What's everyone's opinion on Hazlett's broken-window fallacy of economics?

[Liberty]

Personally, I think it's a shame that the populace only considers the Glazier's business and believe that destruction does not = growth. If you don't know what the broken-window fallacy is, then educate yourself before opining. thanks.


side-note: Hazlitt expanded on the idea from Bastiat, but is in Hazlitt's "economics in one lesson" which is a classic.

 

[Oddball]

Hazlitt is exactly right.

The #1 reason I refuse to give that quack Paul Krugman the time of day is because he invoked that thoroughly debunked brain dead fallacy after 9/11™.

 

[xsited1]

Hazlett's "Economics in one Lesson" should be required reading in school, but we all know that'll never happen. I still have the book that my dad gave to me when I was 16.

 

[Norman]

Hazlett's "Economics in one Lesson" should be required reading in school, but we all know that'll never happen. I still have the book that my dad gave to me when I was 16.

Indeed it certainly is a very good book.

And you can't fix an economy by destroying stuff, creating stuff IS the economy (though you CAN transfer wealth this way). So yeah my opinion is: it is an idiotic myth, and also krugman is a political writer and not a good economist IMO.

 

[skeptic]

Personally, I think it's a shame that the populace only considers the Glazier's business and believe that destruction does not = growth. If you don't know what the broken-window fallacy is, then educate yourself before opining. thanks.


side-note: Hazlitt expanded on the idea from Bastiat, but is in Hazlett's "economics in one lesson" which is a classic.

It is Hazlitt. And he was correct. The assumption that merely because destruction generates econ activity it generates prosperity was a fallacy.

Which is why war is bad for the economy as is defense spending and the whole military/industrial/intelligence complex thingee.

Milton Friedman said as much here:

 

[JBeukema]

Evey time I hear someone say war stimulates the economy, I go to their home at night and throw a brick through their window in the name of prosperity.

 

[Truthmatters]

When you have an economic plan based on a finite commodity then your economy is doomed to fail.

Economy based on war will fail because once you have killed all the people you economy is bust.

Now how about all us adults build a siustanable economy that actually makes the lives of the people who have to live within the system better?


To do this you have to control the weasels who would perfer a quick profit based on harm to anyone who needs to be harmed for their bank accounts sake.


This is one of the big reasons Im a democrat.

 

[Oddball]

What does that pile of brain droppings have to do with the topic in the OP?

 

[boedicca]

When you have an economic plan that requires people to act contrary to their self interest and assumes magical unicorn levels of economic growth, that taxes don't affect behavior, and debt doesn't matter, then your economy is doomed to fail.

That's why I don't support Obamanomics.

 

[Truthmatters]

republican voters vote against their self interests all the time

 

[boedicca]

TMN doesn't even know what self interest is.

 

[Oddball]

republican voters vote against their self interests all the time

Who died and made you the Czar of what's in the self interest of millions of people you don't know?

 

[Truthmatters]

when you are middle class or less and you vote for a tax cut for the wealthy because some smuck politician has convinvced you that every time you lower taxes you get more revenue then you have just voted against your own self interest.


Rebuplicans do this all the time.

 

[Oddball]

Do you get volume discounts when you buy all that straw?

 

[Truthmatters]

The republican party broke a huge number of windows while in office and now the right wants to blame the left for trying to fix the windows.

They are claiming we should not fix the windows but should give the guy who owns the glass company and the brick company a tax cut and that that will fix the window.


I sure wish you guys had just not broken the windows.

 

[Liberty]

hahaha, TM is like the retarded bastard crybaby of USMB. TM, consider growing up and realizing that not everything is party-based, and maybe you will wake up and educate yourself to the fallacies of the keynesian model. You are just a fountain head for other uneducated people who found themselves in positions to brainwash useful idiots such as yourself. Read something nonpartisan and maybe you can grow beyond a tool. Maybe.