Abandon NO? That would be political suicide. 4

[plasgears]

Some idiots are planting the idea that NO needs to be abandoned. Did they abandon Galveston? Did they abandon Miami? A review of the reclamation of Galveston 100 yrs ago, a much smaller community, would be instructional.

 

[davefitz]

Back to the original posting.

Only a small fraction of the cost to rebuild Galveston was federal dollar- mostly to build dikes to protect the army forts and shipping facilities.

As far as spending federal dollars on NO, it could be argued that most cost effective way to assist the residents to rebuild their lives should be determined,and that dollar value be the cap for total federal assistance to NO. Voluntarily relocating persons to other parts of the US and finding them jobs may be considered as an important part of the most cost effective method.

It can be argued that the US taxpayer has no moral obligation to rebuild NO just to prove we that can make the same mistake twice. The economic, social, cultural and environmental viability of NO has to be proven by the people of NO themselves, just as the people of Galveston did in 1900. If its not viable , why pour good money after bad ?

 

[Beggar]

Let's see, now...

National debt: 8.21 terra dollars
Deficit in budget proposed by our conservative Republican President: More than 430 giga dollars (Not including another 80 giga dollars in "emergency" spending for another 6 months of the folly in Iraq)

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense for the US government to print off a few billion $20 bills to rebuild an essentially uninhabitable place... NOT

Political suicide? We could only be so lucky...

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Bring back the HP-15

http://www.hp15c.org

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[MikeHalloran]

Various governments are to some extent responsible for the problem, by raising the river (by channeling it with dikes and thereby extending its mouth more than a hundred miles into the Gulf) and by sinking the surrounding land (by selling the right to pump oil and salt out from under it).

Anyone who's flown into NO realizes that the native state of the surrounding land is ... bird habitat.

And the native state of the Netherlands is ... fish habitat.

They differ in other ways, too:

1. the pigmentation of the populace.
2. the strength of the regional economy.
3. barriers to entry.

I find (1) a little unsettling, especially for its correlation to (2), but the difference may be rooted in (3).

You can't just show up in the Netherlands and take root there; you must have a job first. No such restriction applies to NO, or anywhere else in the US. It would be un-American.

The other side of the coin is that the various governments have already spent all the money they ever had or could get, several times over, so more money is not available unless everyone's money is further diluted, and taxed.

At the same time, we have a problem with, uh, unofficial agricultural imports. If the traffic were recognized and taxed, money would be available for raising NO to any arbitrary level you like, or relocating the citizenry who chose to go elsewhere.

Now, the climate in NO may not be perfectly suited to all forms of agriculture, but poppies and hemp are hardy plants that can grow pretty much anywhere. Surely they can grow in the NO area. The distribution system is already in place; we'd just have to redirect some of the sourcing.

Call it in-sourcing. Think about it; jobs aplenty, deficit reduction, trade imbalance reduction, and money to rebuild.

Yep, free enterprise could rebuild NO.












Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[waross]

My history book describes the founding of New Orleans by a couple of Canadian brothers working for the king of France.
The overriding consideration was to control trade and shipping on the River and into the heartland of what became the United States. It was the best place to control shipping, but a bad place for a city. Baton Rouge is a much better location for a city.
Rather than blindly replacing everything below sea level, what about using the money to compensate the victims, and letting them decide whether to reduild in New Orleans or in another place of their choice?
A smaller city on the area above sea level would be much cheaper to protect with levies.
As for industry, many years ago, no successful business man would build a factory in a swamp. Now it seems that the American way has become, build it in the swamp because real-estate is cheap in a swamp. Then lobby for government money to drain the swamp.

 

[davefitz]

waross;
New Orleans history is fascinating. The territory was named after King Louis and his wife Anna, or Louis y Anna, pronounced in english as Louisianna. Real estate speculation in a corporation that was founded to market the territory led to grossly inflated land values, and these values collapsed after the french public finally realized they were buying swampland. The financial collapse ultimately led to the French revolution.

After purchased by the US, all sorts of criminal activity flourished there including running contraband without paying import tarifrfs, slave trading, and into the 20th century gambling and prostitution. The jazz that developed in the early 20th century had its roots in the musical entertainment supplied at these remote houses of ill repute.

 

[swall]

Maybe we could grow sugar cane there in order to meet our president's energy goals by making ethanol.