« Annie’s the girly girl? | Home | Baking day »
A bottle a day
By sandi | April 7, 2009
I really don’t get it. What is the big deal about water. People are paying millions of dollars for water to be bottled and sent to them when water is something you can get from the city for pennies an ounce flowing convieniently into your home. I just don’t get it.
This morning I was approached by a door to door salesman wanting me to buy O’Premium water. When he asked what kind of water I gave my family I told him filtered tap water. Honestly I drink it from the tap often, but we do have a filter under the sink as well. He rolled his eyes and told me that “was unhealthy for my family.” I closed the door promptly and thought that he was a terrible salesman to use such scary tactics to get someone to buy his water and secondly, he was wrong.
Seems like plenty of people think that O’Premium isn’t the most honorable company either.
Politically speaking our government has an agency called the EPA. It ensures that the water coming out of the pipes in my home is safe. I personally wish that we didn’t have this agency, but that has more to do with their other works rather than in home water. City of Phoenix has several pages of it’s website dedicated to letting me know where my water comes from and how it is made safe for me and my family. I couldn’t find where the water from O’Premium comes from and I have a sneaking suspicion that it comes from the same place.
I plan to email O’Premium water to let them know that I didn’t appreciate their salesman and his sales tactics. It is fine if they want to sell water but acting like city water is unhealthy is just horrible and in my mind crosses the line.
We currently have a President making more and more government entities but who will believe in these entities. People don’t back public education, they don’t believe that the water coming into their homes is safe and they think most cops are corrupt, they will only find private ways to get around these things, so why then are they clammoring for more and more government intervention. I cannot understand bigger government. I don’t believe in it and yet I find that I support it far more than most people who advocate for it.
I have not seen anything that the government meddles with that is better because of it. 
*BTW I really don’t have a problem with government water. If the world ever moved to privatizing I think that water would be the last thing we would convert. I think that the EPA is doing a good job of keeping water safe. I save the thoughts I have for what the EPA does wrong for another day, it is a long long list.
Topics: Mom's Soap Box | 6 Comments »
April 7th, 2009 at 9:56 am
preaching to the choir sister
the only government agency I really appreciate is the military.
April 7th, 2009 at 10:08 am
Hey, I’m happy to have the government keep my water clean and safe. I’m not really into paying someone else to take care of my water, especially when they really aren’t accountable to anyone.
April 7th, 2009 at 11:15 am
I’m not really into paying someone else to take care of my water, especially when they really aren’t accountable to anyone.
While municipal water may appear to be free, it is in fact not. The costs are just spread across all the residents. This, incidentally, undermines any sense of accountability. The businessman is far more accountable than the bureaucrat: if the water goes foul, the businessman loses all his customers whereas the bureaucrat maybe gets written up or has to ignore the phone calls harder than normal.
It is hard for people to conceive of a totally free economy where the government only provides defense, law enforcement, and the courts. It’s never fully existed and people who have no trouble consuming vitamins (totally unregulated) can’t believe that a private water producer wouldn’t contaminate blithely to save a few dollars. But the vitamin manufacturer has a vested interest in making a safe, reliable product and a private water company has exactly the same incentive. The bureaucrat’s incentives are far more diffuse and perverse: it mostly consists of CYA and jockeying for promotion.
As Sandi said, full privatization would be ideal but systemic deregulation in a snap would be an absolute disaster, so those of us who desire laissez-faire must be patient with baby steps—that is, assuming the infant is ever allowed to stand in the first place.
April 7th, 2009 at 11:34 am
well said bill! i especially like “cya and jockeying for promotion”
April 7th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Interesting topic.
I used to buy bottled water-until I got sick recently and tap water was one of the only things I could hold down. (Amazing how the body works.) I don’t consider myself a sucker, but I was totally sucked into the “I buy it and it comes in a nice package-so it’s better.” But, as Bill said, we do pay for tap water & well, bottled water didn’t taste that much better. Not to mention in the hospital-they gave me tap water! So now, I’m a tap drinker.
April 9th, 2009 at 8:46 am
Personally, I believe that the taste of tap water is the biggest turn off (I don’t really like to taste dirt or chlorine). However, my R.O. system does wonders for the taste. My family doesn’t mind the tap water though.