You’ve got to be careful about the term private water. Mrs BC and I are hooked to a private water system. Yeah, our tap water is supplied by a private company. I don’t like it, but I do get to aggravate them every quarter by requesting (and because I’m a customer they have to provide) the latest set of lab test results on all their wells.

They really are not one-trial learners. Every three or four months I go in and ask for a copy of the report. And every time I go in and ask for it, they ask, “Why do you want it?”

Private take-overs of municipal water supplies are a growing problem. In cases outside the US, private takeovers have resulted in price increases, reduced service and degraded water quality.

Sounds like US health care, doesn’t it?

The US Military is planning for resource wars to go on for the next 30-40 years. Water is a resource that should not be privatized because no life exists without it. It should be a basic human right everywhere on earth.
********
“How wonderful…grab yourself a copy of the 2008 Army Modernization Strategy, and prepare to feel all safe and snugly, knowing that the US Military will soon have everything under control…

“A key current threat is a radical, ideology-based, long-term terrorist threat bent on using any means available – to include weapons of mass destruction – to achieve its political and ideological ends.” …. The document, however, contains no such lofty pretences. It goes on to list as a pre-eminent threat to the security of the US and its allies “population growth – especially in less-developed countries – [which] will expose a resulting ‘youth bulge’.” This youth bulge, the document goes on to state, will present the US with further “resource competition” in that these expanding populations in the developing world “will consume ever increasing amounts of food, water and energy”. The document goes on to describe in broad-strokes the manner in which its downsized military might ensure survival of the fittest for the US and its allies in future resource wars for water, food and energy. As a consequence of identifying growing populations in the developed world as a threat in itself. “

http://www.the-gates-of-hell.c…..urce-wars/
http://www.army.mil/institutio…..index.html (link to 90 page PDF)

Private take-overs of municipal water supplies are a growing problem. In cases outside the US, private takeovers have resulted in price increases, reduced service and degraded water quality.

Thirty years ago, I heard of such a case in the Sacramento area.

Be that as it may, however, Perris makes an excellent point.

earlofhuntington has as post up right below this one concerning supporting your local library

which reminided me of another “commons”

library’s are free yet people buy books

there will be no problem what so ever for private industry to compete, they will give services not offered on the public plan, things like home and office checkups and visists, things like a workout facility to help keep maintain your health, things like alternative treatments that are now considered out of pocket

it is really bizarre that people want to make the case;

“private industry can’t compete with the government” when they do it all the time

it is really bizarre that people want to make the case;

“private industry can’t compete with the government” when they do it all the time

If Ronald Reagan were alive today, he’d turn over in his grave. He always insisted that the public could never compete with the private sector, because they don’t have the profit motive driving them. I still remember his exhorting that we must “Unleash the miracle of free enterprise.”

There have been riots over corporate control of water in some countries. People used to cheap public utilities are not wary about a resource being wasted and polluted. Just yesterday submissions closed on a new energy act insufficient to keep mining companies from strip mining mountaintops for coal and polluting waterways. An $8o million industry campaign to promote ‘clean coal’ is being counted on to brainwash the sheeple.
Water is an immediate ‘necessity of life’ : no waiting. Corporate farming going t/u in an economic collapse and seed stocks being destroyed in a scam to change farming to a base requiring annual seed purchases – another monopoly – doesn’t seem to have caught public attention any more than groundwater pollution by huge industrial feedlots have. Drought, anyone ?
Look up ‘Hydraulic Despotism’ on Wikpedia.
Do you know how to spell ’slavery’ ?
Then check Current TV and look for posts by JanforGore.
If you run out of materials, I have a section of links called ‘Water-Wealth and Power’ at Opit’s LinkFest! http://my.opera.com/oldephartte/links/
I’m moving to Blogger because my summary ‘End of an Era’ is returning 404 Not Found. That’s o.k. There’s lots to catch your attention despite that.

Where do I get free water? Illinois American Water is seeking a 33%+ increase and I already pay more than $30/month in a four person single family dwelling not to mention the $20 per month to carry it away.

Free schools? I pay property taxes and state income taxes (going up 50% here in Illinois) to keep them running.

Okay there are some parks I don’t have to pay to enter, but I’m pretty sure those are supported by my federal and state taxes. So, what’s free except the air corporations are free to pollute?

;-)

using your reasoning you have to pay for parks just as you have to pay for public schools

the point is, when we pay as a whole for “the commons” it costs far less then when we pay the profit model of private enterprise

FAR less