DWSD: neither a profit center nor job creator for Detroit

[Novack]

Is this true?

Is this Cash Cow of ours really not make any money?

If someone offered to sell me a water system with more then a million households need, I buy it in a second. but why are you selling it? Why? Because you don't make money on it, you say? What are you the biggest failure in business history? I would ask.

I'm......speechless

really

AND WHO THE HELL DO THEY OWE 5.4 Billion dollars too? How the hell did that happen?

[Detroitnerd]

Same old refrain: Privatize the profit, socialize the loss.

[jt1]

Is this true?

Is this Cash Cow of ours really not make any money?

If someone offered to sell me a water system with more then a million households need, I buy it in a second. but why are you selling it? Why? Because you don't make money on it, you say? What are you the biggest failure in business history? I would ask.

I'm......speechless

really

AND WHO THE HELL DO THEY OWE 5.4 Billion dollars too? How the hell did that happen?

By law they can not profit on the the water system.

[Hermod]

While nt a common as privately owned public electric and natural gas utilities, there are private water supply utilities in the US which seem to work quite well. The government entity model is far more common than the privately owned utility model for water systems.

[Detroitnerd]

While nt a common as privately owned public electric and natural gas utilities, there are private water supply utilities in the US which seem to work quite well. The government entity model is far more common than the privately owned utility model for water systems.

There's an interesting film about the push to privatize Highland Park's water system. Here's an online synopsis:

Water Fight
As first conceived, the documentary The Water Front was supposed to look at the issue of privatizing municipal water systems. But it ended up being about much more than that. The subject drew the attention of Montreal filmmaker Liz Miller because, as she says, access to clean and affordable water is expected to become a major issue over the next 20 to 30 years. After considering locations in Africa, Latin America and other parts of the United States, she settled on Michigan's Highland Park as the focus of her film. The fact that people living amid the world's largest supply of fresh water were having their flow shut off intrigued her. But after she started filming more than four years ago, the narrative began to grow in scope and complexity. "I went in there thinking I was going to be telling a story about water," she says. "But then it became a bit of a spider web." It morphed into a story about a "postindustrial city in crisis," with issues of race and class and poverty weaving their way into an increasingly tangled storyline.

[rb336]

first off -- I had never heard of those "myths" mentioned in the article. Never.
that is a classic red herring fallacy

second -- take a look at privatized roadways that have popped up in a few places, most notably the DC environs. two road project there were started about the same time, and were of similar size. one was private, one public. the private one cost more to build initially AND has had more quality problems AND costs the drivers more to use. That is exactly the kind of result we can expect when a company driven by profit takes over a necessary function. maintenance and improvement will only go forward when that company is forced to act.

third -- how much is someone going to pay for all the billions that have been put into the system? it certainly won't come close to what it would cost to build a competing system. [[which is why several plans by various communities to build their own over the last few years have gone by the wayside). Want to see people bitch? wait till the private owners decide to double your water rates a month after taking over. Detroit water is quite reasonable in pricing, and remember, Warren and other suburbs boosted what THEY charge their citizens by much larger percentages than the amount DWS raised their rates, and blamed the whole thing on Detroit

[Detroitnerd]

first off -- I had never heard of those "myths" mentioned in the article. Never.
that is a classic red herring fallacy

second -- take a look at privatized roadways that have popped up in a few places, most notably the DC environs. two road project there were started about the same time, and were of similar size. one was private, one public. the private one cost more to build initially AND has had more quality problems AND costs the drivers more to use. That is exactly the kind of result we can expect when a company driven by profit takes over a necessary function. maintenance and improvement will only go forward when that company is forced to act.

third -- how much is someone going to pay for all the billions that have been put into the system? it certainly won't come close to what it would cost to build a competing system. [[which is why several plans by various communities to build their own over the last few years have gone by the wayside). Want to see people bitch? wait till the private owners decide to double your water rates a month after taking over. Detroit water is quite reasonable in pricing, and remember, Warren and other suburbs boosted what THEY charge their citizens by much larger percentages than the amount DWS raised their rates, and blamed the whole thing on Detroit

I believe you're right. Unfortunately, you're going up against three decades of brainwashing that "private companies do it better and cheaper" and "government is always bad." Yeah, great idea. There may be a few problems with the system we've spent billions building. Naturally the solution will be to give it to a private company for a song so they can squeeze every penny out of it before running it into the ground.

[Motor City Sam]

first off -- I had never heard of those "myths" mentioned in the article. Never. that is a classic red herring fallacy

Agreed. The other thing that bothered me was the opening of the article, about how from almost the day we're born Detroiters are conditioned to believe in the magificence of the DWSD. I must have missed that class at Schulz Elementary and my parents must not be like the rest of the Detroit parents, because they never gave me long lectures on the great DWSD.

Note to the author of that article: When you start off an opinion piece with a sweeping falsehood like that, I find it hard to take you seriously.

[sehender1]

first off -- I had never heard of those "myths" mentioned in the article. Never.
that is a classic red herring fallacy

You must not listen to talk radio shows where most callers are from the city.
You'll hear it at least twice a week there.

Lots of local pols also fetishize the value of owning the city's assets [[because they "make money" or create jobs) and use DWSD as their primary touchstone.

I don't think Marcus was off at all making the point he did.

[Melocoton]

Agreed on the point about red herrings. The two "myths" are not only not myths in the first place [[at least not ones that I've heard, and I doubt that many Detroit dinner table and bar-room conversations ever get around to Our Glorious Water and Sewerage Heritage), but the so-called myths are also irrelevant to the argument.

Myth #1 is that the water company generates a profit for the city of Detroit. The author says that DSWD doesn't generate profit for the city. But I don't get why this is a reason for the city to sell it. It's a municipal utility--its purpose is to provide a service to the people, not to make money.

Myth #2: DSWD is a job creator. The author notes that many, maybe most, of DSWD employees now live in the 'burbs. I have no idea what this is supposed to do with water privatization. The residency of employees won't change if DSWD is sold to a private corporation, so what's the point of mentioning this at all? In fact, privatization will almost certainly result in less jobs overall, for city-dwellers and suburbanites both.

This article was like Amateur Hour on freep.com.

BTW I posted something on the freep.com forums earlier on this, and I have to say there were actually intelligent comments there. All the racists must have had work today.