Caught in the Act 'trade215'. When a narrow mind speaks it tends to re-spray the stigma that can take centuries to overcome. Try to be original and at least pick out one visable argument in the discussion?

On reply to your comment... I wonder, perhaps it is you who needs the free ticket to China, as it appears the true 'liberal' wants more than armed paratroops, guns and tanks, the spoke wheel of a communal capital based dictatorship.

Applied Thinking is not a 'Communism' as you express but a "communication" progress between many minds without violence about the issues that can help process the action we need urgently, to take us ALL forward.

Capital can help if we demand the creditable over the present gullible or incredulous mastery dictating the unsoundness of unthoughful and neglectful terms.

Going wide as the author has is encouraging because it attracts seeds for a wider form of debate and, who wants the cart before the horse. Where else do we get the opportunity to 'story-board' if not this On Line Forum. Our thoughts are better out then in - given the need to share these thoughts is the very 'food' we need in this day and age as a way to contribute as a public.

Ed-Online, thank you for the timely link and Chris Shaw I take your comment to bed. It is the best I've seen next to one other being from Jug Suraiya, in the 'The Times of India' news (yesterday), whose same wit with words gives much faith to reasons why we might bother to air our valuable breath toward the otherwise 'chicken-hearted'. In fact it is people like yourself whose words help to take the sting out of the obvious.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Jug_Suraiya_From_Taslima_to_Tibet_India_proves_chicken/articleshow/2885952.cms

Chris Shaw you are a wonderful writer and I do hope you keep it up.

http://www.miacat.com/
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Uh huh.

Exactly where did I profess to be communist Trade 215? Didn't you read my earlier posts? Try reading them first. I proposed a balance between individualism and collectivism. You know, that thing that democratically elected governments do, with varying degrees of success.

Since you seem to have somehow entirely missed the point of my previous post, I will explain it down to your level: The silly government people wanted to try a silly idea - privatising water, in the silly and mistaken belief that it would run better and they would save money. But the people they sold it to were not very nice. They thought that they owned the water that belonged to the whole community and that they could do what they liked with it so that they could make lots and lots of money. If some people suddenly struggled to pay the huge price hike or some local businesses closed and people were put out of work that was just too bad. The not very nice people were very cheeky because they knew that water was something that no-one could get from anyone but them. But lots of people got very angry and jumped up and down and made lots of noise. Then the silly government people knew they had made a mistake and stepped in to fix things up.

If you're not sure that you understand that after the first reading, try reading it a few more times.

"Competition in private enterprise creates the wealth for the do gooders to have time to winge about the injustices of life".
Indeed Arjay. But as the above example should demonstrate, private enterprise needs to be regulated in order for competition rather than collusion and monopolization to reign (or in critical areas where competition is unlikely to exist, price controls must be implemeted). Surely you realise that the whole point of competition is to win, to dominate as much as possible. So regulations pertaining to fair trading practices are necessary. A pure, self-regulating, self balancing free market is a utopian fantasy, just like communism.

So a company that has a surplus of water, decides to put up the price in order to reduce its inventory. In a free (contestable) market, this would never happen. The fact that it has happened in your community proves your earlier point that the water market is non-contestable and it is clearly not 'de-regulated'.

The solution is to remove price controls and have a properly de-regulated market. Once de-regulated, the incentives will exist for other companies to enter the market and invest in collecting, recycling and distributing water. Indeed, according to your post, this has already happened, to a degree.

Fozz: "Your assertion that government enforced price controls, not drought, are responsable for water shortages is bizzare. No amount of de-regulation and private ownership is going to make it rain. You honestly believe that the holders of a natural monopoly such as water are going to pass on tax cuts? Just how do you propose to make a natural monopoly contestable through de-regulation?"

I'm sceptical of the existence of natural monopolies. If there really was a natural monopoly, then how did 'big industries' manage to source water elsewhere?

Obviously, deregulation won't make it rain, but there is more than enough water throughout Australia to satisfy everyone. As I understand it, last year Northern Australia experienced unseasonally high rainfall while Southern Australia experienced unseasonally low rainfall. So the problem is not inadequate rainfall, the problem is a lack of incentives to have it distributed to where it is needed the most. To create those incentives, you must get rid of Govt meddling.

“Dad had the money and power, the others had poverty. This is the essence of economic competition.”

