Matt Carberry (kingpin248) wrote,
Matt Carberry
kingpin248

Paging Bastiat...Frederic Bastiat, please report to the Princeton economics department.

So...we had an earthquake here on the east coast of the United States this afternoon. Personally, I didn't feel it. I did, however, enjoy many of the Tweets following the tremor. I sent out two of my own - one about UVa lacrosse and another about Alex Rodriguez.

The Daily Beast posted a list of some of their favorites. I noted that they failed to include my favorite - "Coming soon: Paul Krugman on why minor damage from earthquake is an economic stimulus, proves we need bigger quakes." Well, pardon my French, but that shit just got real. Hit & Run reports that Krugman someone posing as Krugman adopted the punchline, without sarcasm, in a post on Google-plus. This inspires me to ask a light-hearted question in good fun:

In 2008, the committee responsible for awarding the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics was under the influence of
(a) money
(b) uncut Colombian narcotics
(c) aliens
(d) animal spirits
(e) all of the above

I'm left to wonder whether the ardent Keynesians would ever consider advocating a program of targeted non-creative destruction. If it ever comes to pass, both my political and collegiate biases make Princeton, New Jersey a very tempting test site.

[EDIT, 12:15 pm, Wed 24 Aug: The statement supposedly from the economist was actually a parody. I have left up the majority of this post because the sentiment is still largely true. Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute (who was one of many fooled by this) points out that Krugman did once write that 9/11 could be beneficial to the economy.]

(Explanation of the title of this post.)
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