[familyop]

"Why wouldn't all the panic buying and hurricane repairs stimulate the economy?"

I'll beg the question. why wouldn't destruction of everything that could be used for rebuilding stimulate the economy? Well, okay, I'll answer the question with a comment. Because otherwise, people would keep what is not broken after all plus all that they would buy otherwise.

Replacement of broken things would be a break-even proposition, if it weren't for inevitable depreciation. It's best to avoid breaking things, and to manufacture more useful things instead. Granted, we're not doing that, which brings us back to the default process at hand.

[AndrewB]

Parable of the broken window