by Mike Mueller

Created on: May 06, 2009   Last Updated: May 11, 2009

It could be an alarming situation if water pricing were to strictly follow the free market law of supply and demand. Water is the essential necessity of life. The law of supply and demand in the free markets dictates that while some will enjoy surpluses of a commodity, others will suffer scarcities. There will always be those who can drive big fuel guzzlers and increase the demand for gasoline to such an extent that those with fuel efficient economy cars have trouble filling their tanks simply because they have less money than those who are increasing the demand. This would be a real concern for the general population in a society where there is such a huge income disparity between CEO's and the middle class. A situation could evolve where the ultra wealthy, fueled by taxpayer funded government bailouts, erect for themselves vast decorative fountains for their amusement, while the workers who toil in their mills can barely afford to flush their toilets.

Since the system of wealth compensation in US society is not based on merit, or laws of supply and demand in the field of talent, and since the public are made to subsidize mediocrity under the open barrels of armed IRS agents and a judicial system that has the power to extinguish all dissent by sending the plebes into the US prison system where they shall surely be anally raped by violent convicts while private contractors hired to run those facilities look the other way, it is almost guaranteed that any attempt to impose so called free market pricing of water will only result in an unfair redistribution the water in which rich people will waste water and the rest will die.

Water shortages, such as the one in California, are often not caused by an actual draught. California declares a draught whenever there is not a higher than average rainfall. In the historic and geologic past there were many periods lasting for decades where average annual rainfall was lower than current levels. California is a good case example of how it probably is in many other areas. California experiences water shortages, to be sure, but not because there is a natural draught. The water shortages there are human induced, the place is overdeveloped and overpopulated, management of the resource is poor and politically motivated, the reservoirs run low, and cuts have to be made.

It's better to ration water when there is a shortage rather than increase the price. Increasing the price will just impose hardships on some and whatever amount

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