A recent article in the New York Timesby John Tierney about a current ‘energy cornucopia’ and his winning of a bet on energy resources has brought back to light the famous Simon-Ehrlich wager of 1980 – and sparked a mini-furore in the economic blogosphere and a possible third bet of a similar vein.
Bet 1
Convinced claims made by environmental doom-monger Paul Ehrlich that population growth would quickly outrun the supply of food and natural resources were false, Julian Simon had Ehrlich choose five commodity metals: Simon bet that their prices would go down in real terms, Ehrlich bet they would go up.
The chosen commodities, collectively costing $1,000 in 1980, fell in price by over 57% over the following decade. In October 1990 Ehrlich mailed Simon a cheque for $576.07.
Bet 2
Then in 2005, following in the footsteps of his friend and mentor Julian Simon, John Tierney…
View original post 572 more words
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
Recent Comments