Hal O'Brien

From a post on Krugman's blog:

"Opponents of (climate change as a factor in policy) generally believe that market economies are wonderful things, able to adapt to just about anything — anything, that is, except a government policy that puts a price on greenhouse gas emissions. Limits on the world supply of oil, land, water — no problem. Limits on the amount of CO2 we can emit — total disaster.

The similar thing is to what I'll call the odder beliefs of the Ron Paulistas: Going back to the gold standard would be good, as would dumping the Federal Reserve.

See, there's this thing called comparative advantage. Not all countries left the gold standard at the same time; not all countries developed central banks at the same time. If gold helped a country, and "fiat currency" hurt it, then one should have been able to see that, and no other countries would be foolish enough to follow suit. Same with central banking.

Economic history went exactly the other way, though. Hell, even the Swiss finally gave up on the gold standard.

Combine this with Krugman's example, and you get the following principle: Republicans are all in favor of the free market -- right up until the market disagrees with them.

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Originally posted at my business affairs blog, Not That Kind of Operation.

Paul Krugman today mentions Peak Oil in the New York Times. I think this may be the first time anyone in the national-level commentariat has given it serious consideration (but am ready to admit being wrong).

Meanwhile, does James Kunstler notice this at all, and play up the potential turning point in the discussion? Nope. He's too busy tilting at railroads and the airlines. In Kunstler's world view, there is no such thing as good news, only bad news we don't know the punchline for yet (as any cursory glance at Kunstler's books The Long Emergency and World Made by Hand will show). Keep an eye on this space -- I intend to do a review of World Made by Hand eventually, and it'll be, um... lengthy.

To use Randy Pausch's image, Kunstler is definitely an Eeyore, not a Tigger. Which may be why he's been a bit voice-in-the-wilderness-y. Even when you agree with him, you hate to admit it.

Hey, pnh, if you're reading this... This all reminds me that one of the things I'd like to use in that review is your observation about Boomers being so in love with apocalypse stories, and how they never intended to live this long. While I can quasi-quote it, did you ever have a pithy, quotable version of your own that you could point me to, please? I'm all about the credit where credit is due.

(Apologies for typos, which seem to be both of commission and omission. I think this is my first post start-to-finish using my new eeePC.)