[ExI] EP and Peak oil

[Lee Corbin]

Damien writes

> Lee wrote:
> 
> > The free market will do a great job of it,
> 
> The free market in the USA? How free is that free market?

Good question! The more that certain kinds of politicians interfere
with it, the less good a job it will do. 

> > unless, of course, we get some very bright people into
> > positions of power who think they know better.
> 
> Ah, as in Enron, Halliburton, etc,

When crimes are committed, people need to be punished 
according to the law. Those at Enron were, and as for
Halliburton, I'm not aware of what actual crimes have
been committed---actual non-political crimes, that is. But
if crimes have been committed, again, those responsible
should be prosecuted.

> Have there ever been *any* worrying situations in history,
> Lee, where a free market has failed to deal with them
> triumphantly?

Certainly.  Many, many.  The free market has had little effect
on deliberate invasions or plagues, for instance. Thomas Sowell
describes economics as "study of the use of scarce resources
which have alternative uses". No one has ever found a better
way than the free market, even in war time, to distribute scarce
resources which have alternate uses. 

> (This is *not* a question about whether there have been other
> polities or economic systems that did better.

Understood.

> Sometimes when a ship goes down *everyone* drowns, even the 
> good swimmers.)

Yes, though I don't recommend it because of its wordiness, Taleb's
"The Black Swan" makes it thoroughly and very uncomfortably
clear how unpredictable are future turning points and catastrophes.
As I said in another post, I don't agree that any of the things we're
currently worried about now will be the ones that do us in.  If anything
does, it will be unexpected---not "peak oil", "global warming",
"overpopulation", or any of that crap.  Maybe an epidemic?  terrorist
nukes?  something-completely-out-of-left-field?    I don't know,
and neither does anyone else.

Lee