That is the essence of paternalism. It has nothing to do with “competition”

“Competition can create disadvantage.”

Just as it creates opportunity

“did not predict the need for affordable public housing”

“Competition” does not work as well when government exercise their monopoly power and fail to represent the interests of the electorate. Housing is a state government responsibility and all the states are run by incompetent socialists.

I cannot be bothered to read any more of this third rate, left wing, emotionalistic drivel which looks like it was spewed forth by Marx on one of his purging and vomiting days (and there were quite a few of those).

The success of the libertarian-capitalist system, which encourages competition and the right of people to be free of undue government interference is evodenced by the quality of life which we enjoy, compared to the charnel house of attrocities lorded over by communism and the fact that every "competetively based libertarian-capitalist democracy has thousands of people queueing up to get in and no wall to stop them getting out.

Unlike the socialists which I am at pains to observe what Lenin said

“the goal of socialism is communism”

That was before he said “a lie told often enough becomes the truth” and before he starved 6 million Russians to death and was followed by his mate, Stalin who murdered another 50 million folk.

And why "socialism had a lot to answer for".

Fozz “Government monopolies run for the benefit of all”

Like Telstra did before privatization.

Government monopolies are “monopolies” and are run to first protect their own vested interests and the consumer be damned.

Government is there to regulate, not to own commercial operations. Such duality immediately throw them into a conflict of interest between those of the business operator and those of the regulatory officer

No ed, the situation occurred BECAUSE price controls did not exist and because water is a natural monopoly. A monopoly in something no-one can do without where regulations have been removed is dream come true for those looking for a juicy profit at others expense.

True competition cannot exist in water suppy because it cannot be produced (except at great expense, and then only on the coast) and cannot be sourced elsewhere in anything remotely like the quantities necessary. We cannot refuse to buy it unless we get a fair price because it is vital for life itself and for virtually everything we do. This is one of the natural monopolies whose existence you are sceptical of. It must either (a)remain in the hands of government or (b)be regulated to the strictest extent to prevent exploitation. This naturally makes it less attractive to private enterprise which unlike government, must operate on a for-profit basis.

I'm not sure that you're being serious when you ask how big industries managed to source the water elsewhere. Like 99.9999% of other Australians, my bank account does not look nearly as healthy as that of Rio Tinto whose plants sit on the edge of an ocean and are capable of using seawater in most of their processes anyway (they only bought fresh water because seawater increases maintainence costs, being corrosive).Anyway, are you seriously suggesting that the average household posesses the same kind of bargaining clout when buying anything as one of the most profitable resource corporations in the world?

In many cases ed, government "meddling" is no more meddling than policing the streets is meddling in the rights of people to do whatever the hell they like. The purpose of government is after all, to govern.

"Like Telstra did before privatization". People I have asked have told me that their line rental has increased in line with Trujillo granting himself a paycheck in excess of 100 times that of the highest payed executive when it was publicly owned.

I will challenge other parts of your post later, I am about at the word limit.

Fozz,

In part, our disagreement is due to a different understanding of the term 'monopoly.' To me, a monopoly exists when a producer is protected from competition by Govt regulation. Water is not a natural monopoly, it is a scarce resource and like all scarce resources, the most efficient way to allocate it is through a competitive free market.

However, I understand your concern. Your fear is that without govt regulation and price controls, the water company would exploit the community by increasing prices by 1200% and this would have devastating consequences. But would it?

In a free market, such an increase would create a huge incentive for new competitors to service your community. It would encourage greater innovation and exploration of alternatives. For example, it could then be cheaper to have the water trucked in (which would be a boon for local transport companies), people would install more water tanks (a boon for local installers and suppliers), and investment in recycling systems (a boon for the construction industry). At higher prices, your local hardware store or other companies with large rooves could install tanks and sell rain water to their customers at discounted prices (a boon for retail trade). Rio Tinto could even establish a separate business on-selling its excess water to the local community. Over time, as the supply of water increased, and the number of customers dropped, the water company would be forced to lower its prices, or go broke and be bought out by a more efficient operator.

Both the water industry and the food industry supply essential services as they provide commodities which are "vital for life itself and for virtually everything we do." And both industries depend on rainfall. However, while Govt price controls exist for water, there are no price controls for food (at least not yet!) Note, there is a shortage of water in Australia yet not a shortage of food. This is no coincidence.