What say you now, Mr. Julian Simon?

[Rex_Goodheart]

Dimwitted people for many years have been inclined to proffer Mr. Simon's famous 1980 bet with Paul Ehrlich on the prices of five metals as some sort of disproof of a world overpopulation problem.

In 1980 Mr. Simon, whose mantra was that the world didn't have enough people and that technology would keep commodity prices lower, argued with Paul Ehrlich that $200 worth each of copper, nickel, tin, chrome, and tungsten would be less in 1990. Ehrlich, in a moment of crass dumbness, took up the bet as though it would be representative of anything. Famously, the prices of each had dropped in 1990 dollars, and Simon won the bet.

But let's revisit that bet, OK? If falling metals prices is in any way probative that population growth is not a problem, then we should be willing to accept the corollary that rising prices DO indicate a problem.

I did a bit of math... today's price of that copper, in 1980 dollars, is $369. Today's price of that nickel, in 1980 dollars, is $398. Almost a doubling in each case. Today's market price of tin, in 1980 dollars: $805. A four-fold increase.

That doesn't even touch the oil problem...



The historical price of crude, in current dollars, is a consistent $30 per barrel. Today's actual price is $122. A four-fold increase.

Clearly, technology has NOT given us a substitute for a critical need (oil) nor has it moderated its price.

What say you now. Mr. Simon?