The Earthquake

THE EARTHQUAKE THAT struck Chinas Sichuan Province in whitethorn left behind scenes of almost apocalyptic devastation: mountaintops lop off into valleys, cities reduced to rubble and dust, cracked dams, collapsed bridges, and at to the lowest degree 80,000 dead. If the Chinese government is to be believed, the earthquake also did something else: it helped the hoidenishs economy. A little over a month aft(prenominal) the quake, the State Information Center, a Chinese government interrogation body, announced that the massive rebuilding effort, and the billions of dollars it would pump into the Chinese economy, would farther outweigh the economic losses from the quake, enough to bump up national economic growth by 0.3 percent - a small but not insignifi keept part of a 2008 growth rate most estimates put at honorable under 10 percent. Traditionally, analysts have cautioned that Chinese growth figures should be greeted with skepticism, but, according to one school of economic thought, there whitethorn be something to the idea that the quake served as a brutal stimulus. In fact, some economists argue that hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions, ice storms, and the like, in spite of the widespread destruction they leave behind - indeed, largely beca lend oneself of it - can spur economic growth.

Rebuilding efforts serve as a short-term boost by attracting resources to a country, and the disasters themselves, by destroying old(a) factories and old roads, airports, and bridges, allow new and more than efficient globe and private infrastructure to be built, forcing the transition to a sleeker, more productive economy in the long term. When something is destroyed you presumet necessarily rebuild the same thing that you had. You might use updated technology, you might do things more efficiently. It bumps you up, says Mark Skidmore, an economics professor at Michigan State University. Disasters help people ring about things differently. Studies have found that earthquakes in California and Alaska helped flimflam economic activity... If you want to get a full essay, suppose it on our website: Orderessay

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