SENTINEL WATCH May 23, 2005 Issue

NO COMPETITION FOR RESOURCES

TONY LOBL

I RECENTLY READ two news reports back-to-back that got me thinking about supply and demand.

First, I read that the Japanese government had granted concessions to national businesses to drill for oil in a disputed area of the East China Sea, which further tests strained relations between Japan and China. And then, right here in London, a bright little girl told how no local secondary school had a place for her because London's boroughs find themselves stretched 6,000 pupils beyond capacity.

Rigorous competition for resources, whether at the level of international energy needs or at the level of a schoolgirl's need for a classroom, sometimes seems inevitable. And in a material world of exhaustible supplies, that reasoning makes sense. It just goes on and on—water is too scarce in the Middle East. Can it ever be otherwise? And on a personal level, money is too scarce in our bank accounts.