I tried watching the episode on bottled water. Apparently Nestle is the bad guy for supplying Flint-a city that due to poor government management of its infrastructure was poisoning its citizens thru lead-tainted tap water-with free, emergency supplies of water.
According to the "experts" interviewed, Nestle is the bad guy because the water is bottled a hundred miles north of Flint in another town where they (apparently shockingly) only pay for the water at the same cost as residents yet turn around and sell it to make a profit.
One "expert" says that Nestle pays, "next to nothing" for the water before stating how much they pay and then sell it for. Conveniently he left out the cost of the pumping & storage infrastructure, bottling raw materials and production costs, employee salaries, transportation costs, etc. Next to nothing? Riiiiiiight. Quality analysis there. Not to mention the dozens of jobs produced, the community and school improvements made and the free water supplied to Flint and numerous other communities in nearly every humanitarian crisis in America and other parts of the world.
Why the hubbub to start with? Because water should be a basic human right, so how dare anyone charge for it, according to the narrative. I agree that everyone should have access to clean water. And in places where it is actually scarce, there are multiple organizations and charities at work to provide just that. I personally support two of them. But the missing connection for these experts, and at least this episode of the Rotten documentary, is that consumers are freely choosing to buy bottled water. And can freely buy bottled water from whatever company they prefer, even finding and purchasing from ones that provide donations and support to help people in places without clean water access.
And for people in places like Flint-where trusting the local government supply of water is a gamble with health-thank God they do so that the private sector can once again prove that the free market and valued-run companies are far more efficient, effective and economically sustainable than government bureaucracy who despite the time and access to a nearly inexhaustible supply of forced revenue (our tax dollars) could not even keep the aging pipe system up-to-date for their own people.
I'll be honest, maybe I would have heard other points of view had I continued watching the episode. And perhaps the others in the series are more factual and balanced. But after the corporate-bashing-disguised-as-documentary kept drilling on, I just stopped.
For the record, this is maybe my second review I've ever written for a TV or Streaming series, and I have zero connection with anyone in the water or beverage industry. I'm just a water drinker and tired of the corporate bashing dé jur that seems to be served by ideologs as news and swallowed by viewers as fact not opinion.
According to the "experts" interviewed, Nestle is the bad guy because the water is bottled a hundred miles north of Flint in another town where they (apparently shockingly) only pay for the water at the same cost as residents yet turn around and sell it to make a profit.
One "expert" says that Nestle pays, "next to nothing" for the water before stating how much they pay and then sell it for. Conveniently he left out the cost of the pumping & storage infrastructure, bottling raw materials and production costs, employee salaries, transportation costs, etc. Next to nothing? Riiiiiiight. Quality analysis there. Not to mention the dozens of jobs produced, the community and school improvements made and the free water supplied to Flint and numerous other communities in nearly every humanitarian crisis in America and other parts of the world.
Why the hubbub to start with? Because water should be a basic human right, so how dare anyone charge for it, according to the narrative. I agree that everyone should have access to clean water. And in places where it is actually scarce, there are multiple organizations and charities at work to provide just that. I personally support two of them. But the missing connection for these experts, and at least this episode of the Rotten documentary, is that consumers are freely choosing to buy bottled water. And can freely buy bottled water from whatever company they prefer, even finding and purchasing from ones that provide donations and support to help people in places without clean water access.
And for people in places like Flint-where trusting the local government supply of water is a gamble with health-thank God they do so that the private sector can once again prove that the free market and valued-run companies are far more efficient, effective and economically sustainable than government bureaucracy who despite the time and access to a nearly inexhaustible supply of forced revenue (our tax dollars) could not even keep the aging pipe system up-to-date for their own people.
I'll be honest, maybe I would have heard other points of view had I continued watching the episode. And perhaps the others in the series are more factual and balanced. But after the corporate-bashing-disguised-as-documentary kept drilling on, I just stopped.
For the record, this is maybe my second review I've ever written for a TV or Streaming series, and I have zero connection with anyone in the water or beverage industry. I'm just a water drinker and tired of the corporate bashing dé jur that seems to be served by ideologs as news and swallowed by viewers as fact not opinion.