There’s a lot of discussion on this blog on raising the stakes. For the record, I offered to bet Paul Krugman $1,000, in a Simon-Ehrlich kind of bet, on the future price of oil. He didn’t respond. (See http://www.davidrhenderson.com/articles/0297_isthereanewdigital.html and http://www.davidrhenderson.com/articles/0699_theinformationeconomy.html .)

I also offered to bet a Congressman $5,000 on oil reserves. He did accept and we shook hands on it in front of 7 other Congressmen. The Congressman I bet with was Roscoe Bartlett. I bet that in September 2017 (10 years after our bet), reserves of oil would be higher than they were in September 2007. The context was that I was briefing 8 Congressmen (Ron Paul, Jimmy Duncan, Paul Broun, Tom Tancredo, Roscoe Bartlett, Walter Jones, Scott Garrett, and Jack Kingston) on why we don’t need to go to war for oil. The briefing was based on my Independent Institute study. 7 out of the 8 Congressmen got it. Roscoe Bartlett couldn’t see past “peak oil.” Thus the bet. Now, he looks good for his age and I didn’t realize how old he was when I made the bet. I might be settling, either way, with his estate.