The curse of Models have struck again! And apparently government based models has been alleged as a vital contributor to the massive oil spill in Gulf of Mexico in the US!
Here is the Wall Street Journal, (hat tip Russ Roberts)
``BP PLC and other big oil companies based their plans for responding to a big oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico on U.S. government projections that gave very low odds of oil hitting shore, even in the case of a spill much larger than the current one.
``The government models, which oil companies are required to use but have not been updated since 2004, assumed that most of the oil would rapidly evaporate or get broken up by waves or weather. In the weeks since the Deepwater Horizon caught fire and sank, real life has proven these models, prepared by the Interior Department's Mineral Management Service, wrong... (emphasis added)
Here is the Wall Street Journal, (hat tip Russ Roberts)
``BP PLC and other big oil companies based their plans for responding to a big oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico on U.S. government projections that gave very low odds of oil hitting shore, even in the case of a spill much larger than the current one.
``The government models, which oil companies are required to use but have not been updated since 2004, assumed that most of the oil would rapidly evaporate or get broken up by waves or weather. In the weeks since the Deepwater Horizon caught fire and sank, real life has proven these models, prepared by the Interior Department's Mineral Management Service, wrong... (emphasis added)
As Friedrich Hayek once wrote, "The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."
How true.
How true.
No comments:
Post a Comment