Economic damage caused by shutdown of Boston

dimanche 26 mai 2013 à 14:00

The unnecessary one-day shutdown of Boston caused around 200 million dollars of economic damage. (Here's how I estimate that).

This was directly harmful, since it shows any future terrorist how to magnify the effect of his attack. Aside from that, was that money well spent?

200 million dollars could pay for vitamin A supplements for a year for all the 190 million children that need them, world wide, which would save the lives of 600,000 children, more or less.

350,000 additional children would be saved from blindness. This costs one dollar per child per year, so 200 million is exactly the amount needed.

If we limit our consideration to American lives, it costs around 100,000 dollars (very roughly) to treat cancer. This means with 200 million dollars we could save 2000 Americans who have cancer and can't afford treatment.

Every year, 10000 Americans with no insurance get cancer and can't afford treatment. Obamacare may correct some of this problem, but not all; they may not be able to afford the deductible and their food.

How stupid to spend over 200 million dollars to avoid the unlikely chance that a wounded man, on the run and with few supplies, might kill another handful. And if we don't reject the idea that this was a wise decision, it will be repeated over and over, doing damage each time.

I got the same order of magnitude estimate in two ways. First, assuming that 1/4 of the Boston metro area's population (4 million) could not work that day, and that the loss per person equals cost 1/250 of the annual per capita GDP ($50,000), we multiply and get $200 million.

Second, the economic cost of a snowstorm that shuts down all of Massachusetts is estimated as $265,000,000 per day, and since Boston-Cambridge-Quincy have 85% of the state's GDP, it would be around 220 million for them.

The actual shutdown was for Boston, Watertown, Waltham, Newton, Belmont, Cambridge, Allston/Brighton, and Brookline. Perhaps it was justified to shut down Watertown. How Waltham, Newton, Belmont, Allston/Brighton, and Brookline compare with Quincy, I don't know, but this line of reasoning points once again at roughly 200 million.