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Topic: Broken window fallacy

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Broken windows theory

Autism in Children

Opportunity cost

Supply and demand

Strong atheism

Frederic Bastiat

Precautionary principle

Comparative advantage

Decision theory

Market system

Monopoly

Resource economics

Aggregate supply

Market economy

Trade

	Parable of the broken window - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		The parable of the broken window was created by Frederic Bastiat in his 1850 essay That Which is Seen and That Which is Not Seen to illuminate the notion of hidden costs ( a.k.a.
		Bastiat uses this story to introduce a concept he calls the broken window fallacy, which is related to the law of unintended consequences, in that both involve an incomplete accounting for the consequences of an action.
		The fallacy of the onlookers' argument is that they considered the positive benefits of purchasing a new window, but they ignored the hidden costs to the shopkeeper and others.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Broken_window_fallacy (1551 words)

	JIMMY AKIN.ORG: The Broken Household Fallacy
		BROKEN WINDOW #3: It also means that the children operate in a standardized environment that is less customized to their individual needs than the home would be (e.g., if the slow learners in class set the pace of learning then the fast learners are slowed down and visa versa mutatis mutandis).
		BROKEN WINDOW #23: Because birth rates begin to fall among the immigrants, and because birthrates are falling world-wide, immigration proves not to be a long-term solution to the problem, leading to proposed other solutions to keep the economy from shrinking--like extending the retirement age.
		BROKEN WINDOW #27: Because of the rise in family break-ups, the out-of-wedlock birthrate goes up (harming children and single mothers, particularly), but it is not enough to offset the overall shrinkage of the population.
	www.jimmyakin.org /2005/02/the_broken_hous.html (3427 words)

	Public Goods Fallacies - False Justifications For Government
		Keynesians take the fallacy one step further: when faced with sufficient evidence (which they will never be honest enough to be the first to bring forward), they will not deny that the way their equations are utter nonsense when applied to meaningful, understandable, quantities.
		The Moral Fallacy supposes that man is too evil (or too ``something´´) to govern himself as to some ``public goods´´ that must thus be confided to the government — but the government itself is made of men who are not less evil (or less ``something´´) than the rest of mankind.
		This fallacy once again supposes that government is moved by an external force outside of the public, whereby statesmen and their henchmen would be more altruistic and less egoistic than the citizens.
	fare.tunes.org /liberty/public_goods_fallacies.html (5071 words)

	Fixing Broken Windows - free-definition (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		It is based on Broken Windows by James Q. Wilson and George Kelling, which appeared in the March 1982 edition of The Atlantic Monthly.
		If the windows are not repaired, the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows.
		Repair the broken windows within a short time, say, a day or a week, and the tendency is that vandals are much less likely to break more windows or do further damage.
	www.free-definition.com /Fixing-Broken-Windows.html (295 words)

	REVISITING BASTIAT'S BROKEN WINDOW
		What is seen is the window broken by vandals (or the house, street or suburb devastated by a storm) and the resultant employment of repairmen.
		According to Hazlitt, "the broken window fallacy, under a hundred disguises, is the most persistent in the history of economics.
		The ultimate absurdity revealed by the broken window fallacy is that if it were true, then governments could easily create and fructify wealth: they need only (and repeatedly) erect pyramids and monuments, dynamite them and immediately rebuild them.
	www.quebecoislibre.org /04/040207-5.htm (1712 words)

	Walter E. Williams: Economic lunacy (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		Bastiat wrote a parable about this that has become known as the "Broken Window Fallacy." A shopkeeper's window is broken by a vandal.
		After all, fixing the broken window creates employment for the glazier, who will then buy bread and benefit the baker, who will then buy shoes and benefit the cobbler, and so forth.
		The broken-window fallacy was seen in a column written by Princeton University professor Paul Krugman after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, "After the Horror" New York Times (Sept. 14, 2001).
	www.townhall.com /columnists/walterwilliams/printww20041117.shtml (552 words)

	War destroys but it can sometimes also allow creation \| Samizdata.net
		This fallacy says, fallaciously, that broken windows are good for the economy because they are good for the window-mending business.
		What the broken window fallacy neglects to mention is that broken windows are bad for all the businesses that the window mending money might have gone to instead, but now cannot.
		The most extreme statement of this fallacy is the claim that the ultimate window breaker, war, is good for the economy, because that way lots of work is "created" in all the industries that subsequently set to work to repair the destruction.
	www.samizdata.net /blog/archives/007427.html (1417 words)

	Mike Linksvayer » Blog Archive » Bill Gates for Broken Windows (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		He’s retelling the parable of the broken window s (how appropos!), also known as the broken window fallacy.
		In a nutshell, the fallacy says that breaking windows is good for the economy, as it creates the need for replacements, and thus “creates jobs.” This is of course nuts.
		One reason people sometimes buy the broken window fallacy is that they confuse the purpose of economic activity, which is to fulfill needs, i.e., to create wealth, not to create work.
	gondwanaland.com /mlog/2004/07/11/bill-gates-for-broken-windows (469 words)

