Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Katrina reconstruction: Will government's failure make people more self-reliant?
We're back around to the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, so naturally there is a lot of press coverage provoking a lot of questions -- indeed, questions other than "Will the Katrina retrospectives end with the Bush presidency?" In particular, the press is full of stories about the delays in rebuilding New Orleans, as if a city 250 years in the making ought to have been rebuilt in even two years. Still, much depends on who is doing the reconstructing. USA Today has a front-page story that is not the least bit surprising to anybody who would read this blog:
Two years after the devastating floods that followed Hurricane Katrina, the rebuilding of New Orleans, and much of the Gulf Coast, has largely taken two paths: communities that have rebuilt themselves using private funds, insurance money and sheer will — and publicly funded efforts that have moved much more slowly.
Now, economists have long observed that certain kinds of insurance schemes create a "moral hazard" if they cause the insured to take on risks that are inconsistent with the original intentions of the insurer. For example, if we insure deposits in banks, then depositors might shift their money to financial institutions with weaker balance sheets because they pay higher interest -- the decision to take on more risk is "free" to the borrower because of the government deposit insurance, and therefore a "moral hazard." Similarly, if the availability of government flood insurance actually causes more people to build in places prone to flooding, then it has not only shifted the risk of people who unwittingly find themselves -- because of coastal erosion or a change in the course of a river, for example -- in that position but it has increased the total risk taken on.
There is another idea, originating in conservative public policy circles, that is a close relative of moral hazard: dependency. The idea is that people who rely on the government to take care of them lose the ability to take care of themselves.
So, my question for your discussion should now be obvious: Since people all over the United States have now seen that government flood insurance and disaster relief is far from effective, will they be less likely to take on risks notwithstanding a subsidized government insurance scheme? Will they be more likely to rely on themselves to rebuild their houses and their lives notwithstanding the promises of politicians that governments will do it for them? Will Americans become more self-reliant because Katrina has taught them that they must be? Finally, if you answer "no" to any of these questions and yet you claim to be opposed to "big government," reconcile the inconsistency.
Release the hounds.
11 Comments:
By 
, at
Wed Aug 29, 09:34:00 AM:
Will government's failure make people more self-reliant?
Gee whiz! Now we are counting on government to make the people self-reliant?
By , at
Wed Aug 29, 10:31:00 AM:
This event alone will not make most of these people self-reliant. This mindset has been inbred for several generations. The self reliance solution will not be obvious to the "victims". (In this case, I mean the "victims" of Katrina AND of generations of government assistance.) I oppose big government solutions exactly for the moral hazard reasons. I fear that no quick solution is available to undo what has taken 60 years to implant.
- noprisoners
By , at
Wed Aug 29, 11:39:00 AM:
We would have to be willing to allow people to make choices and then, steady now, allow them to live with the consequences.
The only acceptable solution in this America is more, more, more.
By , at
Wed Aug 29, 11:43:00 AM:
60 years? It's been a lot longer than that.
The people (black and white) with "means" got out of New Orleans just before Katrina. Having "means" (money) goes a long way to being self-reliant.
The poor folks left behind were those with minimal means (money), and probably largely from Ward 9 (and largely African Americans), which was BELOW sea level to begin with, have been righteously screwed by the local pols (largely white Cajuns) for decades in terms of taking care of basic quality of life issues. And with little political power, how do they secure those changes needed? Where is the responsibility of the various 'levee boards' that were responsible for inspection and maintnenance of the levees after the Army Corp of Engineers finished the construction?
Even before Katrina, Ward 9 was routinely flooded during heavy rains, etc. because of poor drainage and non-performance of the pumps that were supposed to lift water out of the "below sea level" areas, and into the river.
Where was local responsibility then?
The immense cost of the re-building of just the levees makes it mandatory that the "big government" be involved. The city of NO and State of Louisiana simply do not have the means (or the brains, for that matter). The Fed. Gov. has to be the final guarantor that there will not be a repeat of the disaster of Katrina, before people will re-build and re-settle those areas "below sea level". The politicians at the Federal level have to determine how important and how much is to be invested in the eventual 'restoration' of NO.
Other places in the parishes around NO have been rebuilt because they are not below sea level, and therefore not as much at risk.
I'm no expert on New Orleans political life, but it is one of the most corrupt and dysfunctional cities in the country, even before Katrina. And no, I'm not talking about Ray Nagin. The problem goes much deeper and farther than one man who's been mayor for a few years. The Democratic Party has ruled NO and Louisiana for over a century as a one party state. I hope we are all happy with the outcome.
Many of the people from Ward 9 that have now left N.O. are not eager about coming back, just because they have now gotten out and seen how it can be living in other cities (like Atlanta or Houston) that are minimally 'well run'.
-David
By , at
Wed Aug 29, 12:28:00 PM:
"The idea is that people who rely on the government to take care of them lose the ability to take care of themselves."
Here's my contribution to the narrative.
As 'noprisoners' said above:
"This mindset has been inbred for several generations."
This was true for both New Orleans, and Lakeland.
By 
Dawnfire82, at
Wed Aug 29, 01:28:00 PM:
I am so f'ing sick of hearing about Katrina.
I remember seeing on TV a reporter in New Orleans the night before the storm landed, well after people were supposed to be out. And a *whole lot* of those poor victims were out in the streets getting hammered, like a sort of pre-Apocalypse party. I'm sure that now those people are very sad, and 'disillusioned with the government' that left them there. But at the time, they were drunk/high and having a great time.
