Destroy the previous products of GDP which produced GDP of their own, and presto! More GDP!
Might as well just print the stuff on steroids and spend it.
About 21% of taxpayer money and borrowings is already misallocated to expenditure by the federal government. Some of that is absolutely necessary, but even that is not spent well.
Hurricanes aren't called disasters for nothing.
Here:
Ellen Zentner, chief United States economist at Morgan Stanley, said that although Hurricane Harvey’s impact on national gross domestic product in the third quarter might be fairly neutral, “the lagged effects of rebuilding homes and replacing motor vehicles can lost longer,” providing a lift to gross domestic product in the fourth quarter and beyond.
On the other hand, an extended rise in gasoline prices could have a more immediate effect. Each 10-cent rise in the price of gasoline is equivalent to a $10 billion tax on consumers, Ms. Zentner said, so “should higher prices be sustained, it would rob other categories of spending as dollars are diverted to filling tanks.” ...
The economic impact of the storm will not be clear with any degree of accuracy for a while. But given Houston’s commercial importance — and its perch along a well-trod hurricane zone — economists and others have long taken it for granted that an epic storm would hit the region eventually, so have a head start on the numbers.
