As our editorial Tuesday noted, along with the horror of Hurricane Katrina, there was also hope: “That the governments that so failed the victims would get the rebuilding right and be ready for the next disaster. That the singular city of New Orleans would strut again, if within a smaller footprint. That the storm’s appalling toll on the poor would rally the nation to confront urban poverty at last.” But this week’s one-year anniversary finds too little progress on all fronts, from the removal of the debris to the planning for a new New Orleans to the fortification of the levees.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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Govenment and Democrat Controlled localities. They will not get anything done.
There was a great commentary on NPR yesterday. That we need to stop focusing on New Orleans “a place” and start focusing on the “people”. Which means if New Orleans shouldn’t get billions of dollars and call for people to move back. Lot of people have left and never will go back.
Plus! The news always concentrates on New Orleans. What about the rest of the Gulf Coast that got hit. Mississippi really got hit hard. But it’s only about New Orleans in the Katrina Story.
Commentary:ED GLAESER: It’s easy to get angry about the response to Katrina. It’s easy to get angry about Louisiana officials whose families got federal rebuilding contracts. It’s easy to fume about Mayor Ray Nagin’s absurd proposal for a $5 billion light-rail project.
But that anger is naive. This isn’t the first time that government has been inefficient, except in its response to interest groups. And private firms aren’t societies of saints either. Their fiduciary duty is to their owners’ pocketbooks. The cooperation of business and government is a particular cause for alarm. Any time the federal government pays billions of dollars to private contractors for a public project with amorphous aims, bells should go off.
But in New Orleans they didn’t. Instead rhetoric about how New Orleans is a national treasure that must be rebuilt at any cost dominated the discussion. The myth that every spot of ground was sacred elevated the place over the people who lived there. And that justified enormous spending that benefits well-connected contractors more than Katrina’s victims.
We have an obligation to people, not to places. If the nation really wants to help Katrina’s victims, we should give our federal tax dollars directly to them. We’ve budgeted $100 billion for rebuilding. That would work out to more than $200,000 for every man, woman and child who used to live in New Orleans.
Whatever the amount, most of the money should be given directly to the flood victims in checks or housing vouchers. Some of it immediately and some over time. And a little bit of the money should be given to the states and towns where Katrina’s victims have decided to live — including New Orleans. That helps compensate for the cost of public services, and provides incentives for localities to compete in caring for the displaced.
We shouldn’t turn our backs on Katrina’s victims. And we should never let the myths of place replace the needs of people.
:Ed Glaeser teaches economics at Harvard University.
Bush will be visiting N.O. same time next year, and saying the same thing. Just like Iraq.
The response to Hurricane Katrina was not incompetence. It was blatent racism writ large.
The cracker towns around N.O. feared a flood of poor blacks more than they feared the flood.
The federal government made sure that poor blacks stayed where they “belong”.
“But in New Orleans they didn’t. Instead rhetoric about how New Orleans is a national treasure that must be rebuilt at any cost dominated the discussion. The myth that every spot of ground was sacred elevated the place over the people who lived there. And that justified enormous spending that benefits well-connected contractors more than Katrina’s victims.”
Good post, Joe.
There are already stories circulating about people in public housing who buildings were “condemned” so that connected contractors could put a casino on the land or something.
The tenants couldn’t even get their personal papers. And without ID, they can’t vote.
Isn’t that conveeenient?
100 years from now New Orleans will be almost completely surronded by the Gulf of Mexico. Mostly due to the levee system that forces the Mississippi river to flow in the same river bed over the last half century. The Mississippi river used to swing wildly back and forth along the gulf coast which over thousands of years built up the Mississippi Delta Basin. Point is in order to save the population up river from devastating floods the basin is not replenishing itself let alone growing. It is only a matter of time before New Orleans will be swept into the Gulf of Mexico. The inability of many people to see the future geological path of the delta will undoubtedly cause the deaths of thousands of people as well as the wasting of billions of dollars. However the death toll will probably not come close to the number of people murdered in the next 100 years at 274 per year (2003 FBI statistics), that would be 27,400 murders over the next 100 years in this Democrat stronghold that should be a veritable paradise after decades of liberal governing policies. Should New Orleans be rebuilt? you have the facts in front of you, what do you think?
