The Solution to California's Drought: A Free Market in Water

How government created an artificial shortage of our most essential resource.

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The Solution to California's Drought: A Free Market in Water

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"If you're going to be serious about using markets to allocate water, the first thing you have to do is let the market determine the price," says Reed Watson, the executive director at the Property and Environment Research Center, or PERC, a nonprofit think tank based in Bozeman, Montana.

If California wants to ease the effects of its drought, Watson says, government should get out of the way and leave resource allocation to the market. "You have to have markets that actually work, that allow competing users to resolve their competition amicably and efficiently."

About six minutes.

Written and produced by Alex Manning. Camera by Paul Detrick.

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Comments

[Playa Manhattan.]

Jerry Brown can drink the water in that ditch.

[SoCal Deathmarch]

Well, he has already drove the California economy into it, so he might as well relax and drink up!

[Playa Manhattan.]

Of course there isn't going to be market allocation of water. Then it can't be used as a political tool.

[Private Chipperbot]

Was just going to say as soon as he said market, he lost California...

[Tonio]

"The Thirst Games"

[JFree]

There isn't going to be 'pure' market allocation of water because water is not produced from 'scratch' like some manufacturing product. In the West in particular, the water comes from the land (not even the rainfall) - and land ownership is ALWAYS political.

[Ted S.]

Nuking California from orbit would be a simpler solution.

Barring that, we could feed the state into a woodchipper.

[Citizen X]

I heard that hydraulic fracturing causes earthquakes. A few wildcat fracking operations right along the San Andreas Fault could solve a lot of problems.

[Thymirus]

"We're a coastal state, so our citizens have all the water they need right here on the beach!"

[Playa Manhattan.]

Mmmm.... Salt.

[Thymirus]

http://tinyurl.com/zfm3qwf

So, you've got a thing for Angie, do you?

[Jordan]

Nah, he has a thing for Cheryl James.

[Playa Manhattan.]

Spinderella or GTFO

[Bra Ket]

He clearly means the swedish band from the 90's.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPm6f6Leq9s

[SugarFree]

"Reason never runs articles about economics! Waa!"

[Warty]

THEM WHUTS LETS IN MEXICNS USED UP ALL THE WATER OPEN BORDERS FAGS

[SugarFree]

DEM ALL THRISTY RAPISTS!

[Hugh Akston]

Oh look, another REASON article about the California water shortage! You'll notice REASON is strangely silent about the water in the bathroom where Hillary's email server was. I wonder why they haven't published an article about the water crisis in Benghazi when Hillary let those people die? And where was the REASON article about all the water Hillary was retaining when she was lying to Congress? Why is REASON so obsessed with water? I hate it when people are obsessed!

[SugarFree]

fake libertarian!

[Jordan]

Why does Reason approve of vandalism?!

[Lee G]

Fine. Be that way.

May your armpits be infested with the fleas of a thousand Marcottes.

[Playa Manhattan.]

Speaking of water shaming, check out this ad for the LA Times that keeps showing up in my Facebook feed.

I can't even begin to describe how wrong it is.

[Square = Circle]

Don't suspect your neighbor - report him!

[John]

There is nothing wrong with letting the market price water. There is,however, more to what is going on in California than the market not setting prices. California depends on runoff and its periodic monsoons for drinking water. You can't do that if you can't build reservoirs and dams to catch the water or if once you do you have to let it go down stream to save bait fish.

Fixing the allocation problem only does limited good if you don't fix the supply problem. You want to let the free market price water? Great. But then let the free market also set the supply of water. Tell the environmentalists to go get bent and let private companies build dams and reservoirs to supply water. And start putting people and civilization ahead the demands of bait fish.

It is nice to talk about the need to properly price water. But to talk about California's water problem without mentioning what hte greens are doing to choke off the supply is a bit disingenuous.

[Square = Circle]

you have to let it go down stream to save bait fish.

Not bait fish - Delta Smelt, which the salmon feed on. And we do have a salmon industry in CA. Or had. Which is so much as to say "the demands of bait fish" = "people and civilization." Not distinct things.

But in general, besides getting distracted on the Hannity "two-inch fish" thing, your point is a good one - supply is part of the problem in CA, and the refusal of the state's population to approve new dams is a big part of that - it is not just the refusal to let market forces operate on the demand side.

[John]

I know the salmon feed on them. But the salmon feed on more than just smelt and the smelts somehow survived before the courts ordered the flow rates through the roof.

Beyond that, maybe California isn't the best place for a salmon industry?

