Equity markets want to control water

Anguishing weeks those of December 2020. Between the pandemic, its disastrous and sad evolution. A concern is added for all the people of the world: it is that Wall Street has announced that it has begun to quote (speculate) on that stock market, no more and no less than on water, with the NASDAQ VELES CALIFORNIA WATER index. We are not stock market experts, but let's check to see if we can understand if the measure is as dangerous as we interpret it expropriately.

Raw materials (commodities) are of high value in the production process, oil, metals and gas, keep them occupying the future markets. Now in the United States, the eyes have turned to a product of nature that is truly scary. They began to look at water with a business eye and it was included in the future. Perhaps later they will do so with atmospheric oxygen.

The struggle for the right to water had its victories in the twentieth century. In November 2002, the human right to water was adopted ("The human right to water is indispensable for a life of dignity"), to have water that is "sufficient, healthy, acceptable, physically accessible, affordable for personal and domestic uses. This was set out in General Comment 15 of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

In 2004, through the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), governments were asked to fulfil the human right to water in order to satisfy this human right and to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), in a document called Water as a Human Right

Five years have already passed since the end of the International Decade for Action "Water for Life" declared by the United Nations (UN) during the decade of 2005 until 2015. This was embodied in Resolution A/RES/64/292 of July 28, 2010. This was when the UN very explicitly recognized the human right to water. It ratifies that drinking water and sanitation are necessary for all other human rights.

Also in Resolution A/RES/64/292 of 28 July 2010, it indicates that countries and international organizations should invest in helping developing countries so that everyone in the world can develop the human right to water through access to "sufficient, safe, acceptable, physically accessible and affordable drinking water for personal and domestic uses.

In politics, leaders have led in the opinion of exercising the human right to water as a guarantee of service and not of business to the people of each country, as expressed by the then president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, during the International Decade for Action "Water as a Source of Life". Ten years ago, he asked the UN to guarantee the respect of this human right to individuals and companies..

But a few weeks since the New York Stock Exchange, better known as Wall Street, ended, it has confirmed the fears of the former Bolivian leader. Perhaps we do not understand about a particular water situation, but above the mandates of the UN, the New York Stock Exchange, has decided with the NASDAQ VELES CALIFORNIA WATER index, to quote (speculate) on that stock exchange the rights to the use of water in the future. No country has ever seen the formality of a market to make the transactions of this right.

These transactions are not for immediate water supply, but are long-term exchanges. The NASDAQ VELES CALIFORNIA WATER index is said to have been born in 2018, with the reference of water right prices in five regions of California.

It is treated with surface water and groundwater. Its price does not include transportation. Reviewing the quote for this week that ended, each acre foot costs four hundred eighty-six dollars and fifty-three cents. The unit used is one acre per foot that is used in the United States.

Speculation is based on factors that may affect the amount of water available for activities. These are the factors that can condition access to water, climate change, periods of drought, population growth, and pollution. That is to say that these future contracts according to Wall Street, manage the risks (reduce or neutralize risks) by means of their exposure "via coverage by leverage"..

In its speculative capitalist logic, which those who follow these transactions should be grateful for, it is not bad, only that it gives peace of mind to the agricultural producers of California, who will be able to buy water at the price they already quoted on the stock exchange. We will see the development of the news, we hope it will be a formal institutional and governmental discussion, with the total participation of humanity. We are all interested in.