Quote of the Day: God is a Vulgar Keynesian Just Trying to Help

After every disaster, someone says, “This will be good in the long run for the economy. Think of all the homes and infrastructure that must be rebuilt. Think of all the new cash that will come out reserves and go into circulation. This is just the stimulus we need.”

To those who genuinely believe this, I have a modest proposal. Instead of waiting patiently for hurricanes to fix our economy, why don’t we just manufacture our own disasters? For instance, the government could order a mandatory evacuation of California. We could then bomb the hell out of the state. Think of the stimulus this would create to the hotel, oil, military manufacturing, and ailing construction industries. Indeed, we could require Californians to leave their cars at home (to be bombed), and thus help the American auto industry as well. I understand insurance doesn’t cover acts of war, but surely this doesn’t count as war, does it?

At any rate, if you really believe this kind of stuff, it sort of solves the problem of evil, doesn’t it? Hurricanes aren’t apparent divine evil in need of explanation. Rather, God is a vulgar Keynesian just trying to help.

This is from Professor Jason Brennan at the Bleeding Hearts Libertarian sarcastically refuting the “Broken Window fallacy” popularized by vulgar Keynesians.

For these vulgar Keynesians, whose purview of the world emanates entirely from “spending-drives-everything” perspective, humanity have been subordinated to statistical aggregates—or people are merely just about numbers.