Two points 1: It is my belief that in a free market for river management (no government meddling) common law practises would evolve, stipulating how to resolve cases where activities upstream causes havoc downstream (whether this take the form of pollution, flooding or whatever)
2: I seem to recall that heavy flooding in the Mississippi / Missouri area led to a reversal of the "let's build a protective dike and thus move the problem down stream"-policy. Large areas (including whole villages) were essentially given up and left open for future flooding, thus taking the pressure off the river further down. Can anybody confirm this? - jacob braestrup > --- john hull <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > ... you seem to be suggesting that > > policy makers are benefiting the present at the > > expense of the future, yet couldn't one could accuse > > you of wanting to benefit the future at the expense of > > the present? > > One could accuse me thusly, but the accusation would not be warranted. > My belief is that a pure free market would bias neither the present nor the > future. > > > It seems like the balanced position > > would be to accept the consequences of the 100 year > > flood for the benefit of 99 years of prosperity and > > growth. > > There can be too much investment in disaster prevention, but I have not seen > any cost/benefit analysis indicating that the governmental river policies in > Europe have been optimal. The same applies to US and Chinese policy. > > At any rate, if prosperity and growth are the goals, none of the European > countries have tax and regulatory policies that maximize it, so the evidence > is that there are other goals and preferences that have higher priority for > the policy makers. > > Fred Foldvary > > ===== > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > -- NeoMail - Webmail
