Click the link to read the article on the Esquire website (Charles P. Pierce). Here’s an excerpt:
Water and sewer privatization has been going on for a while now. According to the folks at http://foodandwaterwatch.org, customers of private water systems pay 59 percent higher rates than do customers of public systems, and the rates in areas with private water systems increase an average of three times the rate of inflation.
And, all math aside, if water is not a basic human right, then nothing is. The United Nations declared as much in 2010. As water supplies around the world edge into the critical zone, the time to protect that human right against profiteering and corporate pillage is now, before the situation gets irreversible and we find that all our water is owned by some hedge-fund cowboys with bank accounts in the Caymans.
Turning a buck on water is very much like subletting the air, which I’m sure someone is working on as we speak.