Friday, April 27, 2007
Economics 101
(3)
I just watched the NBC Evening News on TiVo, and there was a story about how the Afghanistan economy favors the production of poppy plants over, say, rice or wheat. Apparently US officials are at a loss concerning how to proceed in this case. I have a simple-minded solution to the problem: buy Afghani opium. Stock up on it. This will raise the price of opium in the short run all over the world, a good thing.
But after a couple or years, begin dumping opium on the international market. The price will plummet. Wheat and rice prices in Afghanistan will skyrocket. Farmers will begin planting wheat and rice again. Following that, continue buying Afghani (and Colombian, etc.) opium. Corner the worldwide market. Control the price. Make the price of opium so unreliable that few farmers in the world will risk growing it. Always have so much opium in hand that you can flood the opium market (hence kill any opium revival), everywhere.
If necessary, American farmers should begin growing opium in the interests of maintaining the national stockpile. European farmers should do the same, as necessary.
I base this suggestion on the fact that you can never eliminate the human desire for 'artificial ecstacy,' but that on the other hand you can control the means by which it propagates, and you can do so in an economical and humane way.
I just watched the NBC Evening News on TiVo, and there was a story about how the Afghanistan economy favors the production of poppy plants over, say, rice or wheat. Apparently US officials are at a loss concerning how to proceed in this case. I have a simple-minded solution to the problem: buy Afghani opium. Stock up on it. This will raise the price of opium in the short run all over the world, a good thing.
But after a couple or years, begin dumping opium on the international market. The price will plummet. Wheat and rice prices in Afghanistan will skyrocket. Farmers will begin planting wheat and rice again. Following that, continue buying Afghani (and Colombian, etc.) opium. Corner the worldwide market. Control the price. Make the price of opium so unreliable that few farmers in the world will risk growing it. Always have so much opium in hand that you can flood the opium market (hence kill any opium revival), everywhere.
If necessary, American farmers should begin growing opium in the interests of maintaining the national stockpile. European farmers should do the same, as necessary.
I base this suggestion on the fact that you can never eliminate the human desire for 'artificial ecstacy,' but that on the other hand you can control the means by which it propagates, and you can do so in an economical and humane way.
