Thursday
(1)Two problems in subdeveloped countries: dumping of subsidised argicultural produce in local markets which destroys local agriculture, and in Iraq, I am told the big bottleneck in getting electric power services restored is the looting of power cables.
I wonder how expensive this problem is in financial terms, we certainly know that power outages are a powerful symbol of the failings of the coalition forces. I wonder if we could employ one of the EU's most wicked weapons for a good cause?
I propose the dumping of a massive copper wire mountain in Iraq and neighbouring countires. Basically troops should hand out 500 yards of copper wire to every Iraqi who asks for it, in exchange for the price of a cup of coffee. For reasons which would be obvious to any British healthcare user, there had better be a price, or demand will be unlimited. The result of such a Cable Dumping Plan would be the destruction of the black market in wire theft from power lines as there would be no effective market to sell the looted product: the looters would find undercutting the subsidized rates very hard. Even if all the looters start saving their coffee money to buy miles of cable, they are not disconnecting the power supply.
We are left with the problem of deliberate sabotage, but this can be solved by normal occupying power policing techniques. The equation is: political cost of failing to get the power working versus the economic cost of a cable dumping policy.
As I understand it, the looted copper is finding its way onto the global market, where it has caused a discernable dip in copper prices world-wide. I think your proposal would only introduce an increasingly wacky distortion in the copper market, as the US or Britain foots the bill for shipping the copper to Iraq, and the smugglers re-sell it back to the markets it came from.
I think I like the idea of shooting looters better.
Posted by Mitch H. at September 18, 2003 01:28 PM
Well...
I was kidding about the subsidy idea.
But when comparing massive government programmes the insanity is only relative. I slightly prefer an 80 billion dollar government programme that persuades people to behave better (out of rapacious amoral self-interest) to an 80 billion government programme that relies on sanctimoniously killing some of the looters in 'defence' of property rights.
Posted by Antoine Clarke at September 18, 2003 02:00 PM
Dammit, a spoof,
And I spent half the afternoon wandering artound Brussels looking for a copper wire mountain. Foiled again
There again did spot a very big hole next to the European Parliament - there's an idea
Posted by Gawain at September 18, 2003 03:06 PM
That'll be the bottomless pit they throw money in.
Posted by Guy Herbert at September 18, 2003 03:39 PM
Spoof or not I think it is a fab idea. It only takes a relatively small subsidised supply of any commodity to distort market prices. I'm quite sure that by flying in few planeloads of tightly rolled copper vire the US/UK could completely change the risk vs reward equation of looting Iraqi electric power vire.
Of course people would still loot the rest of the power generation/transmission system making the whole thing moot. Demonstrates the futility of central interventions in markets really.
Posted by Lorenzo at September 18, 2003 06:21 PM
