Hurricane Harvey is a disaster of monumental proportions that will destroy vast amounts of property and upend millions of lives. But it also appears that the overall economic toll, at least for the United States as a whole, will be modest. And that surprising fact offers important lessons about how the modern economy works.

That benign view of the economic impact of the storm is the immediate verdict of financial markets Monday, which showed no signs of expectations that there will be broad ripple effects.

The stock market was essentially flat at midday. Bond prices are also little changed; if investors expected lasting damage, they would most likely would have bid up bond prices, seeking safety and anticipating a slower pace of interest rate increases from the Federal Reserve.

And despite the Texas Gulf Coast’s central role in American energy production, oil prices are not exhibiting the kind of spike they did after Hurricane Katrina in 2005; the price of West Texas intermediate crude fell Friday and Monday.