There's a reason economic measures are no good at capturing the likely damage from Hurricane Harvey

AP Photo/David J. Phillip There is always something callous about economic analysis of natural and humanitarian disasters, because the human and physical loss is so immediate that financial concerns appear superfluous. But there’s another key reason the already highly imprecise exercise of economic forecasting becomes especially useless with major disasters like the deadly Hurricane Harvey, which has already inundated Houston and is expected to cause untold damage. Measures of economic activit...