broken windows fallacy
I have heard of broken windows policing and have seen it called a fallacy but that can't be what you are talking about hear, so the criticism is unfamiliar
Well it's probably the most important thing that people don't know about economics which makes it way more important than trace gasses.
Here is how the story goes:
There once was a window maker (or glazier) who had more time than work. He wanted more money but he couldn't raise prices due to a competitor. So to create more work he put on on a mask and at night broke windows.
When he was discovered and brought to court he hired John Maynard Keynes to defend him. Keynes said that all those windows he broke was actually a net benefit to society since the GDP went up. (and it did go up, GDP is measured in products sold)
The lesson is this (although not always presented correctly): Keynes is wrong because GDP is not what needs to be maximized, value needs to be maximized and only people can decide what is valuable to them. They don't value paying the window maker, they value the window.
The window maker got more goods and services from other people while everyone else got only the same windows again and again. Just because people are getting paid doesn't mean they produced something useful.
War is often used as another example. On paper, with the computations Kenyes cared about; war is great for business. There is lots of buying, a huge surplus of "jobs".
Only one problem: It's all aimed towards killing people and blowing things up, and while it may at times be necessary it doesn't contribute to quality of life. It's of no real economic value. Even raiders eventually run out of other people's wealth.
Another example is the New Deal, the so called solution to the great depression (caused by federal reserve). Now obviously not everything the government spent stolen money on was worthless, but there was a significant amount of "paying people to dig ditches that no one needed" or "bridges to nowhere".
Imagine if you will a country where everyone had the same job, digging a ditch, all government workers, all getting paid $500,000 a year. In terms of absolute GDP that economy would be better than ours. Except there is no bread or houses, only ditches, soon to be filled with people who starved to death.
So, you say 8T in American jobs. The ability to spend 8T domestically does not mean you're increasing domestic prosperity. You could be digging a ditch.
That is the broken windows fallacy: spending != value creation.
