Rebuilding the Gulf Coast

[FishHooks]

With your logic though, we wouldn't have a San Franciso, Miami or an entire florida cost.

[tylerdurden]

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As long as it's not with tax payers money, go for it.

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Exactly.

There sure are a lot of people who want to decide when and where all this stuff gets rebuilt that are not and never have been new orleans property owners.

[SheetWise]

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Downsize the city and let the low lying areas go back to the swamps they should be. Relocate essential industry and commerce somewhere safer.

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Protect the high land, build a marina over the low land. It's hard to find a decent berth in that part of the country. Boat owners from all over the world will help Orleans rebuild their economy. Use the landfill from razing the housing to fill some of the swamp between Orleans and Baton Rouge.

[BluffTHIS!]

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With your logic though, we wouldn't have a San Franciso, Miami or an entire florida cost.

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And your point is?

[FishHooks]

Everyone would be living in the midwest or nortwest according to your logic.

[BluffTHIS!]

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Everyone would be living in the midwest or nortwest according to your logic.

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They got tornados in the midwest. And the northeast doesn't really suffer from hurricanes or earthquakes overly much compared to other places.

The whole point though is not that N.O. is in a hurricane zone, but that is both in a hurricane zone and below sea level, and taxpayer money should not have to be spent to build something that could just as easily be destroyed in a similar manner anytime. If the federal government made samll towns move and rebuild out of flood zones following the flooding of the Mississippi River in 1993 or 4 then the logic applies 1000x to a city proportionately that much bigger.

[SheetWise]

A free market view ...
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... we often struggle to keep down our sympathy with the sorrow of others. Whenever we are not under the observation of the sufferer, we endeavour, for our own sake, to suppress it as much as we can, and we are not always successful. The opposition which we make to it, and the reluctance with which we yield to it, necessarily oblige us to take more particular notice of it. But we never have occasion to make this opposition to our sympathy with joy. If there is any envy in the case, we never feel the least propensity towards it; and if there is none, we give way to it without any reluctance. On the contrary, as we are always ashamed of our own envy, we often pretend, and sometimes really wish to sympathize with the joy of others, when by that disagreeable sentiment we are disqualified from doing so We are glad, we say on account of our neighbour's good fortune, when in our hearts, perhaps, we are really sorry. We often feel a sympathy with sorrow when we would wish to be rid of it; and we often miss that with joy when we would be glad to have it. The obvious observation, therefore, which it naturally falls in our way to make, is, that our propensity to sympathize with sorrow must be very strong, and our inclination to sympathize with joy very weak.

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Adam Smith. The Theory of Moral Sentiments

Note: With honest apologies to pvn for the lack of personal content. I'm still trying to sort out what I feel, let alone why.

[FishHooks]

I've agreed with you on the fact that tax payers money shouldn't go towards the rebuilding, as indicated in some of my posts. If campanies and people want to build houses and businesses in NO with their own money go for it.

[BluffTHIS!]

That's not really acceptable either because they will still expect us to bail them out if another disaster occurs. However the way to do it is to just tell them like those towns on the Mississippi that they are not eligible for federal flood insurance if they choose to rebuild or stay there.

[FishHooks]

In a perfect would I would absolutely agree, but gov't is so huge there is no way that could happen.