GallimaufryandChips wrote:
In Catch 22 Major Major's father, a farmer, was paid a government subsidy not to grow alfalfa. He used the subsidy to buy more land on which he didn't grow alfalfa and grew richer. As it appears that both state planning and the free market are both impractical ideals, wouldn't it be better to try the third way of muddling along and adapting to changing circumstances?
This is the living embodiment of the principle. You have the Chinese building factories to produce unusable HCF 22 so that they can also produce HCF 23 as a by-product which they can then burn and claim carbon credits worth 70 times the cost of production and disposal. As for the "unusable" HCF 22, this is sold illegally and enters the black market, some of it finding its way into India, where the prices are higher - thus fuelling the growth of organised crime. What a wonderful outcome.