What if someone says that it is a good thing to break windows; it causes money to circulate; the encouragement of industry in general will be the result of it? That person’s theory accounts only for the seen and not the unseen. FULL ARTICLE by Frederic Bastiat
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/10954/the-broken-window/
The Broken Window
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What are you talking about? If the window was not broken, James B. could still have spent 6 francs on a window. Then James B. would have 2 windows, not just 1 window. Or James B. could have spent 6 francs on shoes. Then James B. would have a window and shoes.
So James B. loses the value of the broken window no matter what he does.
We’re not worried about running out of money. We can always print more money. So if we spend 6 francs rebuilding a window, we’ll just print another 6 francs. If we spend $1 trillion rebuilding a country, we’ll just print another $1 trillion.
To Frederic Bastiat.
Agreed !
We should pay government thugs to break cars so we can create rebuilding jobs. We can print money while we’re at it too and give it away to boost consumer spending and GDP. We’ll call it Cash for Clunkers.
Printing money and giving it away always increases GDP, because that’s money that wouldn’t have existed otherwise. So everyone is better off, because they have cash they wouldn’t have had. We should print as much money as possible, so people can buy lots of new windows.
To Saul Frugman.
You can also spend all this new money in creating new goods and services instead of rebuilding what you broke, and the results, in terms of ‘consumer’ spending and GDP, will be the same.
The only difference is that the country will be richer if we get new goods and services in addition of the existing stocks, instead of just replacing the existing stocks.
Printing money always makes people richer. Look at Weimar Germany. They were so rich that they burned money to keep themselves warm. We should copy Weimar Germany.
To Saul Frugman.
Don’t worry, it’s coming !
The only problem, is that Zimbabwey has taken a good advance on us !
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