Syniks
16-09-2005, 18:28
Reason Alert - September 16, 2005
- You Don't Save What You Don't Own
- Housing Evacuees Is No Job for the Feds
Katrina Aftermath : You Don't Save What You Don't Own
"Now that everyone is preaching their Lessons of Katrina, let's conduct a little thought experiment with variables. The laboratory stretches from ground zero in Louisiana hundreds of miles up the East Coast, along crippled gasoline supply lines. What if the buses in New Orleans had been privately owned, and the gasoline supply had been a nationalized, government-run quasi-utility? We know that New Orleans' infamous municipal and school buses were left to be destroyed at the very instant they were needed most. Over 400 were left idle when they should have been pulled back to higher ground for use in those tense days after Katrina hit. Had there been a futures market on buses in New Orleans, the value of the buses would have skyrocketed as Katrina approached, signaling their increased utility in the emergency. But even without such an overt market signal, any private owner of the vehicles would have exhausted all opportunities to save his or her property. Nobody who owned such a potentially valuable product would have done what New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin did: let it all go to waste on the assumption that drivers would be impossible to find." At Reason.com Jeff Taylor writes, "As the public-sector tab for Katrina's cleanup climbs, fans of big government will point to the billions in loans and grants as proof of the value of a robust state. The costs of that same state—and its institutional disinclination to save billions—will be forgotten along with those soggy New Orleans' buses."
http://www.reason.com/links/links091405.shtml
Housing Evacuees Is No Job for the Feds
"There are few surer ways to make people sick, hopeless, and stripped of agency than to pack them into collective camp-like conditions for an indefinite time period. Katrina's displaced persons are not technically 'refugees' (as the law defines the term), and there's a levee-sized space between any international refugee and a New Orleans native waiting for his home to emerge from five feet of toxic water. But current international practices are a how-to guide for turning temporary refugee situations into protracted hellholes." - Reason's Kerry Howley examines FEMA's errors and writes that the "the wrong kind of relief can keep people from reconstructing their lives as well."
http://www.reason.com/links/links091305.shtml
FEMA's Unnatural Disasters
http://www.reason.com/rb/rb091405.shtml
Gun Confiscation in New Orleans Is Illegal and Foolish
http://www.reason.com/hod/dk091005.shtml
- You Don't Save What You Don't Own
- Housing Evacuees Is No Job for the Feds
Katrina Aftermath : You Don't Save What You Don't Own
"Now that everyone is preaching their Lessons of Katrina, let's conduct a little thought experiment with variables. The laboratory stretches from ground zero in Louisiana hundreds of miles up the East Coast, along crippled gasoline supply lines. What if the buses in New Orleans had been privately owned, and the gasoline supply had been a nationalized, government-run quasi-utility? We know that New Orleans' infamous municipal and school buses were left to be destroyed at the very instant they were needed most. Over 400 were left idle when they should have been pulled back to higher ground for use in those tense days after Katrina hit. Had there been a futures market on buses in New Orleans, the value of the buses would have skyrocketed as Katrina approached, signaling their increased utility in the emergency. But even without such an overt market signal, any private owner of the vehicles would have exhausted all opportunities to save his or her property. Nobody who owned such a potentially valuable product would have done what New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin did: let it all go to waste on the assumption that drivers would be impossible to find." At Reason.com Jeff Taylor writes, "As the public-sector tab for Katrina's cleanup climbs, fans of big government will point to the billions in loans and grants as proof of the value of a robust state. The costs of that same state—and its institutional disinclination to save billions—will be forgotten along with those soggy New Orleans' buses."
http://www.reason.com/links/links091405.shtml
Housing Evacuees Is No Job for the Feds
"There are few surer ways to make people sick, hopeless, and stripped of agency than to pack them into collective camp-like conditions for an indefinite time period. Katrina's displaced persons are not technically 'refugees' (as the law defines the term), and there's a levee-sized space between any international refugee and a New Orleans native waiting for his home to emerge from five feet of toxic water. But current international practices are a how-to guide for turning temporary refugee situations into protracted hellholes." - Reason's Kerry Howley examines FEMA's errors and writes that the "the wrong kind of relief can keep people from reconstructing their lives as well."
http://www.reason.com/links/links091305.shtml
FEMA's Unnatural Disasters
http://www.reason.com/rb/rb091405.shtml
Gun Confiscation in New Orleans Is Illegal and Foolish
http://www.reason.com/hod/dk091005.shtml