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Comment by charlesdm | Hacker News Reader

Well, that's interesting. Are there companies that own water capacity in countries? Might be a good long term investment.

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Not sure how to interpret this statement..

One part of me is disgusted at someone profiting from bad planning and misery of others, the other thinks that this is something that really needs investing.

I meant this in a positive, not negative way. A for-profit company, if done properly, will be able to introduce the required infrastructure where necessary. It should (theoretically at least) also be run in a better way -- if the infrastructure isn't functioning properly, no profits are being made.

"if done properly", state infrastructure can do this just as well. I'd have a look at the Carillion bankruptcy before claiming that the private sector is a solution.

The problem is that state's aren't really motivated to get things done in a cost efficient manner. If the government in SA is like the US, employees are not rewarded for doing anything beyond the bare minimum to prove that they are still alive. In a private business, the employees have to help the business towards its goal of making money, so all of the incentives are aligned to be successful (employees want promotions and not to get fired, the investors don't want to lose money).

> The problem is that state's aren't really motivated to get things done in a cost efficient manner.

And businesses aren't really motivated to provide cheap water or more than bare-minimum health standards.

There are obvious pros and cons on both sides of that debate.

>And businesses aren't really motivated to provide cheap water or more than bare-minimum health standards.

Neither are governments (see Flint).

Someone will surely try your suggestion at some point, and I hope we don't get to find out what the Enron of water supply looks like.

"Newly discovered tapes have revealed how the energy corporation Enron shut down at least one power plant on false pretences, deliberately aggravating California's crippling 2001 blackouts with the aim of raising prices."

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2005/feb/05/enron.usnew...

This would maybe make sense if there was a competitive market, but, how can you have a competitive market for running water in a single city?

Maybe in the "real world" - its not about money, its about prioritization - and this is South Africa - the tender for water infrastructure would be awarded to a human resources company and money would be squandered on inferior infrastructure. There has simply not been enough priority put on upgrading water supply for the two decades we have known about the ever decreasing dam levels. Its not new - there were other priorities at national level and provincial level - and water problem was shunted, every time as a problem for later. Its not that government/municiplaities were not able to do the work -it was a question of who was paying for it. If a private company wanted to do this the expenditure would have been exorbitant - with very little hope of being remunerated because the income would have remained static - the municipalites would have less budget to maintain the systems and no private company would be able to invest that amount of money and make a profit in any short term.

This is the great strength of capitalism. We might hear about the plot of South African and mourn their descent into dehydration as a dark future that awaits many. Or, the capitalists among us might realize that there is money to be made in providing water, and thereby resources are allocated to providing water, and that dark future is (hopefully) prevented.

Reminds me startlingly of this:

https://youtu.be/Bu2wNKlVRzE?t=4m40s

(recommend this film if you haven't seen it)

Edit: it gets more depressing the more you look...

... https://youtu.be/2sWhvOaavTQ?t=44s M.Burry on his investments (2010)

... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meXnifcAwN8 Morningstar: Why invest in water? (2015)

There is at least one self-sufficient desalination ship for hire that could apparently just about cover the entire city's needs on its own. It is also apparently very exensive so we are hoping to avoid that. I'd expect that's the kind of company that would be useful in these sorts of disasters.

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