Via a link at The! New! Ace of Spades! (posted by one of his "morons" as an "open blog" dealio), I got turned on to a series of PM articles about this rather amazing woman, MIT's Amy Smith, who works with people in the developing world to figure out ways to make life easier, healthier, and more productive.

It seems to go along with a lot of what I've been reading in Zubrin's book, about how if we switch from petroleum-based products to (phased-in) alcohol-based energy sources (ethanol and methanol), we could really transform life in some of the most poverty-stricken areas of the world. Ethanol, especially, can be made from so many kinds of biomass that it might really level the playing field between farmers in rich nations and farmers in the Third World, without throwing the former out of work. Creating a market for ethanol would be, in effect, to make a bigger agricultural pie for the entire world.

And then we might see "free trade" and "fair trade" co-exist. Which means that the libertarians and the progressives would have to fight about other issues. Fortunately, we're unlikely to run out of 'em any time soon.

Which is why I've come to believe that (at least in the short term) there's nothing wrong with making biofuels out of edible materials like corn and soybeans: the higher the prices for these materials, the more of 'em will get planted. And the more ethanol becomes a standard fuel, the more of it will get made out of nonedible material, or material that is otherwise a waste-product from producing food (stalks and leaves from corn; bananas that do not make it to market before they become overripe).

If we build cars that can run on ethanol, it will come.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 08:39 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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I was intrigued by this article in The Atlantic that discussed the housing bubble, and in a sort of Malcolm Gladwell-esque way, suggested that economic "bubbles" might be treated like viruses, and prevented in analogous ways to how we work to contain the spread of diseases.

I was of two minds about the premise: on the one hand, I suspect we will be able to eliminate bubbles easily once we eliminate human nature. But another part of me feels that—as Professor Sowell himself has suggested—a certain level of economic literacy is required for any citizen to function effectively in society, and that teaching our kids a bit more about the dangers of "over-exuberant" speculation might really work to take the edge off of economic highs and lows.

Thoughts? Can bubbles be avoided? Will the housing collapse have far-reaching effects over the next several years? And given how ingrained this sort of behavior is into human nature, is there something we should be teaching the youngsters that might do them any good? (Or will they, as young people are wont to do, insist on learning the hard way?)

(X-posted at Right Wing News.)

Posted by: Attila Girl at 11:06 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Friend Rin is back in the country, and would like to know how, exactly, the lives of people in developing countries have been improved by capitalism and trade.

Please don't giggle; just break it down in the most logical fashion you can, because I don't have the heart to assign her Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat as summer reading—particularly given how each revision of that book seems to make it longer and longer. It's like the Gravity's Rainbow of popular economics.

Better, perhaps, to give her the juicy Thomas Sowell Econ primer I started right before we moved. Unfortunately, it hasn't shown up just yet: I definitely outwitted myself when I packed it.

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. . . of futures trading, with a lesson from the past in case Congress decides to blame them for the current energy crisis.

They will anyway, of course. What else are they going to do?—look in the mirror?

Via Insty.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 05:55 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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