[Square = Circle]

the courts ordered the flow rates through the roof

More specifically, the courts ordered the flow rates to be raised to the level mandated by the charter issued for the Stockton Pumps, which have been operating in violation of that charter since they were put into service.

maybe California isn't the best place for a salmon industry?

Maybe not, but let's start by having everyone live up to the agreements they made, and acknowledge that the Delta Smelt issue was raised by the salmon industry, not environmentalists. The greens are simply useful idiots in this situation, not the drivers.

[John]

Fair enough. And I would be okay with that but I think you have to make exceptions when there is a drought. I mean droughts happen in the natural world and the flows go to nothing or close to in even large rivers.

When you are running out of drinking water, the agreement needs to be altered at least until the drought is over. But that is the kind of reasonable things that environmental laws do not allow.

[Square = Circle]

When you are running out of drinking water, the agreement needs to be altered at least until the drought is over.

Yes - the greens seemed to be under the impression that during a 100-year drought, the Delta should just remain flush and undamaged while the rest of the state withers and burns.

A lot of modern environmentalists are completely ignorant about ecology.

[Playa Manhattan.]

So far, 16 trillion gallons of fresh water have flowed into the bay unused because of that court order.

Know how many smelt that has saved? I'm afraid I have some bad news.

[Thymirus]

"If it saves just one fish..."

[Playa Manhattan.]

It saved three times as many fish as that.

[Square = Circle]

Know how many smelt that has saved? I'm afraid I have some bad news.

Are you suggesting that humans may have limitations that prevent them from being able to accurately engineer the natural environment?

You are no humanist, sir!

[Thymirus]

Modern environmentalists tend to be witless, irritating assholes whose constant claptrap yields nothing but harm. They inflict damage upon human civilization whenever they interpose themselves between parties in any given situation.

[BYODB]

California has been meddling in their water reserves since California was California. Retards have a difficult time remembering that much of the state is, in fact, a desert?

I read an article bemoaning the water crisis in California that used a small town where children as old as 6 had never seen rain! I look up the town, and what do I find on the map? It's right on the edge of the Mojave. Surprise, surprise.

It's odd how the people of California seem to believe that the government can solve any problem, yet it hasn't managed to solve this one problem in over a hundred years. Go figure.

[Square = Circle]

I read an article bemoaning the water crisis in California that used a small town where children as old as 6 had never seen rain! I look up the town, and what do I find on the map? It's right on the edge of the Mojave. Surprise, surprise.

Actual Californians are unsurprised by this. The New Yorkers and Midwesterners who outnumber us are continually surprised by it.

I strongly doubt the people of Mojave CA are in any way surprised or shocked by the consistent lack of rainfall in their area. I also strongly doubt that the journalist who wrote that article is a native Californian, or even lives in California.

I'll also bet there are 6-year-olds in MA who've never seen a rattlesnake.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Having lived in the Mojave, it would be extremely unusual to have not seen rain in 6 years. What you usually see is a very short rainy season in Jan-Mar timeframe that greens up the desert for a month or two, and maybe one summer gully-washer in Jun/Jul (this is usually like 15 minutes of biblical rain, where evidence of the rain is gone in an hour).

[Square = Circle]

I exaggerate to make the point that the people living in Mojave are not as dumb as this article makes them out to be.

Given the recent multi-year drought, I'm not at all surprised that a 6-year old in Mojave has no memories of rain, but yes - it's not as if it never ever rains there.

By the same token, if you asked my 8-year old prior to this last winter if she had ever seen snow, she would say "no" even though she did, technically, see snow when she was 3.

[Hooha]

Biblical, indeed. Used to date a girl who lived in Lancaster, CA (Joshua "Trees" and sand abound)

I've never seen streets turn into rivers the way they did when it rained in that town. That's not hyperbole, either; you could have rafted down them comfortably. Perhaps even a small sailing skiff with a shallow keel would have been able to safely navigate Lancaster's traffic grid during those violent downpours. It was honestly terrifying.

[BYODB]

There's no true Californian?

I do get what you're saying, but the more pertinent issue is that the state of California has a long and storied history of water shortage, dam's, and ill-advised scheme's to 'solve' this problem and to date all of those attempts haven't seemed to do much to alleviate the problem. Not all of those scheme's were by the government, of course, but these days I doubt anyone except the Government is even allowed to try.

Also, it should be noted that even the free market can't make it consistently rain in the desert and at a certain point it just isn't cost effective for a major metropolitan area to import all of it's water for several million people.

[Free Market Socialist $park?]

