[sgtyork]

this mechanism often fails

A myth and an illusion.
http://www.ag.auburn.edu/agec//courses/aec512/Articles/Gloom.html

In 1865 an influential book by Stanley Jevons argued with equally good logic and equally flawed premises that Britain would run out of coal in a few short years? time. In 1914, the United States Bureau of Mines predicted that American oil reserves would last ten years. In 1939 and again in 1951, the Department of the Interior said American oil would last 13 years. Wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong.

[liberallarry]

Yes, there've always been doom-sayers and they've often been wrong. But they've also often been right. There have been wars, famines, droughts, pestilence and many of these plagues have been predicted and might have been avoided given better policies.