Should New Orleans be rebuilt?

My guess is though: Bush will want to redeem his lost credibility
and reputation and show the world that he can rebuild New Orleans to its old glory.

IMO it's a waste to rebuild

hey bean counters? what is $5lillion divided by 500,000

I think that's a good point.

Of course it is husker, but Bush has lost face in the eyes of his fellow
Americans and the entire world. He needs to redeem himself.

$10,000.

Refugee A lost a thriving business that he and his family started 50 years ago, and the family home (last valued at $350.000). Last February "A" finally paid off his business mortgage and was left with $1,000 in his saving account.

Refugee B was an unemployed waiter who lived with his aunt who was on welfare. "B" had no significant property, or money, the day the hurricane came ashore.

Refugee C was the head of a family of six and worked for the City. "C" had $5,000 in tax exempt savings from his job, and the City's insurance will cover most of his personal losses.

Refugee D is an elderly woman whose tenement was washed away. She had Social Security and Medicare, but was barely able to make it without help. Now she is living in a modern care facility that will provide services as long as needed. "D" will continue to receive her full government benefits.

Refugee E is a street hustler whose living was always derived from petty crime. "E" who had just gotten out of jail on parole when the disaster struck showed up at the evacuation point with a dozen Rolex watches on his arm, and a fancy boombox on his shoulder.

Now is it fair and proper that each of these cases get a check for $10,000. Should the government (the conduit through which our tax dollars flow) have no part in deciding whether the money is spent to replace damaged water mains, repair washed out roads, get hospitals up and running again, or any work done to restore the regions infrastructure? Someone, some public agency has to make decisions about how emergency funds are spent to insure that they are fairly distributed in a manner that serves the public interest. Someone has to decide if Refugee A should get $50,000, and Refugee E gets nothing but a criminal indictment. How does one calculate relative loss? Those who were at the top of the socio-economic ladder lost most, so should they be reimbursed by the taxpayers more liberally than those who lost "nothing" of material worth? People like to rag on the government and they hate to pay taxes, but they always want their favorite hobbyhorse to come in first.

C'mon now, use just little common sense here.

BTW, President Bush may have "lost face" or "credibility" with some, but not everyone. As I've said before, the State and Federal governments are doing what they can to help and as fast as they can do it. People need to understand the magnitude of the obstacles, and the difficulties of dealing with the wide spread devastation. Mistakes were made, are being made and will be made in the future ... that is the nature of human decision making. Be patient, and have some compassion for those who are laboring to make life and death decisions under difficult conditions. The President appears to have done all that anyone could be expected to do in similar circumstances.

i mean there is what like how many million taxpayers?
(please I don;t care about which political party)

I can see ABC Home Improvement and the Sears neighorhood trucks showing up - just now.................


don't get me wrong I love that show - now they have bitten off more than they can chew.

Asherman--

Good point. The government bean counters spent a great deal of time trying to sort out the benefits due to the 9/11 victim's families on a case by case basis.

Multiply this time by--thousands, tens of thousands?

Give-the-Money To the People sounds great--but the Satan and all his minions are between the beautiful idea and the details of implementing that beautiful idea.

It's the patriotic thing to rebuild it, but not rebuilding it would be the smart thing, and since Americans are more patriotic than smart it will be rebuilt.

But I guarantee you that it will be rebuilt so that it will be far too expensive for the poor people to move back. They wanted the vermin out and now they've got it. The rich will move back and build expensive apartment buildings and the poor will be left out in the rain.

They wanted the vermin out and now they've got it. The rich will move back and build expensive apartment buildings and the poor will be left out in the rain.


Roverroad stated:





"Who are they?" The gods who called Katrina for a visit? The crooked contractors who made a fast buck by filling the levees with rubble? The Trilateral Commission who figured out a way to live without the working poor? Who are they?

New Orleans had three businesses: refineries, international shipping and tourism.

All require many, many low paid workers. The rich don't wash their own dishes.

So do expensive apartment buildings. So do the neighborhoods of expensive apartment buildings.

Damning the rich is a lot of fun.

Fun's fun, but you can't laugh your life away. The "rich" need the "poor" as much as the poor need the rich.


Get off your soap box and take a look at what makes the world work.

Noddy24
so you are saying it's ok to profit off another mans labor???

Husker--



Of course. Otherwise every employer in this world would be damned.

I believe in fair pay for good work--but I don't muzzle either ox who turns the wheel or the man who owns the ox or the man who owns the wheel.

how can they be damned if they are not Christians and if they are then they are in toruble

So Husker, you think capitalism in incompatible with christianity?

na long as Cesare gets what is his

ok truth is yes

That's how your world works, that's not how a functioning society works. Do you think the rich are going to build and subsidize low income housing so that these people can move back in? No! The poor are going to go where there are social programs that can get them back on their feet.

Man wasn't meant to live in filth while an elite few take advantage of their labor. And many poor people live in filth on a daily basis, not just when a disaster comes. You and your red states are building a society there the rich are pampered and the poor are dying, and it obviously doesn't work!

You wouldn't be saying those things if you were poor. Only the rich think that's how society is supposed to work and the poor are too uneducated to know any better.

Roverroad wrote:




Where do you fall on the income scale, me boyo?

Rich? Poor? Or in the middle of an educational process that will help you eschew facile answers?

Should New Orleans be rebuilt? No, of course not!