What Year is This?

I will start by straight out telling Readers that I agree with this viewpoint, and then I go on to mention that increased Water pricing easily can be the worst Taxing mode in existence. Deep-Pocket heavy Users get cheap rates based on bulk usage, content within their threats to reduce employment if the Water rates apply to themselves. Homeowners can do little to alter their Water consumption, once they have shut off their Dishwashers, stopped washing their Cars, and watch their lawns turn yellow; increased Water rates become a simple Tax upon existence. Retailers of all stripes find their Public facilities becoming bathhouses to their detriment. Increased Water rates incurred to fund expansion of Water resource capitalization may benefit, but any punitive effort to punish Water Consumers for overuse always impacts the wrong elements in the wrong manner.

I must be suffering from Memory lapse: it sounds like South Vietnam, Republic of. We do not have enough Troops to hold the Villes, every element of the Government in on the Take, the Black Market is more powerful than normal Commerce, Insurgents simply transplant themselves to unpatrolled areas and start up again, and the Civilian populations are as terrified of American entrance as they are of Insurgents. High Command is living in their own self-developed Disneyland, coming out only to go Home. Journalists are dismissed and condemned because they record the reactions of the Civilian population. Are you sure We are on Iraq now?

Matthew E. Kahn notes the savage practices private Insurers are beginning to adopt to insuring homes along the Coasts. He points out that Governments become the Insurers of last resort when private Insurers prove unwilling to underwrite the Costs, and that it effectively becomes an subsidy granted Coastal areas by the Interior; one that will become increasingly more expensive under climate change conditions, and will become effectively more resisted by Interior Representatives. It is indeed a Problem, but I would point out a Need to set limits to private Insurer profitability and Labor Costs. Private Insurance of all types has become a Cash Cow for Participants, and a industry leader is Labor Costs in comparison to Capital, Bonuses to Executives, and Profits to Stockholders; a situation where the actual practice of underwriting Risk has diminished in importance. lgl