[hedgetrimmer]

Oh, you must own stock in RWE or one of those other global water corporations.

Oh, wait. Government doesn't control food supplies, and doesn't distribute them

Let's see, who puts the price on a carton of milk? The free market or the government? Who prices the wheat and corn and who pays farmers NOT to produce? Who gives away surplus cheese to the people it thinks ought to have it? Who regulates the trucks and trains that ship the product? What is the Dept of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration and what do they do? Who has recently told the farmer that they must get a PERMIT before they can even plow their land? Who has implemented laws to make it cheaper to buy apple juice concentrate from China, rather than use the product of our own fields?

You wouldn't be able just to show up on public land and harvest food anymore.

Farmers still own their land. Not for long, I know, with the push for global government, global corporate control of sovereign resources and world socialism. But until then, farming in this country is not done on "public property". But wow, I guess you're wrong. Go figure.

[Timm]

Let's see, who puts the price on a carton of milk? The free market or the government? Who prices the wheat and corn and who pays farmers NOT to produce? Who gives away surplus cheese to the people it thinks ought to have it? Who regulates the trucks and trains that ship the product? What is the Dept of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration and what do they do? Who has recently told the farmer that they must get a PERMIT before they can even plow their land? Who has implemented laws to make it cheaper to buy apple juice concentrate from China, rather than use the product of our own fields?

And all of this shows what? That the government really does own food and does distribute it? As excited as as you are about trying to show that I'm "wrong", you've forgotten what I said originally. "Regulation" is something different than the government owning and distributing food, as you of course know. And most regulation is aimed at keeping food prices up, not down. Most regulation is unnecessary to ensure wide and cheap distribution of food, in other words. What is necessary hardly constitutes government ownership.

But you're plainly infatuated with the idea that you've come across an "exception" to the efficiency of the market. You're not alone. The NYTimes writes an article a week explaining how education/health care/political consultation/advertising/power/phones/banks/pick anything is an exception to market economics. They've been wrong every time I've read the paper, and you're wrong about water. If food, gasoline, clothing, housing, and the other necessities of life can be efficiently privatized so can water.