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In 1848, Frédéric Bastiat watched Parisian workers smash shop windows during the February Revolution. The glaziers were thrilled — broken windows meant more business! Local newspapers praised the "economic stimulus" of destruction. But Bastiat saw what others missed: every franc spent fixing windows was a franc not spent on new shoes, books, or better tools. He called this the "broken window fallacy." The seen effect — busy glaziers and flowing money — masked the unseen cost of opportunities destroyed. Fast-forward to today's stimulus debates. Politicians still point to busy construction crews and flowing federal dollars as proof their spending "works." And they still ignore what Bastiat saw so clearly: the unseen businesses never started, the innovations never funded, the prosperity never created because capital flowed to political priorities instead of productive ones. The broken windows keep getting bigger. But the fallacy remains exactly the same.