Does replacing windows on a building that is no longer used help to stimulate the economy? The Forest Service thinks so, so it is going to spend something like $1 million replacing windows on a visitors’ center that it closed in 2007. (Thanks to the Antiplanner’s loyal ally, Andy Stahl, for bringing this to my attention.)
The purpose of this part of the stimulus program is to make federal buildings more energy efficient. But if the building isn’t used, it probably doesn’t consume much energy.
The Gifford Pinchot National Forest says it might want to re-open the visitors’ center someday, if it ever gets a big enough budget to manage it. In the meantime, the new windows will provide virtually no benefit.
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As Frederick Bastiat showed in his parable of the broken window, there is no net benefit to society from needlessly replacing windows (or, for that matter, cars). Whatever jobs are created from replacing the windows are made up for by jobs lost from spending the money on the windows instead of on something more worthwhile.
I guess neither the Forest Service nor the Obama administration have read Bastiat. That’s sad, because his essay is in the public domain and freely available. Maybe they would have read it if it had cost $1 million.
Instead of changing the windows, just cover the existing ones with plywood.
I believe Henry George wrote about the fallacy that exports are the key to a strong economy and jobs. In his essay he imagined an economy based on exports where the ships loaded with cargo were sunk after they left the port. Other countries also could do this, guarantying everyone would have strong exports and jobs producing those exports, and no one would be burdened imports or the jobs that are therefore shipped overseas.
As I recall, there are two visitor centers on that drive near Mt. St. Helens. Is that the lower visitor center or the upper visitor center? Is the other visitor center still open? Makes you wonder why they built two visitor centers up that road.
Given that no one will care about the final outcome, I would love/hate to see the level (it will be very low) of workmanship dedicated to this window-replacement to nowhere.
I don’t like waste either. The two examples that bother me most are wars and the prisons and judicial system. These expenses would be totally avoidable if everyone would follow the Biblical commandments to love God and love your neighbor.