Why, oh why, would we rebuild a city, in a delta, a flood plain, with the geologic reality noted above, in the future path of more devestating hurricanes, BELOW SEA LEVEL? DUH.
The Harvard prof is right. Give the dollars to people, not places, to put their lives back to gether.
I tend to agree with the comments posted by Joe and jw. I would add that the blatant incompetance of the Army Corps of Engineers should be a lesson to us not to follow them blindly in the future. This catastrophe was predicted. We warned them about the folly of stripping the protective wetlands and of causing the city to subside faster and further than it would have on its own. We warned them about all the canals dug through the barriers. The Corps ignored all warnings.
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-08-24T161806Z_01_N24438666_RTRUKOC_0_US-ECONOMY-JOBS-POVERTY.xml
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Official jobs figures may considerably underestimate the number of poor and uninsured Americans, according to a new study from the Center for Economic Policy Research.
The U.S. government’s Current Population Survey (CPS) is so severely miscalibrated that it could exclude as many as 2.5 million adults who are out of work, the research found.
“The group that is falling out of the survey is economically marginalized, less likely to have a job, less likely to have health-insurance, and more likely to be poor,” said John Schmitt, senior economist at CEPR and a co-author of the report.
Are these misplaced people from katrina? Or just more of supply side ecocrap
I watched a show with Dr. Phil about FEMA trailers still being used by people and the filthy conditions of these trailers. It has been a year and New Orleans still looks like a war zone. Why? The federal, state, county and local government is to blame without a doubt.
A great leader would have already been kicking some butt to get stuff down throughout the Gulf Region. I guess we will have to wait until the next president is in office because it does not look like George W. will do anything but a properly placed photo-op
At a breakfast meeting with New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin at Betsy’s Pancake House, Bush was asked in passing by waitress Joyce Labruzzo,”Mr. President, are you going to turn your back on me?”"No ma’am,” Bush replied with a laugh.”Not again.”
I have a good friend who lived in Picayune, MS, about 50 miles from N.O. If anyone kept close watch on the Katrina news, I did, and one of those places I watched was NOLA through the Picayune Times online. Great information there!
I knew my friend “got out,” but I lost track of her. A couple of months ago, I crossed my fingers and emailed her through her website, and lo and behold, she’s now in Oklahoma. Her husband had worked at the National Weather Service down there for many years, but by the time Katrina hit, he had retired. I think he and she and their family (grown daughter, son-in-law, and 2 grandkids) are more than ready to watch the tornadoes roll through OK than deal with another Gulf hurricane.
I also know someone online who was in N.O. during Katrina. He survived, but the story he tells about the days he lived through is mind-blowing. He was picked up and taken north by a friend, when people were allowed to enter N.O. again. He says he’ll go back someday. It’s his home. But he also says it won’t be real soon.
During and after Katrina, a lot of people were badmouthing N.O. residents for living where they did. Author Anne Rice had a New York Times article that explained a lot about these people and their heritage. Unfortunately, it’s a “buy” article now in the archives, but I wish everyone had had a chance to read it.
nice quote..”the response to Hurricane Katrina was not incompetence. It was blatent racism writ large…”
Of course, the goofy mayor (Chocolate City Nagin) isn’t racist. Nope…nawwww….
Those 2.5 million people are probably the newly homeless since GWB took office!
“Govenment and Democrat Controlled localities. They will not get anything done.”
Joe never misses a chance to knock the Democrats. You know San Fransico actually has a good local govt. I also believe that Lawrence, KS is an economic mecca.
I guess we cant say much for that republican controlled Wichita that we live in!!!!
Wah, wah, wah, blah, blah, blah, it b WAAAAAAAYCISM! There were plenty of White folks on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi that were displace as well but I guess it is always about the plight of the blasted negroes?
Viva La Revolucion Blanco!!!
THATS RIGHT IAN.WE ONLY CARE ABOUT BROWN PEOPLE.WE HATE OURSELVES.YOU’RE SMART THAT WAY.
Rebuilding in N.O., like the war in Iraq, will be left to the next president.
The people of New Orleans must be happy with the way things were handled, they voted Mayor Ray Nagin back in office.
