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His acerbic take on the matter is called the Broken Window Fallacy.
FORBES: Taxing Yourself Rich
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Probably his next most familiar passage is his Broken Window Fallacy, whereby a broken window caused by a thrown brick would lead to a chain of new spending that would stimulate the economy.
FORBES: Happy Birthday Frederic Bastiat
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Large hurricanes, like Sandy, can create clean-up jobs and stimulate GDP growth, although, as Bastiat pointed out in his Broken Window Fallacy, much of the spending will be diverted spending rather than net new spending.
FORBES: Jobs and Public Policy
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There's also a bit of the broken window fallacy at play here: Not seen is the science and investment not created by the mis-direction of resources to this or that temporarily favored project or field.
FORBES: Magazine Article
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So, the next couple of items on my list were from Bastiat: the petition of the candle makers, the negative railroad, and the broken window fallacy, which led in to his discussion of the seen versus the unseen.
FORBES: Looking for Counterfactuals: The Seen versus the Unseen