Stephen Levitt worries about China's grip on the rare earth market making electric cars a national security issue ... except, of course, that China's dominance of rare earths is because of cheap costs, not some stranglehold over production. There's numerous other potential sources of rare earths worldwide; it would just be slightly more expensive and take a few years to set up.
But, surprise, the purpose of the whole post is to have a go at environmentalists and the Obama administration. Given how crap Freakanomics was, it's pretty impressive to have gotten *worse* since.
That particular post led me to write to him. No repsonse, which is really rather annoying. For not only am I gargantually "right wing" I am also involved in the rare earth industry.
I even wrote about this problem here:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/09/29/you-dont-bring-a-praseodymium-knife-to-a-gunfight?page=full
Making exactly the point (s) you do.
What really does weary me about some fellows on that "right" is that for all the lip service paid to the glories of markets and the like few actually seem to be able to understand that markets really are glorious and will sove, quite happily, problems like this.
Posted by: Tim Worstall | June 05, 2011 at 09:55 AM
Given how crap Freakanomics was, it's pretty impressive to have gotten *worse* since.
Spoken like a man who's managed to avoid reading "Superfreakonomics".
Posted by: ajay | June 05, 2011 at 10:43 AM
What really does weary me about some fellows on that "right" is that for all the lip service paid to the glories of markets and the like few actually seem to be able to understand that markets really are glorious and will solve, quite happily, problems like this.
I'm seeing some scene like the one in Beneath The Planet Of The Apes except with Divine Markets instead of the Bomb.
Posted by: ejh | June 05, 2011 at 10:54 AM
A small point in mitigation, your honour: the chapter where they link the passage of Roe v Wade to the drop in crime 20 years later. It's a claim that's attracted plenty of attempts to refute it, of course. And part of the attraction is that it's truthy rather than true. But mainly I like it because it forces the average GOP fellow traveller to choose between god-bothering and racism. Not a choice they often have to make, it tends to make them wriggle in a very satisfying manner.
Posted by: bert | June 05, 2011 at 01:26 PM
Jesus, you'd think the one thing a neoclassical economist would understand is incentives.
It is quite amusing to see that after years of mainstream economists blathering on about queen of the social sciences, proper science, etc, etc - that when their political values are threatened they throw out everything they supposedly hold dear. Of course it would be more amusing if anyone actually noticed.
Posted by: Cian | June 05, 2011 at 04:46 PM
"I'm seeing some scene like the one in Beneath The Planet Of The Apes except with Divine Markets instead of the Bomb."
And I'm seeing the market I work in quite happily solving the problem: although with the usual orgy of rent seeking and insistences that "Congress must do something".
Posted by: Tim Worstall | June 05, 2011 at 08:46 PM
Curiously, I'm seeing the market we live in neither colving the problems norsbeing happy.
Posted by: ejh | June 06, 2011 at 08:36 AM