The Economics of Disaster: Are Hurricanes Inflationary or Deflationary? Insurance companies have estimated the damage from hurricane Katrina at $25 Billion Dollars. But the economic effect is much greater than that. That is just the loss of property. Another consideration is the loss of revenue while things are being rebuilt. What about the loss of jobs from the companies who won’t be rebuilding because they didn’t have insurance? According to the “Financial Times” current estimates of “total economic losses” are closer to $100 Billion. Those numbers are so large that it is almost impossible for us to get our minds around it. If you stacked 100 billion one dollar bills on top of each … [Read more...]