They're Tryin' to Wash Us Away

Lew Rockwell sees Katrina and the damage done, and points a finger at the public sector:

Mother Nature can be cruel, but even at her worst, she is no match for government. It was the glorified public sector, the one we are always told is protecting us, that is responsible for this. And though our public servants and a sycophantic media will do their darn best to present this calamity as an act of nature, it was not and is not. Katrina came and went with far less damage than anyone expected. It was the failure of the public infrastructure and the response to it that brought down civilization.

Tyler Cowen suggests several possible libertarian approaches to levee privatization here, while himself arguing that "many levees are genuine public goods, and should receive government support."

Here's one more link to InstaPundit's growing list of flood aid charities. Virginia Postrel suggests a way to help refugees pay their rent here.

Comments

[Perry]

I didn't realize New Orleans was below sea level util this happened. People shouldn't even be living there. Out here in California, I would never live in Guerneville, which is below the river level and always floods in times of storms. I would never live on the coast where a big storm always slowly erodes the cliffs and brings houses down with them.
Point is, we should privatize the levees and then show people that it is not worth living in some areas.

As in Tyler Cowen's point #1:
1. We rely too much on unreliable levees, and privatization/non-subsidization would reveal their true social costs and induce people to move elsewhere.

[jf]

Lew Rockwell is wrong, wrong, wrong. We need smarter politicians, more programs, more funding. Now we certainly will be prepared next time when...

Ah fuck it. I'm making myself gag.

[JimL]

This is going to end up putting the 9/11 investigation to shame when it comes to pointing out accountability. This isn?t a case where bureaucracy got in the way of connecting the dots. They KNEW this was the worst potential natural disaster catastrophe to happen in the US and FEMA even trained for it. It?s like knowing ten years ago terrorists were going to fly planes into the trade center; then learning a week ahead of time the approximate date and time of the attack and then still letting it happen.

[joe]

Perhaps if the funding to raise the levees and expand the coastal wetlands and improve the road system had been completely eliminated, rather than just severely restricted by shrinking budgets, the levees would have been able to stop the water. Or, if not, the much smaller than necesary Army Corps would have been able to get to the scene and repair them faster.

Yes, that makes perfect sense.

[Ruthless]

Now this thread is the silver bullet... not shootin' looters or lootin' shooters.

[crimethink]

In a rare insightful comment, Speaker Hastert yesterday drew the same conclusion. Unfortunately, his wondering-aloud of why we should spend billions of tax dollars to rebuild a city below sea level was printed by the Arlington Hts (IL) Daily Herald.

After a withering storm of criticism from Louisiana's congressional delegation, he today clarified (ie, recanted) that comment.

[WhiskeyJuvenile]

joe: Because only the government knows how to build dirt piles.

[crimethink]

Ruthless,

And I assume the State is the vampire, eh? 🙂

[Tom Crick]

"Mother Nature can be cruel, but even at her worst, she is no match for government. It was the glorified public sector, the one we are always told is protecting us, that is responsible for this."

How ironic that Homeland Security and the Army Corp of Engineers were able to accomplish with incompetence what Al Qaeda could not!

[crimethink]

Tom Crick,

Don't be so sure (that aQ could not):

http://www.exitmundi.nl/terrorism.htm

If the administration is smart, they'll start pushing this angle. When you buy drugs/criticize the govt, you support the hurricanes.

[Anon]

Let us not confuse a) what policy would generate better levees, with b) what policy is best when a levee breaks. I do not see anything in Rockwell's article that touches b) at all. It is foolish to believe that a) would lead to b) never happening.

Anon

[MP]

Yes, that makes perfect sense.

rant/
Oh yeah...if only the "good" people, or the "smart" people, or the "well-intentioned" people were in charge, we'd all be skinny, happy, and dry. How many examples of Public Choice theory does one need to recognize the inevitable failures resulting from a general reliance on Government will never go away?

In any event, one would hope that this would show how a bloated federal government loses sight of its true priorities. The coming economic meltdown will lead us to a Democrat as President, a Republican Congress (gerrymandering is hard to unwind), and more steroid and Superbowl titty hearings (i.e. same ole, same ole). The voices that say "Government should do MORE" are almost certain to win out after this tragedy, despite the evidence.
/rant

[Anon]

And a question: If I follow Cowen's point 1), then would that mean that the residents of NO would have been primarily the wealthy and well-insured, rather than the poor? So they would have left town (just as they did this time), their homes would have been washed away, and the government would have continued its vacation? I think this ignores the industrial aspect of the problem entirely, and ignores the many reasons (mentioned in the Slate article someone linked earlier) why the NO area was an attractive place to live. Am I wrong to think that if the social cost was higher, the industry would still be there (since it is a tremendous access port to the US) but the poor people attempting to work their way into industry would no longer be able to live there? Doesn't this just describe the equally flooded and very poor people of Mississippi?

