Natural disasters are good for the economy. No, they aren't. Yes, they are. Well, maybe sometimes they are and sometimes they aren't. (pdf) It helps if somebody makes a movie or a television show about it. The Broken Window fallacy.
posted by anotherpanacea on Jul 8, 2008 - 17 comments

Frederic Bastiat, described by Joseph Schumpeter nearly a century after Bastiat's death as, "the most brilliant economic journalist who ever lived." A great proponent of free markets, his works show a fastidious devotion to the Vienna School of economic thought. His Petition to Candlemakers demonstrates both his satirical wit and an understanding of the failings of isolationist economic policies (cf Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act). Lorenza Garreau writes, "Every day he crushed a fallacy -- killed it by ridicule and by turning on it the bright light of logic."
posted by geoff. on May 14, 2007 - 17 comments

Frédéric Bastiat (1801-1850)
posted by hama7 on Nov 5, 2006 - 15 comments