We are not seriously suggesting divine intervention. But what is occurring does serve as a real time example of successful stimulation of the economy.
The recent storms have generated work for construction equipment, overtime for multitudes of service workers, and has allowed many of the unemployed an opportunity to earn some money…all of which bodes well for the economy.
Hotels have filled up either because they serve stranded travelers or emergency workers such as power company workers.
In short, we have had an ideal stimulus, one that generates immediate employment of idle capacity! (Immediacy was woefully missing from the Obama administration’s Recovery Act of 2010. To date we have only spent about half of the money.)
Of course this assumes, and we think correctly, that most other work that has been postponed due to the weather will be made up later or paid from funds that other wise would not have been spent or invested.
(Were we in a period of prosperity or close to it, the storm would be a drag on the nation’s wealth because production of goods and services for other purposes would be supplanted by storm abatement efforts.)
The only thing that works quicker and as effectively is war. Recovery from the Great Depression started in the USA when hostilities broke out in Europe and U. S. industrial capacity surged to provide for the needs of our future allies and to ready ourselves for what loomed ahead.
Given the choice, we prefer snow storms!