	Catallarchy » The Broken Window - Fallacy, or Psychological Defense Mechanism? (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		Caveat: I should note that the BWF is often used as an example of the much broader and more important principle that people pay attention to visible, concentrated costs and ignore invisible, dispersed ones, which leads them to economic errors.
		Despite positing this alternate mechanism for BWF in specific, I think the more general principle is a widespread and important fallacy.
		BWF in its most dangerous form supports and disguises (makes important elements unseen) war.
	catallarchy.net /blog/archives/2005/02/17/the-broken-window-fallacy-or-psychological-defense-mechanism (1024 words)

	Jonah Goldberg's Goldberg File on National Review Online
		If that hadn't happened, he might have bought his wife a new stove or he might have invested that money in a new store or, to be fair, he might have blown his whole stack on a three-day hooker and cocaine binge that would have ruined his marriage and left him screaming at the urinal.
		Wars destroy things and the economic benefits accrued are either fallacious or acquired from the looting of other peoples' property.
		But when you consider the fact that virtually all of the broken windows will be on Iraqi soil, it's hard to see how they can say that destruction of property can't be economically beneficial for the Iraqis (never mind what a stabilized and rational oil market would do for us).
	www.nationalreview.com /goldberg/goldberg091902.asp (2277 words)

	Terrorism Is Good for the Economy? It Just Ain’t So! (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		The “broken window fallacy” stems from the observation that when wealth is destroyed, through war, natural disaster, or, as told by nineteenth-century French economist Frédéric Bastiat, a hoodlum throwing a brick through a shop window, it is usually replaced.
		In reality, if the windows didn’t have to be fixed and the buildings rebuilt we could have more buildings, more windows, and more of all of the products that we desire and that make our lives better.
		The true absurdity of the “broken window fallacy” is that if it were true we could make the entire economy wealthy by constructing buildings, blowing them up, and then rebuilding them.
	www.fee.org /vnews.php?nid=274&printable=Y (864 words)

	Bastiat's Window: The Broken Window (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		The window having been broken, the glass industry gets six francs' worth of encouragement; that is what is seen.
		If the window had not been broken, the shoe industry (or some other) would have received six francs' worth of encouragement; that is what is not seen.
		On the first hypothesis, that of the broken window, he spends six francs and has, neither more nor less than before, the enjoyment of one window.
	bastiatswindow.blogspot.com /2005/01/broken-window.html (926 words)

	Why the New Deal Failed
		Because I've observed what's happened in that house and what's happened is this: He broke the window, but the guy who had the window broken called up the glassmaker and the glassmaker put the window in and installed it for $500.
		The valid point here is that the guy whose window was broken also might have wanted to buy a DVD player and a reclining chair.
		You never generated real business because the guy who had the window broken is out $500 and the guy who had replaced the window is up $500, but the guy who had the window broken would have also been spending $500.
	www.academia.org /campus_reports/2002/summer_2002_3.html (3646 words)

	The Broken Window Fallacy
		The logical conclusion from all this would be, if the crowd drew it, that the little hoodlum who threw the brick, far from being a public menace, was a public benefactor.
		Because he has had to replace the window, he will have to go without the suit (or some equivalent need or luxury).
		Or, as he was planning to buy the suit that very afternoon, instead of having both a window and a suit he must be content with the window and no suit.
	www.freedomkeys.com /window.htm (584 words)

	John Locke Foundation \| Tsunami and the Broken Window
		Frederic Bastiat captured the essence of this idea in his 1850 essay, "That Which is Seen and That Which is Not Seen," perhaps better known as the Parable of the Broken Window, or the broken window fallacy.
		Here is how the broken window fallacy "works": the destruction of one's property is said to generate "good" for the economy because jobs are created in the process of replacing the property that was lost.
		Henry Hazlitt debunked this broken window myth in "The Blessings of Destruction," an essay based upon the Bastiat tale.
	www.johnlocke.org /fmm/display.html?id=2209 (652 words)

	Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt
		Hazlitt expounds on one example, the broken window that brings business to the glazier and consequently to others who deal with him.
		But the broken window analysts neglect the fact that the owner of the window is out the cost of the repair, so that the gain for the glazier is a genuine loss to the owner.
		Hazlitt takes the broken-window fallacy and shows how it applies to economic principles, and he shows how many economic analysts use the fallacy in justifying their own pet schemes.
	www.insmkt.com /economics.htm (544 words)

	One, Two, Many Broken Windows
		The broken window fallacy —thoroughly refuted by the French economic journalist Frédéric Bastiat back in the 19
		Indeed, of Bastiat's many great insights, the broken window is among the most clearly intuitive: A boy who breaks a shop window stimulates economic activity by forcing the shopkeeper to pay a glazier for a new pane of glass.
		Indeed, another lesson from the broken window fallacy is that it will never be easy to make the case that state economic intervention, like disasters, cannot produce a net gain in wealth.
	www.cei.org /gencon/019,04415.cfm (634 words)

