Quote of the Day

Membership Ticker

You come to Mother Jones for unique journalism, and we love doing it for you—especially at a moment like this. That's really it. That's the upshot of our fall fundraising drive, and we're hoping to raise $250,000 in a much shorter than normal three-week window, by November 5, so we can keep right on doing it. Please pitch in early to help us get there.

$250,000

You come to Mother Jones for unique journalism, and we love doing it for you. That's it. That's the upshot of our fall fundraising drive, and we're hoping to raise $250,000 in a shorter than normal three-week window so we can keep right on doing it.

Fight disinformation. Get a daily recap of the facts that matter. Sign up for the free Mother Jones newsletter.

From Paul Shoop, a retired attorney who lives in “an enclave of multimillion-dollar homes off curving Malibu Canyon Road,” on the LA water board’s proposal to ban septic tanks and install a modern sewer system in Malibu:

It’s like living in a Third World country not to have sewers. But nobody wants to pay that sort of exorbitant fee. If we need a sewer system, you expect government to provide that service.

Quite so. Municipal services should appear magically for wealthy communities like Malibu.

Of course, the proposed fee for the new sewer system really is pretty exorbitant. But a big part of the reason for that is because Malibu is so sparsely settled, which means the cost of the system gets divided up among a small number of homeowners. And why is Malibu so sparsely settled? Because the current wealthy homeowners like it that way. Apparently they just don’t like paying the price.