Water, water, everywhere, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

When the well is dry, we know the worth of water. — Benjamin Franklin

Thousands have lived without love, not one without water. — W. H. Auden

Like Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ancient mariner, California finds its ship listless in the doldrums of a misguided and moribund political process, bordered by vast saltwater and lacking a tailwind. While the drought is a given, misguided public policy regarding the rationing and pricing of water is the headwind.

Milton Friedman once said, “There is enormous inertia — a tyranny of the status quo — in private and especially governmental arrangements. Only a crisis — actual or perceived — produces real change. … [Eventually] the politically impossible becomes polit