Sunday, January 18, 2009

Scott Adams: Is water the next "artificial shortage"?

Image Credit: Priyadarsh Sarwade

"Who will screw us next?" asked Dilbert creator Scott Adams on The Dilbert Blog. As worldwide "shortages" create pretexts for massive price increases on ordinary consumer goods, his readers pointed toward water as the next obvious corporate assault on the uninformed public. Scott agrees.

Adams illuminates:
In order to have a good artificial shortage you need several things to be true:
  1. The commodity must be essential.
  2. There is a plausible "natural" explanation for the shortage.
  3. Only large companies have the resources to increase supply.
  4. The government is involved in some way.
  5. The media hasn't yet obsessed about it, but could.
  6. Inventions to solve the problem are noticeably absent.
  7. There are futures contracts for it.
Water has it all, except for the existence of futures contracts, as far as I can tell. Once you see a market for water futures forming, bend over. That's when the manipulation will begin. Crooks prefer manipulating financial markets over building reservoirs.
Get ready.

Answer to: Who Will Screw Us Next? (The Dilbert Blog)

Related Links:

Scott Adams on Libertarianism
Immortality grows near
The Credit Crunch Explained
Destroy war to end the holy war

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