Hopefully people remember and learn from the Australian government who allowed water to be traded like stocks. The idea was that farmers and companies that needed water most would pay for water rights from people who didn't need it.

In practice it lead to mega rich foreigners buying up all the water rights in Australia and preventing anyone from using them which created artificial scarcity and drove up prices. These mega rich foreigners then sold Australians their own water back to them at exorbitant prices.

[–] horse_battery_staple@lemmy.world 5 points 14 hours ago

I do not support it. However the thrust of the article was to invest in water treatment and water conservation tech companies essentially.

But yeah. Water, food housing and healthcare should all be free.

[–] tb_@lemmy.world 4 points 14 hours ago

Also it leads to those with a lot of land to capture and store the rain, which means there's even less water in the river to go around.

[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago

In practice it lead to mega rich foreigners buying up all the water rights in Australia and preventing anyone from using them which created artificial scarcity and drove up prices. These mega rich foreigners then sold Australians their own water back to them at exorbitant prices.

Oh hey I've seen this movie

[–] BenLeMan@lemmy.world 21 points 1 day ago

Yes, "people" will remember how easy it is to get filthy rich when all you have to do is cast your morals aside and exploit the basic needs of human beings. This will be a glowing example for generations of "entrepreneurs".

[–] masterofn001@lemmy.ca 47 points 2 days ago (1 children)

This has been a known outcome for at least 30 years.

Yes. We are. We have been for a long time.

It's just becoming more visible to the first world.

[–] Ketchup@reddthat.com 2 points 1 day ago

Yes. And in “The Big Short” Michael Burry went on to invest in CA water table futures. He’s already profited from that in CA.