I copied my post on Water on American Samizdat and fellow harbinger Bob Morris, from Politics in the Zeros, responded with more links and a whole page, at his site, on this issue, with many links.

Water Privatization

"Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting over", Mark Twain

"The wars of the next century will be about water", The World Bank, 1999

Background
Some countries already have water shortages. Increases in their populations will only heighten the shortages. To make things worse, the fine minds who brought you Enron and deregulation now want to bring you water privatization. Let the magic of the marketplace have a free hand in buying and selling water, then prices will drop and all will be well! However, as Enron has shown us, the efficiencies of the private market are a mirage, as well as being open to corruption.

A well-managed public water utility has major advantages over a private company, as funding and bonds are available at lower interest rates, no taxes have to be paid nor any return given to shareholders, and executives do not receive outlandish salaries. Most important of all, there is no profit motive that could overrule providing clean safe water to all.

We will focus on water privatization in general, with a special interest in the California water wars.
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