Little Chicken

Japan, after all, just got hit with a series of very real negative shocks. Buildings have fallen down. Buildings that are still standing have been damaged by water. Cars, trucks, and other pieces of useful equipment have been ruined. Roads, docks, and other pieces of transportation infrastructure have been blocked by debris. Several nuclear power reactors aren’t generating electrical power. Tens of thousands of human beings are dead or injured.

-Matty Woodchuck

Now most likely your flabbergasted eyes literally exploded into weeping pools of pus after reading the incredibly, callously infelicitous use of the Economists' solecism "very real negative shocks" to describe a country that fell victim to a fucking huge fucking earthquake. But it's worth reading the list to see all the things that must be counted before the human toll. And it's worth reading the opening of the next paragraph:

These are not problems that can be solved on the demand side. If Japan is producing less two weeks after the earthquake than it was producing two weeks before the earthquake, that will be because the quake and associated traumas have in fact degraded the country’s ability to produce goods and services.

Is it even necessary to note that this is just a sickening and inhuman way of looking at catastrophe. "These are not problems that can be solved on the demand side." Wuuuutttt? Fuck you, Yglesias. May the sky fall on your head.