This is a genuine question. I cannot imagine that industry would have left, so I'm trying to understand what the remaining population would be like.

Anon

[Ruthless]

crimethink,
Yes, the State is the vampire, but I always think of the Lone Ranger, whenever I think silver bullets.

But, yes the State is parasitic like a vampire.

[crimethink]

Ruthless,

Don't you think the Lone Ranger would have concentrated on shootin' looters in this situation?

[MP]

And for those who try to blame the GOP and/or Bush for this, do you really think that if the same storm had hit in 1999, or 1989, or 1979, or 1967, that this wouldn't have happened? I am no supporter of the current screw-ups who control the levers of this country, but to believe that Kerry or Gore or a Democrat run government would have reprioritized their National Health Care spending for some levee in New Orleans is just delusional. This is a failure of Government.

[Tom Crick]

"I am no supporter of the current screw-ups who control the levers of this country, but to believe that Kerry or Gore or a Democrat run government would have reprioritized their National Health Care spending for some levee in New Orleans is just delusional."

Kerry would have been just as bad--or maybe worse!

[Johnny Clarke]

4 years after 9/11. 4 years of crazed federal spending and totalitarian laws to "make us safe". Yet a major American city, a transportation hub and seaport, is wiped out. If this had been the work of terrorists, and not the weather, is this the sort of response that 4 years of preparation gets us? And hell, if terrorists had blown the dikes everyone would have been in the city asleep. Eh well, things to ponder the next time you get strip-searched at the airport.

[Ruthless]

crimethink,
Precisely my point: The Lone Ranger, being no fool, would not have lived under sea level. (Also, being "The Lone," would not have lived in a city.)
But, if he happened to have been passing through, flooding would have been his main concern, meaning saving lives, not shootin' looters.

[Jennifer]

Republicans and Democrats be damned, this is what happens when you get a government whose top priorities are protecting people from TV sightings of Janet Jackson's nipple, and pot smokers, and sex photos on the Web, and sports stars with artificially huge muscles. But a minor matter like protecting the port city of the Mississippi River, which coincidentally also has something like ten or eleven percent of our nations' energy infrastructure going through it? Well, that can wait until next year. And when next year comes it can wait again. And again. Because, you know, we need to protect The Children from scary video games and such.

[Henry]

People have been living below sea-level forever, and quite safely for may decades, in a place called The Netherlands. If you want to it, it's not a big fucking deal to accomplish, especially when one of your nations' most important ports is involved. Apparently the good ol' US of A just hasn't been as serious about it as teeny, tiny Holland. Instead we spend our money by the billions blowing up countries so we (through our lavishly paid contractors) can rebuild them, or build quarter billion Alaskan bridges to nowhere so some Congressional cocksucker can get his name on it.

This is a flat out failure of American government and society--deal with it.

[Tom Crick]

"And hell, if terrorists had blown the dikes everyone would have been in the city asleep."

I'm sure the Al Qaeda guys are smackin' themselves on the forehead.

"Republicans and Democrats be damned, this is what happens when you get a government whose top priorities are protecting people from TV sightings of Janet Jackson's nipple, and pot smokers, and sex photos on the Web, and sports stars with artificially huge muscles."

There were other things that were more important too. ...Like saving the Iraqi people and monitoring our bank accounts and reading preferences.

[Henry]

By the way, I have not been able to get out of my head the Randy Newman song that supplies the title of this post--it's always been one of my favoites of his.

[andy]

"In a rare insightful comment, Speaker Hastert yesterday drew the same conclusion. Unfortunately, his wondering-aloud of why we should spend billions of tax dollars to rebuild a city below sea level was printed by the Arlington Hts (IL) Daily Herald.

After a withering storm of criticism from Louisiana's congressional delegation, he today clarified (ie, recanted) that comment."

Once, just once, I would like to see a politician (or head of an Ivy League college...) stand by an un-PC comment.

[SP]

Well, I haven't been able to get Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks" out of my head for four days.

Inside the thick, gnarled, nasty assault that Jimmy Page crafts toward the end of that song is one of the most incredible electric-guitar tones known to mankind.

[Cap'n Obvious]

Loved the reference, Jesse. Newman didn't predict this exactly...but close enough.

