
- wizofaus 4y ago
  No, it's simply not - most items we consume are not biological needs and do have reasonable substitutes. Obviously there's scope for many of us to reduce our water usage, and I don't doubt increasing the price is one way of achieving that. But if you want to claim that a free market for water will guarantee there's always sufficient supply for a given population, then it's fair to ask for evidence.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    Some years ago, there was a drought in Seattle. The government instituted a lawn watering ban to cope with it. Some rich people didn't want their lawns to go brown, so an entrepreneur rented some tanker trucks, filled them up outside the region, drove back to Seattle, and watered their lawns. This caused a hue and cry about how unfair this was, and another ordinance was passed to make it illegal to truck water in. However, it is exactly what you asked for - an example of the free market delivering when the price is high enough. As for biological needs, I recommend reading "Empire of the Summer Moon" about how the Comanche were able able to survive in the desert. This included killing their horses and drinking the contents of their stomachs as an example of how far they would go to get water. Besides, biological drinking water is only a tiny, tiny fraction of human water consumption. Another example, when there are natural disasters, entrepreneurs would truck in bottled water and gasoline and sell it (until the government put a stop to that, too).

nickpp 4y ago

The fact that you are so nonchalantly dismissing the statement of someone like Walter should make you take a long hard look at yourself, your beliefs and your though processes. Water usage is just as elastic as any other consumption behavior. Heck, I halved mine this year by simply selectively letting parts of my yard dry up in this hot summer. And enterprises can pass increased prices on to the final product.

wizofaus 4y ago
No, it's simply not - most items we consume are not biological needs and do have reasonable substitutes. Obviously there's scope for many of us to reduce our water usage, and I don't doubt increasing the price is one way of achieving that. But if you want to claim that a free market for water will guarantee there's always sufficient supply for a given population, then it's fair to ask for evidence.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  Some years ago, there was a drought in Seattle. The government instituted a lawn watering ban to cope with it. Some rich people didn't want their lawns to go brown, so an entrepreneur rented some tanker trucks, filled them up outside the region, drove back to Seattle, and watered their lawns. This caused a hue and cry about how unfair this was, and another ordinance was passed to make it illegal to truck water in. However, it is exactly what you asked for - an example of the free market delivering when the price is high enough. As for biological needs, I recommend reading "Empire of the Summer Moon" about how the Comanche were able able to survive in the desert. This included killing their horses and drinking the contents of their stomachs as an example of how far they would go to get water. Besides, biological drinking water is only a tiny, tiny fraction of human water consumption. Another example, when there are natural disasters, entrepreneurs would truck in bottled water and gasoline and sell it (until the government put a stop to that, too).