The people of New Orleans must be happy with the way things were handled, they voted Mayor Ray Nagin back in office.
“I watched a show with Dr. Phil about FEMA trailers still being used by people and the filthy conditions of these trailers. It has been a year and New Orleans still looks like a war zone.”Posted by: CR | August 30, 2006 at 01:03 PMCR, you don’t think that the filthy conditions of those trailers have anything to do with who is living in then do you?
There ya go Right! Blame the victim!
But that is the right isn’t it? Folks with no hope and no help have only themselves to blame!
Damn, RA, that was low, even for you, to invoke the “black people are dirty” meme.
Or maybe it wasnt racist, just classist. “poor people are dirty” would work just as well.
Woof.
ksf and JR, Dirty is as dirty does. You don’t have to be black or poor to be dirty and trash a place.
I may be wrong but I would bet my last nickle that FEMA did not provide filthy trailers and I am sure that some space creature did dot come down and trash them.
SO NOW YOU TELL ME HOW THEY GOT FILTHY. I OPEN TO YOUR OPINION.
I have known a lot of Black people that were very clean and it may susprise you but a lot of poor people are also clean but trask be they white or black are not.
I am susprised at you kfg for thinking my comments had anything to do with color or income. You know me better than that.
Um RA?
Is trash pickup back on a regular schedule down on the Gulf? If it is, is it economomical for folks whose livelihood has been destroyed?
Um RA?
Aren’t there alot of the FEMA trailers you mention disintegrating in Arkansas or somewhere with NO ONE living in them because of the incompetence of the bush admiinistration?
But it’s easier to blame victims isn’t it?
JR,
SO NOW YOU TELL ME HOW THEY GOT FILTHY. I AM OPEN TO YOUR OPINION. THE WORD WAS “FILTHY”.
I think that you should find out why the FEMA trailers are not being used.
Tired of hearing about Chocolate town, what about the other towns that were hit. Screw the “Big Easy”Their too stupid to move and I dont feel sorry for them at all
“But it’s easier to blame victims isn’t it?”
Posted by: J R | August 31, 2006 at 10:15 AM
NO IT IS EASIER TO BLAME THE GOVERNMENT AS YOU WELL KNOW J R.
SO NOW J.R., YOU TELL ME HOW THEY GOT FILTHY. I AM OPEN TO YOUR OPINION. THE WORD WAS “FILTHY”.
Some folks just won’t accept responsibility for their own lives. It is much easier to blame the government, especially repukes, than to take charge of one’s own circumstances.
I say again, this IS about race. The vast majority of the whiners are NEGROES. There are many thousands of Whites who were affected but it all has to be about the welfare sponging, criminal, New Orleans negro parasites.
Viva La Raza Blanco!!
“Some folks just won’t accept responsibility for their own lives. It is much easier to blame the government, especially repukes, than to take charge of one’s own circumstances.”Posted by: Ian Santiago | August 31, 2006 at 11:55 AM
Ian Santiago, If you had stoped there, I would agree with you 100%, but no you had to go on and I disagree
I believe, this is about “mind set” and there is a whole lot of people both black and white that has been on the welfare take for generations. For those that can not work because of mental or physical problems, yes, we should help them.
Why should I buy insurance when me next door neighbor will get the government to pay when he doesn’t. I am in a sense covering both, mine thru insurance and his thru taxes. IT’S NOT FAIR!
Not only is it not fair,it’s not fair no matter what race you are.
Well RA, at least we agree on one thing. My grandmother always said soap and water are cheap, so there is no excuse for a dirty house, dirty clothes, or dirty people.
Those volga germans would clean EVERYTHING to within an inch of it’s life. Then they’d paint it!
Girl, another point of common interest.I have a fairly extensive collection of German stamps, dating back to before 1900.
Hey, me tooalso: I love german sausage!
Please feel free to define “filthy conditions of the trailers”. Are we talking the surrounding areas? The insides of the trailers? All the trailers? Some? A few?
There’s no perspective to your argument, RA, as usual. Generalizing goes nowhere and accomplishes nothing.
