If you’re troubled by the horrific front-line impacts U.S. communities are facing in the wake of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, have no fear: At least one senior banker claims the country will be better off in the long run.
While poor communities, in particular, face a daunting road to recovery after the two storms tore through parts of Texas and Florida, “those effects tend to be pretty transitory,” New York Federal Reserve Bank President William Dudley told CNBC earlier this month. “The long-run effect of these disasters, unfortunately, is that it actually lifts economic activity, because you have to rebuild all the things that have been damaged by the storms.”
Much of Dudley’s interview had to do with the prospects for continuing economic growth in the U.S.—which he said would receive a boost from Harvey and Irma.
“I would expect that by the time we get to the end of the year and early 2018, the transitory negative effects of this storm will be over, and we will actually start to see some of the benefits of the rebuilding efforts in terms of boosting the economy,” he said. (h/t to The Energy Mix subscriber Gary Martin for pointing us to this story)
Brilliant strategy –. Hurricanes as a way to keep the economy growing. How many hurricanes will it take to make the planet completely uninhabitable? Which is now the same as asking — How long and how many Bankers will it take to completely destroy the planet? — Dudley’s foresight doesn’t go much beyond the next quarter.
Of course there were no questions to Dudley on the long-term ecological impacts of endless economic growth. Dudley does not entertain a vision of prosperity with economic growth.