When deregulation allows the payments to legislators and judges in various forms, and sale of literally everything including resources such as water,problems follow. (Psst, bribery everywhere else in the world)
“Arizona’s water is running worryingly low. Amid the worst drought in more than a millennium, which has left communities across the state with barren wells, the state is depleting what remains of its precious groundwater. Much of it goes to private companies nearly free, including Saudi Arabia’s largest dairy company.”
Medicynical Note: Over the years a segment of our country influenced by greed and a form of I’ll-conceived idealism became convinced that privatization would lead to efficiency and cost savings. After all, in capitalism, competition forces all players to compete and be ruthlessly efficient.
As we’ve watched this fantasy play out over the last 40 years (since Reagan) it’s fallacies have become obvious. We forgot that unstated goal of capitalists is not competition but monopoly. When services are privatized and unregulated, profits become more important than services. Short term revenue generation to stockholders takes precedence over the quality of outcomes, sustainability, or the well being of a local population or individual.
This thinking has led us to become an armed camp influenced by the NRA and gun manufacturers; a country in which health care is unaffordable and whose prices increase yearly by multiples of the inflation; a country in which resources are sold off to the highest bidder; and a country in which our legislators and judges are legally influenced by payments (made legal by those same judges).
Arizona is just one example.
Medicynic 