reveal media bias!

Uh. I've never heard that democracy was somehow antithetical to cost-benefit analyses nor that it is immune to it. Since democracies are the home of the world's free(ish) markets, I'd have to say that if anything democracy lends itself to and encourages cost-benefit analyses. That said, I'm wondering about this equation you keep making between the UN and democracy. Since when is the UN in any way a democracy? Because it includes voting? You might as well call a corporation a democracy because shareholders vote. The UN is a collection of representatives from the leaders of many countries around the world. Here's a clue: representing leaders is not at all the same as representing people. Given the number of countries in the UN lead by dictators and other tyrants, the UN functions as much as an anti-democratic institution as it does a democratic one. I see no reason to give a collection of tyrants any more power than they've already managed to wrest from their poor citizens. Certainly not through a body with the track record of the UN. I have to admit that I'm interested in your (to me blind) assertion that the opacity of the UN can be fixed. How? Forgive me for not simply taking your word for it. And here's the thing: as long as the UN remains as opaque as it is, I can see no reason to trust it to do *any* good thing. Any at all. So how about if we get back together once that pesky opacity is fixed? Because as long as it remains the haven for corrupt and incompetent bureaucrats it is today, it will be unworthy of the trust and funds (let alone faith) it currently possesses.

Infinitely? Now that's just a silly statement. A live elephant that you own has *at a minimum* the future value of it's tusks. A dead elephant that you own has the very finite value of those same tusks. The only question is if it makes sense as an investment to breed them instead of collecting the tusks immediately. Wisely handled, I suspect that the answer is yes. Particularly if, as is clearly the case, demand is growing and the price of ivory continually rising. Heck, someone who owns ivory of any kind benefits from hanging onto it for as long as the price of the commodity climbs at a higher rate than comparable investments. That rise alone will cover the cost of maintaining a live animal even if you ignore the potential to breed more. Also, I can't say that I'm impressed much by what looks to me like raw class envy. It comes across to me as petty and a bit bigotted. The demand for ivory from the "wealthiest" is minuscule. It's the growing middle class in China that is spiking the ivory price.

Good point