Some conservative economist bet Paul Erlich $10,000 to name the commodity of his choice that will more scarce in 10 years and Erlich lost.
It's a fundamental misunderstanding of reality and they will stop at nothing. Since they cannot raise the standard of living for the poor countries, they will strive to reduce ours.
Some conservative economist bet Paul Erlich $10,000 to name the commodity of his choice that will more scarce in 10 years and Erlich lost.Paul Ehrlich gets Stanford "Reviewed"
For those wondering why things are so good when they should be so bad, the answer is not Al Gore. Rather, we're richer, fatter, and more populous because technology -- the gift of free minds -- has again advanced us. When scarcity rears its angry head, historically it's been techies (the types that consider the "outdoors" to be the parking lot outside the lab) that have kept humanity afloat, and not academic doomsayers or pretentious tie-dyed greens. The Iron Age began after wars in the eastern Mediterranean caused tin shortages; the age of coal resulted from timber shortages in 16th century Britain; the 1850s shortage of whale oil translated into the first oil well in 1859; as pessimists began worrying about the copper shortage that telephone wiring would cause, fiber optic communication emerged.
This was at least the theory of a lone American economist, Julian Simon. And after a decade of being attacked or ignored by Ehrlich, Simon resolved to show Ehrlich what a joke the doomsayers were. The two never debated (Ehrlich refused, calling Simon a "fringe character"), rather he put his money were his mouth was. In 1980, when Ehrlich was still predicting imminent scarcity, Simon set up a bet wherein he would sell Ehrlich $1,000 dollars worth of any five commodities that Ehrlich chose. Ehrlich would hold the commodities for ten years. If the prices rose -- meaning scarcity -- Simon would buy the commodities back from Ehrlich at the higher price. If the prices fell, Ehrlich would pay Simon the difference. Professor Ehrlich jumped at the bet, noting that he wanted to "accept the offer before other greedy people jumped in."
In October of 1990, Ehrlich mailed Simon a check for $570.07. As Simon predicted, free markets provided lower prices and more options. Simon would have won even if prices weren't adjusted for inflation. He then offered to raise the wager to $20,000 and use any resources at any time that Ehrlich preferred. The Stanford professor was slightly less bold this time. He refused Simon's offers, mailing him only a check and a table of his calculations, with no note attached. No longer was the bet Ehrlich's way of saving Simon from greedy speculators. Looking back, Ehrlich claimed that he was "goaded into making a bet with Simon on a matter of marginal environmental importance."
-Eric