US Labor Secretary Elaine Chao apparently skipped Bastiat in her studies, and has declared that “what will happen — and I have seen this in previous catastrophes and hurricanes — there is a bright spot in that new jobs do get created.”
Read the article at Yahoo!News here.
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I always wonder, when such stupidity falls out of the mouth of a government official, whether they really are that ignorant if they’re just saying those things to comfort the ignorant public.
Very scary. People in these positions w/ poor understanding of economics. And Congressmen with no concept of the Consitution. At least it’s consistent. ;-(
Chris
http://amateureconblog.blogspot.com
It is not so surprising given her only qualification (if you can call it one) for the job is being the spouse of a U.S. Senator.
It’s true that new jobs will be created due to the hurricane. But she’s wrong about “bright spot” unless she has a lot of money tied into the construction/environmental cleanup industry.
I have a proposition:
Lets bulldoze all the buildings in DC so we can create new jobs!
But sadly, I have heard this “idea” of “new jobs” over the airways dozens of times already. But one must wonder, with all the lower class citizens being moved out of the city, how are they EVER going to get back to be able to fill these construction positions?
Did anyone else hear Neil Boortz yesterday? He briefly mentioned Bastiat’s essay – I was half asleep (listening to him on repeats in the late evening) but I think he said something like, “We all know the way that this [hurricane] can create jobs”.
I may have misunderstood him, but I got the impression that he is a bit hazy on the whole broken window concept. I don’t get to listen to him every day so I am curious to know whether he has expounded in any kind of accurate and meaningful way on the Broken Window Fallacy, or if he has fallen into the same trap as so many other mainstream commentators.
I think I can summarize the positions of most commentators as follows:
1) Government failed New Orleans miserably.
2) Government must spend a lot more and do a lot more.
3) The people of New Orleans bear no responsibility at all for their past actions, their current predicament, or for their future happiness.
Well, none of them has explicitly made point (3), but none of them has ever mentioned the townspeople at all with respect to their personal responsibilities and obligations, so implicitly they believe that those people have none whatsoever. It would seem to be the height of political incorrectness to suggest that the hurricane victims are in any way (a) stupid; (b) irresponsible; (c) overly tolerant of corruption; or (d) parasites.
JK actually it is surprising. I expected more from someone I remembered from her work at the Heritage Foundation
Ohhh Henry,
Are you sure Boortz wasn’t being sarcastic?
I have absolutely wonderful news! I’m listening to the Diane Rehm Show right now. She is talking to two guests about the economic impact of Hurricane Katrina:
http://www.wamu.org/programs/dr/05/09/08.php
Stephen Moore explicitly mentioned the Broken Window Fallacy and explained it quite succinctly and understandably. As he put it, the rebuilding isn’t the creation of new wealth, it is the rebuilding of the wealth that was lost. He attributes it to Henry Hazlitt’s Economics In One Lesson. That isn’t rigorously correct, but it does point the listeners to a resource they can get a copy of easily.
Contact information for the show, for anyone who would like to ask contribute is 1-800-433-8850 or drshow@wamu.org.
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