"........ people like Summers can claim that the tsunami will create jobs and boost GDP. Better still, the workers will spend their wages and stimulate the rest of the economy, too. Japan will be better off for having endured a natural disaster.
If this were really the case, then the best possible way to boost Japan’s economy would be to level the entire country. Every building should be destroyed, brick by brick. The number of jobs that policy would create would dwarf any tsunami stimulus.
Then, in a few years, when the rebuilding is finished, workers can destroy their entire infrastructure again. Even more jobs will be created!"
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The Law By Frederic Bastiat
In a way, I understand what he means- not the way he said it....only a Lib would get away without being flogged to death by Liberal outrage about how insensitive he was.
ReplyDeleteI think he means that since Japans industries are down for the count, that someone will have to take up the slack. Summers thinks it's the US but forgets about China and India where our factories have moved to.
I believe he's bringing back the “broken window” fallacy. If it was true,then every few years, when the rebuilding was finished, you would destroy everything again which would create even more jobs, ad infinitum!:)
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