whether a natural resource or not, and, whether there's a "shortage" or not, somewhere, there's a problem:

     if better responses exist, the current crop of policy-makers is a bloody-minded lot who adamantly reject and refuse those better responses.  There are good reasons to believe that they're doing this for rationally sound reasons though for reasons which are morally corrupt. (With the most amazing nonchalance, they've dismissed the whole notion of moral hazard, once taught with such stern authoritarianism when the subjects and lessons had to do with third-world macro-economic thriftiness, as no longer being very important.)

    There are competent policy-analysts, and they're producing valid critiques and useful policy formulations which, ultimately, have been utterly ignored by the PiP.  In such circumstances, while it can be disputed as neither a natural resource nor a shortage, so far, one is hard-pressed to explain why it might not as well be desribed that way.

    Economic theories which have been thoroughly discredited remain in sway among lots of PiP.  Though good critiques are available, these make little impact on practical affairs.  So, our real troubles--as numerous analysts have repeated--are political failings more than failings of economic theory at this point.  Right?

 

"In such an environment it is not surprising that the ills of technology should seem curable only through the application of more technology..." John W Aldridge