Do Those in Poverty Have a Right to Water? By Robert Odle

..Our rules for poverty are sacred ...

Out West there is a shortage of water.  Everyone is fighting over water rights.  All sorts of arguments over who should have the remaining water. And each year it gets worse.

For example, the Nestle’s water bottling plant is sending out millions of gallons of water out of state of California across the U.S. and the rest of the world.  Nestle says they have the rights to it and screw you California.  They have profits that is their right to make.

One solution is to give the water to the highest bidder.  Of course, rich people and profitable businesses will not have a problem getting water no matter what.  Historically, under charging for water around the world means that there is never enough money for water projects and instead poor people end up buying expensive bottled water since more economical solutions are never properly funded.  So, it turns out lose, lose for everybody.  So, people saying they have the right to free water is the main reason there is not enough water for people around the world.  Really!

If we did water like wealth, we could give the poor people 0.1 % of the water compared to the rich people getting 84.8% of the water.  We as a country have set up the rules, as discussed yesterday, that this is fair.  So, if it good enough for money, it seems like it should work for water, why not?  There is no god given right to money (that you buy food, water, clothing, health care, shelter, etc.), why should one have a right to water above their 0.1%?  Why should there be any considerations on whether or not it is a sufficient amount of water to stay alive on?  We don’t apply that to the resources purchased by money.  Do people in poverty have sufficient resources (training, parenting, education, food, healthcare, mentoring) to escape the poverty trap?  Who knows, but we got our rules and 0.1% of the wealth is what it is (not counting the money we spend on prison for those that can make it on that amount).   We have a sound principle here, lets not mess it up with silly emotionalism.