JMW, If you would go back and read the posts you would find out that I was only responding to a blog that was:
“I watched a show with Dr. Phil about FEMA trailers still being used by people and the filthy conditions of these trailers. It has been a year and New Orleans still looks like a war zone.”Posted by: CR | August 30, 2006 at 01:03 PM
I got from the post exactly what it said. It is my opinion that if the trailers were filthy that it was not FEMA fault. I would bet that if their trailers are filthy that their house they lived in before were also filthy.
Damn, I hate repeating myself.
JMW go back and read the posts and see how we got here.
“Please feel free to define “filthy conditions of the trailers”. Are we talking the surrounding areas? The insides of the trailers? All the trailers? Some? A few?”
Posted by: J M Walker | August 31, 2006 at 03:56 PM
JMW, IT DOES NOT MATTER IF IT IS INSIDE OR ON THE OUT SIDE, THE OCCUPANTS ARE THE ONES RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CLEANNESS OF THE UNIT. FEMA DID NOT PROVIDE MAID SERVICE.
ALSO IT DOES NOT MATTER IF IT’S ONE OR ALL, IT IS STILL THE RESPONSIBILITY OF OCCUPANTS, PERIOD.
RA – I have to at least partially agree with you on this. I have seen no evidence that these trailors were a mess when installed. On the other hand, if they don’t have trash pickup they probably have a problem.
One would have to have seen the material CR originally posted about to post objectively to this.
To me his post suggests filthy conditons around the trailers. Debris clearing has been neglected. That would not be the fault of the displaced.
You can go to the following link to see pictures of the outside of the trailers.
http://www.ohionewsnow.com/?slideshow=sites/ONN/slideshows/DrPhil/&slideshowTYPE=3
RA,Yep. the link sure showed a lot of wasted trailers. Them bums get trailers from FEMA and don’t even bother to buy lawn mowers. I can also tell from the photos the people have absolutly no desire to clean up after themselves. Why, did you see the filthy toilets? Dog droppings on the kitchen floor? The babies covered with flies? O, the humanity.
RA, again you come up with pure nonsense and have nothing to back it up with. If you had come at this sensibly, there wouldn’t be a problem, but you didn’t, so, to modify your words:
RIGHT ANGLE, IT DOES NOT MATTER IF IT IS INSIDE OR ON THE OUT SIDE, THE OCCUPANTS ARE THE ONES RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CLEANNESS OF THE UNIT. FEMA DID NOT PROVIDE MAID SERVICE.
ALSO IT DOES NOT MATTER IF IT’S ONE OR ALL, IT IS STILL THE RESPONSIBILITY OF OCCUPANTS, PERIOD.
HOWEVER, ONE SHOULD MAKE DAMN SURE ONE KNOWS WHAT ONE IS TALKING ABOUT WHEN SLAMMING FEMA RECIPIENTS WITH ABSOLUTLY NO PROOF WHATSOEVER. YOU’RE CATAGORIZING ALL FEMA TRAILER DWELLERS UNDER ONE UMBRELLA. THAT’S TOTAL NONSENSECR made a statement bracketed by quotes, you took it to the limit. You have shown NO proof whatsoever that the statement is true. Your case is hereby thrown out of court.
JMW, YOU NEED TO LOOK AGAIN, CR DID NOT MAKE a statement bracketed by quotes. I PUT THE QUOTATION IN WHEN I QUOTED HIM.
“YOU’RE CATAGORIZING ALL FEMA TRAILER DWELLERS UNDER ONE UMBRELLA.”Posted by: J M Walker | August 31, 2006 at 07:18 PM
jmw, nowhere did I say or even imply that all FEMA trailer dwellers” had filthy trailers.
The only thing I did was place blame where blame was due if they had filthy trailers.
JMW, would you do yourself a favor and not read any more of my posts. I am sorry but I can not seem to make them clear enough for you to get the right message and I can tell it is causing you much distress.
READ MY POST AGAIN SLOWLY: “if the trailers were filthy”
“I got from the post exactly what it said. It is my opinion that if the trailers were filthy that it was not FEMA fault. I would bet that if their trailers are filthy that their house they lived in before were also filthy.”Posted by: Right Angle | August 31, 2006 at 05:19 PM
Did someone just post something?
I think it was from the house-cleaning service.
Dat’s what I’m thinkin’. Check for green cards.