澳大利亞“水期貨”揭秘
????不過《農業(yè)賭博:食物如何不再是食物》( Bet the Farm: How Food Stopped Being Food)一書的作者弗萊德里克?考夫曼卻從大宗商品交易和衍生品市場的歷史的角度給魯尼的話潑了一瓢冷水。他認為,水資源的金融衍生品和投機可能導致水價飆升,甚至使旱情進一步惡化,就像糧食和能源期貨也曾導致社會動蕩一樣??挤蚵鼘ired.com表示:“我們已經見證了金融衍生品對抵押證券產生的影響,我們不希望同樣的事發(fā)生在水身上?!?/p> ????魯尼認為,考夫曼提出的把水資源分配權交給政府的方法無法帶來Waterfind為水資源市場所貢獻的效率。 ????熟悉美國水資源問題的美國保護基金會(Conservation Fund)的項目經理奧利?阿蒙森表示,美國的非政府機構已經在試圖借助市場的力量來保護水資源。比如加利福尼亞州的律師湯姆???怂咕拖M尵璜I用水權者獲得類似于美國國內收入署賦予土地信托捐獻者的稅收優(yōu)惠。這樣就為用水權賦予了經濟價值,同時也讓投機者沒有鉆營的機會。 ????阿蒙森認為,澳大利亞的期貨市場可能不會蔓延至美國,其中一個原因是美國各地有關用水權的法律五花八門。但Waterfind公司卻表示,它計劃在2015年1月推出美國業(yè)務。 ????就像考夫曼等人指出的那樣,一旦妖怪跳出了瓶子,就沒人能說得清市場到底會走向何方。(財富中文網) ????譯者:樸成奎 |
????Frederick Kaufman, the author of Bet the Farm: How Food Stopped Being Food, says the history of commodity and derivatives markets throws some, ahem, cold water on this argument. He has warned that water derivatives and speculation could cause price spikes and even exacerbate droughts, just as grain and energy futures have wreaked social havoc in the past. “We saw what derivatives did for mortgage-backed securities. We don’t want them doing that for water,” Kaufman told Wired.com. ????Rooney says that Kaufman’s alternative—leaving it to government agencies to allocate water—would not yield the efficiencies he attributes to water markets. ????Ole Amundsen, a program manager for the Conservation Fund who is familiar with U.S. water issues, says non-governmental organizations are already trying to harness market forces for water conservation in the U.S. For example, he says, a California attorney named Tom Hicks is trying to gain similar tax benefits for donated water rights as those that the Internal Revenue Service applies to land-trust donations. This would give water rights a financial value without letting speculators run amok. ????Amundsen says the Australian futures market is unlikely to spread to the U.S., partly because of the diverse water-rights laws throughout the U.S. But Waterfind plans to launch U.S. operations in January 2015. ????As Kaufman and others have noted, once the genie is out of the (water) bottle, there is no telling where a market will go. |