You're not really owning the water physically, rather, you're responsible for a certain coordination. The same way that real property works in the United States.

When you own property, it's not as if you own just the soil and the house. There's a saying: "He who owns it owns it to the heavens". You own everything above and below the metes and bounds. That includes air. Air flows as well, and emit an objective pollutant on your own property, and it flows to another, then you are responsible for the other persons losses.

meric wrote on Jun 21^st, 2010 at 2:18am:


Why would large companies risk their billions. I can see where very small companies will be the only ones that will take the risk. Less to lose.

meric wrote on Jun 21^st, 2010 at 11:23pm:


If they succeeded they would have made many times their 4 million. But if they crash and burn and cause 5 billion damage they only lose a small amount and everyone else loses. You can see why that may be the future.

Not in the case of BP (they are at fault) but large companies are fat targets of governments and other leeches.

meric wrote on Jun 22^nd, 2010 at 6:40am:


Selling rights to bodies of water is different from Libertarian position where people would own the body of water. The owners of the water would decide who could drill because it's their water and oil.

Again it's the government that causes the problems where libertarian solutions solve problems.

It would be worth much more than 10 million. More than likely the land around the water would be the same owners. They would care most about the potential damage to their land and would act fast to protect it unlike the slow government response.