By the way, from my friend @EthicalSkeptic
Broken Window Parable (Bastiat Fallacy) – actually a counter to the broken window parable which proposes that even in disaster, an economy profits on the repair and recovery.
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The Bastiat Fallacy points out the logical failure of such reasoning. Proposed by Nineteen Century French economist Frederic Bastiat, the fallacy states that the economic benefit derived from recovering from disaster is never superior to the economic benefit......
...... which was lost as opportunity cost, as a result of sacrificing the resources sacrificed in the disaster, nor committed to repair the damage or fix the disaster. The economic benefit of war is never compared to what was lost as a result of the war.
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Why is this important? There is an exception to the fallacy, when the total reaction shifts benefit from one group to another, there is benefit. For instance, even though Hurricane Katrina was horrible for many people it benefitted certain subgroups like construction.
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When you examine disasters like this pandemic, always recognize that although society may lose in total, there will be groups that directly benefit from imperfect matching of actions taken such as government and insurance companies, creating a systemic conflict of interest.
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No matter how professional, always ask, are those talking, advising, offering support free from these conflicts? If not, always keep a skeptical eye on the advice coming from them. Never ask a roofer if you need a new roof unless someone else is paying for it.
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Many of our government agencies, Pharma companies and academics, directly benefit from this pandemic, is their advice uniformly driven by the consideration of your balanced risk and costs? Is their professional discussion always minimizing the impact on our society?
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Are they even aware of the total impacts? Remember there are always sub-groups that can beat Bastiat’s Fallacy, but that is only with regard to their sub-group, not for society as a whole.
/end
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