The South and Midwest have been hit by another round of killer tornadoes. The New York Times, however, has told us this is not necessarily a bad thing, despite the many deaths. In an article from last year called “Reconstruction Lifts Economy After Disasters,” the reporters and editors at the Times tell us:
There is no silver lining to a funnel cloud, as anyone who survived the tornadoes can attest, but reconstruction can help rebuild local economies as well as neighborhoods.
Nancy Pelosi said the same thing about the earthquake that hit Haiti two years ago:
“I think that this can be an opportunity for a real boom economy in Haiti,” she told reporters in the Capitol, drawing from her experience in San Francisco. Haiti “can leap-frog over its past challenges, economically, politically, and demographically in terms of the rich and poor and the rest there, and have a new — just a new, fresh start,” the California Democrat added.
It’s obvious neither Pelosi nor the editors of the Times has heard of Frédéric Bastiat’s “broken window fallacy.” Some, like Pelosi and the Times editors, see broken windows as a good thing for the economy because it puts a glazier to work. But Bastiat pointed out that a shopkeeper having to spend money on fixing a window cannot spend it on something else, like new shoes, or a book. So, the broken window actually is a negative for the economy, not a plus.
But wait. It seems Pelosi’s view on disasters is inconsistent. Hard to believe, I know. But here she is last year telling CBS’s Bob Schieffer that the high unemployment numbers are not Obama’s fault, but are due to the disasters in the South and the Midwest. A disaster does not result in a “boom” in the economy, it seems, when the president’s disastrous economic policies must be spun to Democratic Party advantage.
Make up your minds, people.
