Tweet [1]
As sure as camera crews follow natural disasters, so too do stories of how each natural disaster is really actually pretty darn good for the economy. Here [2] (courtesy of my friend Fred Dent) is one of these inevitable explanations of how the Indian ocean tsunami is an economic blessing.
What to say? “Broken Window Fallacy [3]” comes to mind. Or maybe, “Hey! Why not bomb the bejezzus out of American cities to give the U.S. economy a little more of a lift? We can evacuate city-folk to North Dakota for the duration of the bombing, so no one is killed; we’ll merely destroy people’s homes, automobiles, places of work and worship, barista bars, and household pets. (We don’t want to short-change dog breeders and pet-shop owners, of course.) Think of the prosperity we’ll create!
….
Someone ought to write a book bearing a title something like this: An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations [4].