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Current Events » in reply to The 9/11 attacks did about a trillion dollars worth of damage to the US economy...

Much of the economic damage was because of the fear.
Art Martin — (archived)

Were our airliners fundamentally riskier to fly in the day after 9/11? I would've taken one. My thought was as soon as the citizens of this country realized that terrorists hijacking a plane might fly them into buildings, the threat went away. Any passengers seeing a hijacker storming the cockpit would be nuts not trying to resist from that day on.

But despite this fact, our airline industry took this huge hit. The passenger planes were grounded and diverted for far too long and the small carriers were put out of business for long enough to bankrupt them. The prospective passengers were encouraged not to fly instead of the calm reassuring voice of the government telling them that our airliners were probably the safest place to be for the near future.

Yes, there was damage that was done to things such as the stock exchanges and such but fundamentally the primary damage was from fear. Nobody told us not to sit frightened and shaking. Nobody stressed the positives that come from the war we knew was coming such as the buildup of the military industry. Instead the administration pushed the fear and told us we had to start spying on our neighbors and buying duct tape.

The loss of buildings didn't hurt us. The fear of losing more did.

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