YOU LIVE IN A FUCKING DESERT! GO WHERE THE FOOD IS!
You see this? It's sand. You know what it's gonna be in a hundred years? IT'S GONNA BE FUCKING SAND!

/Sam Kinnison

[commodious spittoon]

The feminist faction in Fury Road was so insultingly stupid, I'm shocked feminists didn't boycott the film.

[Leslie Wilson]

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[commodious spittoon]

I have a solution that should satisfy everyone. Cheaper energy, abundant water, no carbon emissions, and no need to drain aquifers or threaten fish species. Surely environmentalists will jump on the opportunity, right?

[Francisco d'Anconia]

Why risk certain annihilation when you can simply conserve your way out of the problem?

[SusanM]

OT: This is all well and good, but in more important news, some people noticed that Calvin Klein ads tend to be a tad on the racy side...

http://www.nydailynews.com/lif.....ign=buffer

Calvin Klein just went from risqu? to offensive.

The company posted a picture to Instagram on Tuesday that showed an upskirt shot of 22-year-old model Klara Kristen's dotted Calvin Klein underwear.

Over the picture are the words "I flash in #mycalvins" and the caption of the photo reads, "Take a peek?"

The ad is part of a larger campaign where models insert their own words into the "I _____ in #mycalvins" phrase.

[John]

I don't get the outrage. She is wearing underwear. You can't see anymore in that ad than you can in a swimsuit ad.

[commodious spittoon]

She sullied the reputation of one of our most venerable and staid institutions, Calvin Klein.

[tarran]

I don't get the outrage. She is wearing underwear. You can't see anymore in that ad than you can in a swimsuit ad.

And my guess is that you are OK with this bit of child pornography, aren't you Mr NAMGLA pervert!!

[commodious spittoon]

If furiously masturbating to Blue Lagoon is wrong, I don't want to be right.

[Thymirus]

Yeah, but because there's a vagina beneath the underwear, it's outrageous. Vaginas scare people.

[Hamster of Doom]

It's the teeth.

Wiser men than us have referred to it thusly.

[Thymirus]

I save seen the heart of evil.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Sarlacc

[SusanM]

I think that long ago CK just decided to troll people in order to get the free publicity that comes along with the outrage. It's inexplicable and pretty silly, but if it's going to be there anyway, why not roll with it?

[tarran]

So, they're the Trump of underwear makers?

[SusanM]

Well, there's nothing YUUGE!! about CK, but otherwise they're a good match.

[DJF]

I would think that people would be more outraged over the first photo with the line of expressionless robotic looking models. They are soulless and creepy looking.

[Hamster of Doom]

Lifeless eyes... black eyes, like a doll's eyes. When they comes at ya, doesn't seem to be livin'. Until they bites ya and those black eyes roll over white. And then, ah... then you hear that terrible high pitch screamin'...

[Francisco d'Anconia]

Farewell and adieu...

[Hamster of Doom]

This is hitting the news.

Vanity pub, so who knows whether it's a scandal or a Scandal. We shall see.

Ostensibly excerpts:

"We've become a superficial nation obsessed with fluff. Americans may be hard-pressed to name their two senators or find Afghanistan on a map, but they know everything about the loopy Kardashians and Brad and what's-her-name. I worry about our country's future when critical issues take a backseat to the inane utterings of illiterate athletes and celebrity twits."
? Congressman X, The Confessions of Congressman X

[Thymirus]

This obviously doesn't apply to Obama, who's exceptional in his immunity to such base temptations.

/Slurp.

[commodious spittoon]

There's nothing wrong with ignorance of politics or the political process. As shown by the current presidential race, it's just about as substance-free as reality TV.

Encouraging the ignorant to show up to vote, now... that's wrong.

[ant1sthenes]

Please let it be Senator Stuart Smalley writing that bitch about celebrities.

[Free Market Socialist $park?]

Yes, clearly that story has to have been written by an actual congressman. There's no way it could be otherwise.

I guess the fact that people will believe it proves the point at least.

[Bill Dalasio]

There's nothing in the comment I find specifically wrong. Of course, I'd suggest the biggest problem is that all of those people are told its their civic duty to vote. There's nothing wrong with a degree of rational ignorance about politics. By and large, most people's lives aren't (and shouldn't be) hugely effected by it. But, encouraging people to vote when they don't know what the hell they're talking about is something I'm willing to guess Congressman X isn't going to be much opposed to.

[Square = Circle]

Brad and what's-her-name

Janet. Her name is Janet. Sheesh.

[See Double You]

[T]he Property and Environment Research Center, or PERC, a nonprofit think tank based in Bozeman, Montana

MONTANA REPRESENT!

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