	Economic Lunacy
		Bastiat wrote a parable about this which has become known as the "Broken Window Fallacy." A shopkeeper's window is broken by a vandal.
		A crowd forms sympathizing with the man, but pretty soon they start to suggest the boy wasn't guilty of vandalism; instead, he was a public benefactor, creating economic benefits for everyone in town.
		The broken window fallacy was seen in a column written by Princeton University Professor Paul Krugman after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, "After the Horror" New York Times (9/14/01).
	www.gmu.edu /departments/economics/wew/articles/04/lunacy.html (550 words)

	Bastiat's Window
		Thompson's reasoning is as muddled as the fallacy in economist Frederic Bastiat's story of the broken window...
		Mary Thomas, a 46-year-old secretary from Detroit, was bewildered by Granholm's warning on Tuesday that she may have to cut school aid by $28 a student followed Wednesday by the cool cities grant announcements.
		Just as it would be fallacious to discuss the "cost" of a loaf of bread without including the cost of the heat used to bake it, so too is it fallacious to lament the cost of partially hydrogenated oils without considering the true costs of not using those oils.
	bastiatswindow.blogspot.com (5711 words)

	Ten Recurring Economic Fallacies, 1774â“2004 - Mises Institute (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		One of the most persistent is that of the broken window—one breaks and this is celebrated as a boon to the economy: the window manufacturer gets an order; the hardware store sells a window; a carpenter is hired to install it; money circulates; jobs are created; the GDP goes up.
		True, there is a sudden burst of activity, and some persons have surely gained, but only at the expense of the proprietor whose window was broken, or his insurance company; and if the latter, the other policyholders who will pay higher premiums to pay for paid-out claims, especially if many have been broken.
		The fallacy that government is a better judge of the most profitable modes of directing labor and capital than individuals is well illustrated by exporting policies.
	www.mises.org /fullstory.aspx?control=1568 (3595 words)

	Legal Library - Light, Liberty And Pursuit Of The Regulation Of Light In Baltimore County
		A law requiring the shuttering of all windows and the closing of all blinds to shut out the sunlight thus stimulating the domestic candle industry.
		The broken window doesn’t increase spending; rather it diverts six francs from the window owner (who is now that much poorer) to a window glazier (who is that much enriched).
		But we fall for a version of the Broken Window Fallacy every time we evaluate the impact of a government regulation without considering what citizens would have done with the money now required to be spent complying with that regulation.
	www.stuartkaplow.com /library3.cfm?article_id=74 (742 words)

	Article: Broken Glass, Candle Wax and Rainbow Stew - Bob McTeer (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		As retold by Hazlitt, it is known as "the fallacy of the broken window." To make a long story short, it seems that some teenagers threw a brick through a baker’s window.
		The tale of the broken window is a silly little story—an elementary fallacy any of us should see through in a New York minute.
		According to Hazlitt, "The broken-window fallacy, under a hundred disguises, is the most persistent in the history of economics." He said that in 1946.
	tamusystem.tamu.edu /chancellor/mcteer/articles/ma94autumn.html (3979 words)

	That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen; by Frederic Bastiat
		The window being broken, the glazier's trade is encouraged to the amount of six francs; this is that which is seen.
		If the window had not been broken, the shoemaker's trade (or some other) would have been encouraged to the amount of six francs; this is that which is not seen.
		In the second, where we suppose the window not to have been broken, he would have spent six francs on shoes, and would have had at the same time the enjoyment of a pair of shoes and of a window.
	bastiat.org /en/twisatwins.html (14792 words)

	Kids.net.au - Encyclopedia Opportunity cost - (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		Frederic Bastiat suggested that ignoring hidden costs can make certain decisions appear to have no cost at all.
		He described this as the broken window fallacy.
		Since the work of the Austrian economist Friedrich von Wieser opportunity cost has been seen as the foundation of marginal theory of value.
	www.kids.net.au /encyclopedia-wiki/op/Opportunity_cost (403 words)

	(Type a title for your page here) (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		If the broken window is large enough, it might produce an economic boom.
		Whenever a government program is justified not on its merits but by the jobs it will create, remember the broken window.
		The broken window fallacy is perpetrated in many forms.
	www.wiu.edu /users/miecon/wiu/whymajor/commencementspeech.html (1657 words)

	Cafe Hayek: Broken Record, Broken Record, Broken Record, Broken Rec....
		Broken Record, Broken Record, Broken Record, Broken Rec....
		Don Boudreaux brings up the "Broken Window Fallacy" in a post criticizing a news article suggesting that the Tsunami disaster was good for the economies of the affected countries.
		I'm an economist, but I know exactly how a geographer would feel if he saw a news story from a major wire service explaining how the earth is flat, hardly even bothering to mention that some people think it's round.
	cafehayek.typepad.com /hayek/2005/02/broken_record_b.html (405 words)

	Fourwinds10.com - News - Business > Economy -- The False Reasoning in "The Bright Side of War" (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		Instead of economic stagnation, the broken window will set money in motion and bring new prosperity.
		The fallacy, of course, is that, had the window not been broken, the shopkeeper would have spent his money in a way that would have made him better off than he was when he awoke that morning.
		If the window had not been broken, the shopkeeper would have had money for other things.
	www.fourwinds10.com /news/01-business/B-economy/2004/01B-06-02-04-false-reasoning-in-bright-side-of-war.html (696 words)

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