[Rhodes22-list] Re: Why Rebuild New Orleans?

[Robert Skinner]

[a list member] wrote privately:
> Because the property owners want to rebuild on their property?
> We don't have to bail them out, this time or ever.  But I don't see a
> reasonable way to say, hey you have to abandon your property.

Yes, there's a lot of pain here.  No doubt.  But we cannot make
everyone whole again when natural disasters occur.  We have a 
responsibility to set up conditions that are conducive to 
recovery, but the government cannot restore all property to its 
original condition, nor bring back intangibles.  Individuals 
have to shoulder some of the burden, and will inevitably feel
some grief about what they have lost.

Bureaucracy cannot hold someone close while they cry.  I can, 
you can, and so can most of the rest of the people we know.
But government is a mechanical thing -- a legal fiction.

At the moment, the property in question is pretty severely 
devalued.  Re-establishing its value would require that we 
build new levees and moving dams such as those in Britain or 
the Netherlands - the expenditure of hundreds of millions of 
dollars, if not billions.  This will certainly not come from 
the pockets of those whose property is under water.

Might it not be smarter to condemn those parts of NO that are 
below sea level and pay the displaced people enough to 
rebuild elsewhere -- where the risk of flooding is much lower?
We know how to build whole communities in the middle of
nowhere -- good ones, like Rouse's Columbia, Maryland.

Then individuals and businesses that chose to pay taxes or tolls
to build (or pay off the bonds used to build) and maintain 
protective structures around NO could buy the land from whoever 
put up the bailout money for what the location is worth.

NO's value as a port is established.  It must be made functional
again.  But we need to get our citizens out of harm's way where 
possible and prudent.  Isn't that one of the highest 
responsibilities of any government?  But how can we do that when
our government is already borrowing from our grandchildren?

How about some billionaire (Bill Gates, are you listening?) or a
consortium stepping up to the plate and helping out here -- for
a profit, over the long run?  What is capitalism for, if not to
build and provide resources where and when needed -- for a profit?

Now is the time for the "haves" to step in and justify their
existance.  Several times in this nation's history businessmen
have bailed out the US government.  Is this another such time?

-- 
Robert Skinner