For those who know Bastiat’s Broken Window Fallacy, made famous by Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson, the following news item would be hilarious if it weren’t so pathetic: The Bright Side of Hurricanes (MSNBC):
It’s time to look at the bright side of hurricanes. “YOU HAVE TO look at the silver lining,” says Frank Marks, a research meteorologist for the hurricane research division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration...
Not only does Marks tout the ecological benefits of hurricanes, he also touts the economic benefit of hurricanes. He remembers the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew, which devastated South Florida in 1992. There was tremendous destruction. People whose homes were destroyed were living in tents. That was bad. But it was followed by a huge infusion of insurance money.
“A lotta money gets spent,” he says, “and it flows through the community and reinvigorates the community for years.”
Carl Hiaasen remembers that hurricane, too. He covered it as a columnist for the Miami Herald, then wrote a comic novel about it called “Stormy Weather.”
“It’s a boon to roofing contractors,” he says, “and to plywood, drywall and window manufacturers. It’s not good for insurance companies.”