"President Coolidge came down in a railroad train
With a little fat man with a note-pad in his hand
The President say, "Little fat man isn't it a shame
what the river has done
To this poor crackers land."

[Bob]

Last night I was watching MSNBC coverage of the disaster when the anchor said that "now that Bush has jumped into action, the people of New Olreans will finally get the government they deserve". I couldn't help but laugh out loud.

[The Anti-Puritan]

SP,
Are these your initials, or are you referring to your Myers-Briggs type?

[SP]

They're my initials, sort of. An abbreviation of "Semolina Pilchard," which at one point was my user name. Can't tell you why I was motivated to shorten it.

But I have to say, seeing "SP" and immediately thinking "Myers-Briggs" is a really weird and esoteric mental leap...

[The Anti-Puritan]

SP:
But I have to say, seeing "SP" and immediately thinking "Myers-Briggs" is a really weird and esoteric mental leap...

Not for me, it isn't. I'm a David Keirsey fanatic.

[Dynamist]

Lew Rockwell isn't important enough right now for me; I haven't rtfa.

Note this: The LOOP is back in action. It took a direct hit, but is now funneling imported crude to the mainland, 4 days later. We can engineer to withstand amazing forces, if the money and will are there.

[Ammonium]

Why doesn't Louisiana have any state or local government? I mean, they could do a better job at figuring out the costs and the benefits of building bigger levees so that even more minorities could be killed in that death trap.

That same government could coordinate first response efforts. For example, they could be like New York and have police officers that actually do something. Or they could emulate Mississippi and Alabama by organizing the national guard to help in relief.

Oh, I forgot. The state and local government only exist as parasites. I guess the next time we'll see any action from those fools is when they demand that the federal government rebuild their death trap on the stinking, toxic, below sea level sludge. In a few years these corrupt politicians and their construction cronies will be living it up on kickbacks from the federal relief.

[Ruthless]

Ammonium,
With a name like urine, one might assume you'd be okay with stinking toxic sludge.

[mediageek]

This thread leads me to believe that Janet Jackson's nipple is solely responsible for this disaster.

[joe]

"I am no supporter of the current screw-ups who control the levers of this country, but to believe that Kerry or Gore or a Democrat run government would have reprioritized their National Health Care spending for some levee in New Orleans is just delusional. This is a failure of Government."

As a matter of fact, funding levels for flood mitigation and levee improvements were much higher under Clinton, and were cut severely when Bush came into office. But don't let little things like facts trouble you.

[Mark B.]

What has happened down here is the wind have changed,
Clouds rolled in from the north, and it start to rain.
Rained real hard, and it rained for a real long time,
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline.

River rose all day, the river rose all night,
Some people got lost in the flood,
Some people got away all right.
Levee done busted, clear down to Plaquemines,
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline.

Louisiana, Louisiana,
They're trying to wash us away,
They're trying to wash us away.

Thanks, Randy . . .

[Anon]

Tom Crick:
How would Kerry have been worse? Don't be a moron. If you think Kerry would have been worse, explain why. If you can't then shut up.

[Anon]

You guys all seem to be avoiding the single, fundamentally avoidable tragedy here: The government made no effort to assist the poor people of NOLA to evacuate. Thousands of lives could easily have been saved if the gov't would have just loaded up a few trains before the storm. There are certain fields where governments just work better then profit-motivated copanies. This is a perfect example of one of those areas. A private company, even if it wanted to donate the resources, wouldn't necessarily be able to. Do they own the train lines? If not, can they get permission to use the line at a time when PROFIT says that the line should be used to move property out? And of course there's the logistics-- getting people to the pick up point, controlling the crowds at the pick up point, where do the people go. These are all things that the government is good at, but that private companies are, at least at this scale, not equipped for.

[Tom Crick]

"How would Kerry have been worse? Don't be a moron. If you think Kerry would have been worse, explain why."

It's a long standing joke on this blog--making fun of Republicans who suggest that as bad as the President's actions are, Kerry would have been worse. ...as if that somehow excuses government ineptitude. So take a pill, I was making fun of the the statement to which I replied.

"If you can't then shut up."

Go fuck a duck.

[Steven Crane]

You know, Anon, that private companies DO own the train lines. Those names like "Union Pacific", etc, aren't just decoration.

Just sayin'.

[jerry]

We can fund rebuilding the levees. All we need to do is move the retirement package for our senators and congressman in to the PBGC, pension benefit guaranty corporation or move them to use the normal social security system that they keep screwing us with.