No one ever seems to remember the other storm, Rita, that hit Texas with more strength the following month. But I do, because I was there. I snuck down in my uniform to bypass the National Guard and State Trooper quarantine with a truck load of supplies and a sidearm, expecting the worst. Beaumont, my birth city, was *wrecked.* Floods, collapsed buildings, a destroyed power grid, crushed cars, the works. The gas refinery there, where my father works, was shut down for months. My dad, cousin, and one of my uncle's houses were all hit by falling trees. My grandfather's house was crushed by 3.
But there weren't any riots; no looting, no civil disorder of any kind. People came back and began to rebuild their homes. They shared power generators and cars. People with wells shared water. Local companies shelled out money for ice, baby formula, MRE's, and the like. Neighborhood militias put up signs reading, "You loot, we shoot." As far as I know, the only shooting incident was some good ole boy who was prevented from re-entering his town by the State Police and stupidly produced a weapon.
Texas took one to the chin and remained standing, without anyone's help. (caveat: FEMA showed up after a few days with foodstuffs, but by then local initiatives and charities had begun the same services anyway) AND, Texas cities were, and to my knowledge, still are, hosting thousands of 'Katrina refugees.' Two freakin' years after the events. Who are they, Palestinians? And Louisiana is STILL bitching that no one came to their rescue, or they aren't getting enough handouts.
They get no sympathy from this quarter.
By dave in boca, at
Wed Aug 29, 01:48:00 PM:
Katrina was a disaster fifty years in the making, according to an ex-Green Beret Army Officer friend who told me the following story.
From the late 1940s to the late '60s, this friends great-uncle was a senior Army officer in the Army Corps of Engineers and was involved and in the latter part of his career, in charge of bolstering the levee system protecting New Orleans. He had more than fifteen years on the job there and was intimately involved in the construction, repair, and enlargement of the vast system enclosing the city and its suburbs.
His great-uncle told my friend that as the years progressed, the city government of New Orleans became much more involved in contracting out and the bidding process for repairing the levees. The Democrats in charge of New Orleans began consistently lobbying for more control of this process and finally, over the protests of the professional military engineers, was able to have almost complete control over who got the contracts. The due diligence the Corps made after the repairs found more and more often that shoddy workmanship and materials were weakening the dykes, and reported this up their command chain to Washington [the military don't run to newspapers like the Times-Picayune who often side with the Democratic politicians].
After years of non-improvement of the process, the COE finally resigned itself to overseeing a politicized kickback and underperformance ritual with the levees. My friends uncle told him that sooner or later the "Big One" would knock over the levees. His uncle died before the "Big One" arrived in 2005.
And when it happened, whose door did the MSM lay the broken levees and subsequent disaster in front of?
The real culprits, which were the Democratic administrations Moon Landriau and his crooked relative Sen. Mary and their political ancestors and allies?
Or a fake bogus made-up smear, which blamed the Republicans?
Take one guess.
By , at
Wed Aug 29, 01:53:00 PM:
Dawnfire, that's a great analogy.
In coastal Texas, the civic life (personal initiative and personal responsibility) has not rotted away due to "one party government" that has existed in NO for decades (since the end of Re-construction?).
A hurricane nearly destroyed Galveston about 100 years ago (1906?), yet Galveston is surely bigger (better? :) today.
My main point was that parts of NO are truly "under water" in the sense that they are below sea level, and the means to guarantee that they won't be devasted again is up to the Federal Government overseeing the levees (because Babineux Blanco and previous cohorts are too crooked to stay on the job and get it done).
This is the real fruit of 'Mother Democracy', cradle to the grave care of the people. They screwed people living in the 9th Ward for years, and the result was little civic cohesion when the normal government broke down.
Otherwise, we write off parts of NO and just say they will never be re-built. Either/or.
-David
By , at
Wed Aug 29, 04:24:00 PM:
The folks who complained, and still complain, the loudest weren't self sufficient before Katrina. Indeed, thay have never been self sufficient and have no desire nor the ability to become so now.
The government, by way of raping the public trough, has to get out of the business of subsidising dangerous behaviours and poor lifesyle choices. Then, and only then, will people stop making the same stupid mistakes over and over. They'll learn and not do stupid again, or they'll not be around to do stupid again. The last point can be a very effective object lesson for others.
By , at
Wed Aug 29, 05:11:00 PM:
The poor in NO lived largely in rentals or shanties, as I understand it. They couldn't be owners, because God knows they wouldn't have owned outright, and avoided having insurance for flood hazard (it being under sea level).
So, no, risk of loss or a failing bailout system by our Uncle Sam won't keep people living in risk. There are too many parts of our society that are just plain stupid, or too lazy to escape poverty. I'm sure some stayed around thinking they'd go shoppin' once the suckers pulled up stakes.
I'd also wager that LA being as corrupt as it is, was guilty for years for just letting people live in places they knew were risky. Those places should be farms for gator wallet material, not places people live.
The issues with local government oversight of the levees has been well established ...
By , at
Thu Aug 30, 03:27:00 PM:
Going for the sensational angle is not a dead art!
The Washington Times equates the federal response to Katrina to the Marshall Plan, and finds we've spent more not rebuilding Nola than we spent rebuilding the European Union plus Russia, adjusted for inflation. Ugly!
To be fair, the administration started it, since they themselves talked about a "Marshall Plan" for the region after the storm ended. One more thing to blame on Bush.
