David Frum, who apparently fancies himself something of an amateur, albeit but very vocal and very public, economist, has a "free-market" solution to the problem of declining fish stocks. (See also: "I Think We're Eating Too Much Fish," The Rittenhouse Review, May 16.)

Herewith a brief excerpt from Frum's May 19 post at National Review Online:

I don't know about you, but I've been worrying about this story about the depletion of major fish stocks: I suppose I feel rather responsible, because I do eat quite a lot of fish. Here's my standing on one feet suggestion: ban all existing fishing fleets from the North American continental shelf. Then auction fishing rights off the Atlantic coast to a single purchaser for each major species, ditto for the Pacific, and ditto for the Gulf of Mexico coast. These rights should run for a long time -- 20 years at least, maybe longer -- to give the buyer every reason to worry about his future returns. The reserve price should be set high enough so that the purchaser could not earn a profit by fishing existing stocks to extinction. If the minimum bid were set high enough, he'd only earn a profit if he could land more fish in 10, 12, and 14 years than are available today -- and the only way to do that would be to curtail his current catch sufficiently to encourage regrowth in the outyears [sic].

Probably some competent economist can shoot all kinds of holes in this plan, but it is a suggestion -- and I'm not hearing many others.

Well, shoot holes they did -- "fish in a barrel" jokes apparently held in abeyance -- and the e-mail he received in response to his piece was, well, not exactly supportive or flattering, judging from his post at NRO today.

Yet Frum today has the gall to write:

We have to figure out a way to make wild species somebody’s property -- and if my scheme of long-term leases is faulty, it is at least a pointer to the right answer.

Says who? David Frum?

Readers, this is not an example of chutzpah, it's the very definition thereof.