Riveting reading, the Pacific Institute's report on The Economy of Water puts it all up front when it comes to the status and power of water as an issue of looming national and international significance. Looking at water from multiple perspectives, the report clearly details the impact and potential harm of current and pending zoning and privatization efforts on the part of utilities and other interested agencies, both public and private. In particular, the study focuses on the social and financial costs of water privatization efforts and their long term implications for specific countries and societies. Perhaps most compelling is the policy brief's emphasis on the competing forces of globalization and privatization and how they tend to play out and off of one another.