John Fields wrote:
On Thu, 02 Feb 2006 16:15:28 -0500, you [Jed] wrote:
Your suggestion is similar to the notion that we should combat Third
World starvation by building a thousand more large fishing boats --
factory scale ships. The problem is, fish populations have crashed in
every ocean and there are no more fish to catch, and if we build more
fishing boats we will simply hasten the day when the remaining stocks
of edible fish are driven to extinction.
---
I think that's a little severe.
There are truly _no_ more fish to catch?
Of course there are still some fish left to catch. However, world
catches have declined precipitously and are still declining, world fish
populations are declining, world fishing is at a greater than
sustainable level, and while adding more fishing boats _may_ produce a
very short upward blip in catches, it absolutely _will_ be followed by a
more rapid decrease.
Looking more than a year or two out, adding fishing boats absolutely
will decrease the catch.
Remember the Laffer curve debates, years back? At 0% income tax the
government's net tax revenue is zero. At 100% income tax nobody works
for taxable dollars and again the government's tax take is zero. So,
the _maximum_ tax take is achieved at some tax rate L, with 0 < L < 100.
The curve which relates government tax revenue to tax rate is called
the Laffer curve, and its peak is the optimal tax rate for maximum
government income.
Back when the top bracket in the U.S. was 90% we were apparently up past
the peak on the Laffer curve; "cutting taxes" could actually increase
the government's revenue.
Similarly, on the "Laffer curve" for fish, we are 'way, 'way past the
peak, and increasing the number of fishing boats will just decrease the
net catch.
