Sure, Don Carrington investigates for his latest article the “jobs policies” leading politicians have put forward in recent weeks and months.

But there’s at least one policy he didn’t mention — the policy that’s always trotted out after a disaster. Max Borders investigates this policy in the latest edition of the Ideas Matter update.

[T]he next time you hear a friend say that war or hurricanes have a silver lining, send them this post.

Let’s also take this opportunity to point out that creative destruction is the good one — destructive destruction is the bad one.

Recall Joseph Schumpeter’s lesson that more efficient, more productive and higher quality goods and services will replace less efficient, less productive, lower quality goods and services due to capitalism. This continuous process of renewal is frightening and unpleasant to those in industries that are being supplanted. But today, no one would argue we should have protected buggy whips or the whale oil industries. Still, in the old days, the change for people working in those industries might have been wrenching. Today’s analogs to buggy whips and whale oils have organized into interest groups.

It’s hard to communicate the idea the creative destruction makes us all better off in the long run. When we fail to appreciate that fact, we fall into traps like the broken windows fallacy. Stimulus packages and government largesse are the rocks through the panes of progress. Every dollar we spend on something silly is a dollar we can’t spend on something productive and prosperity enhancing.