Thomas Sowell: Two earthquakes -

Townhall.com ^ | December 30, 2003 | Thomas Sowell

[SauronOfMordor]

The falacy in your argument is that insurance companies would refuse to cover unsafe buildings. You would have fly by night insurance companies that would cover it. They would take the money and run and fold if an earthquake occurs.

Straw-man argument

I'm sure you could find a fly-by-night company to give you really low rates on your fire insurance. Try getting your mortgage holder to accept the policy as satisfying your obligation to be insured.

Would you allow your family to live in an unsafe house, even if it was cheap? Yes or no.

[DannyTN]

"Would you allow your family to live in an unsafe house, even if it was cheap? Yes or no."

Why would an Iranian choose to live in an unsafe house?

Would you allow substandard care even if it was cheap? Belong to an HMO? Do other Americans?

Now that we have HMO's do you get more than the alotted 5 minutes even if you are private pay? No you don't! The standard are usually set by the lowest and cheapest not the highest quality.

The market would drive the prices down along with the Insurance. Oh sure there's a balance that would be achieved, but it might be far from optimal and it might be far from safe.

[Publius6961]

It's clear that "traditional" Islamic culture is a major impediment to economic progress.

But a very important one. It is the impediment to economic vitality, and has been for centuries, after Europe changed the paradigm of economics: slaves and booty were no longer the machine that drove cultural dynamism.
It's sad that even Dr Sowell, is afraid to name the 10-ton elephant in the bathroom, but chose instead to refer to the symptom of the cultural disease.

[snooker]

Bam is reported to have a population of over 80,000.

Knowledge goes a long way. Wealth allows you to implement.

Iran with all their oil wealth shows what kind of a foolish country you can really build. When I was traveling to Iran under the Shaw, they were doing what they could to educate and modernize. But then came the religious dictators and all that stopped at the 6th century. May not have saved anyone, but a path to modernization is better than a ditch.

[alrea]

islamic paradise Bump

[cake_crumb]

The 10 ton elephant in the bathroom is that Islam is not a culture, it's a religion whos fanatic crusadors used it to conquer, destroy and subsume existing cultures.

The Iranian people themselves want better building standards, which people on this thread are ignoring. They don't WANT to live in SANDSTONE HUTS. They've identified their leaders handling of all aspects concerning rescue and relief as negligant and are demanding reforms. The ancient fortress, which allegedly predates the Islamic takover of Peria, was mostly destroyed and is therefore not as much in issue as homeless people in the cold. These important factors are being completely missed or willfully ignored.

And I don't know how a thread about how disasters create more casulties in totalitatian countries - and always the poor people - than in rich, free market economies like the US got turned into an abortion thread.

[doxteve]

"That's what we would do. Tear down history and put in a Walmart Superstore."

Not necessarily. Depends on the history. Depends on what is really going up in place of "historical" places that have become run down, dangerous, or been burned, destroyed by earthquake, or what have you.

"Like the Taliban did with the giant Buddhas."

The Taliban destroyed the giant Buddhas. They never did and never will build something to replace them. Their statement to the world was to creat rubble in place of history.

[discostu]

Well he's kind of right there. A thick sod building, much like a cave, will stay in the low 60 regardless of the weather. Not too shabby if you like the low 60s but I'm more of an upper 70s low 80s kind of guy.

[TheMole]

From http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/14726.htm

IRAN'S POLITICAL QUAKE
By AMIR TAHERI

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December 30, 2003 -- IT may take months before we know the exact number of people who died during the recent earthquake in Bam, south-eastern Iran.

The authorities have cited the figure of 30,000 dead and more than 50,000 injured. Local sources, however, speak of double those numbers.

It would take weeks before all the affected small towns and villages, numbering in hundreds, are reached. The hasty burial of corpses in mass graves renders any exact estimates that much more difficult. Also, thousands of people who have lost their homes are already leaving the region in search of temporary or permanent refuge elsewhere in the province.

One thing is certain: The earthquake has dealt a serious blow to the dwindling fortunes of the so-called pro-reform coalition led by President Muhammad Khatami. The anger it has provoked throughout the country is unlikely to ebb soon.

It may, in fact, overshadow the general election that is now less than two months away. What is already known as "the Bam effect" could produce either a mass boycott of the polls or an unexpected victory for the more hard-line Khomeinists who insist that Khatami's talk of reform has led the country into an impasse.

Khatami was able to take the measure of things himself when he was booed and boycotted during his whirlwind visit to the stricken regions four days after the quake. In fact, he had to cancel the best part of his program because the local authorities could not ensure his security. At least two of Khatami's ministers, visiting the affected areas, narrowly escaped being beaten up by angry survivors.

To be sure, blaming Khatami for a natural disaster is unfair. But he represents a regime that, to many Iranians, is at least partially responsible for the tragedy.

The ancient city of Bam, the epicenter of the quake, has a long history of destruction. It was first destroyed in an earthquake almost 1,900 years ago. But such is the unexplainable magnetism of Bam that, almost eight centuries later, it had become an important trading center with a cosmopolitan population of Muslims, Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians.

The city was again almost totally razed by an earthquake in 1911. But by the 1930s it had reemerged as a trading center and a producer of dates and pistachios. Then came other earthquakes in 1950 and 1966.

By the early 1970s, the government had decided not to allow people to build new houses in Bam itself. The city's ancient monuments were declared part of the heritage of mankind under UNESCO and no new buildings permits were issued for almost six years.

The revolutionary turmoil of 1978-79 provided racketeers with an opportunity to seize large chunks of land in Bam and use it for poorly designed and badly constructed houses and shops. The racket was backed by a group of powerful mullahs who, in exchange for a cut in the proceeds, issued fatwas (religious opinions) that canceled government orders that banned house-building in the city.

The mullahs claimed that the shah had wished to keep Bam empty because of a secret plan under which the city would be turned into a Zoroastrian center. They also dismissed warnings from the National Seismological Center in Tehran that opposed the repopulation of Bam. The mullahs claimed that the Hidden Imam would protect the new inhabitants of the city against all disasters.

Thus, more than half of those who died in the earthquake could be regarded as victims of a racket ran by mullahs and their associates with the help of religious prejudice and superstition.

Most Iranians knew nothing of the racket that the earthquake has exposed. The discovery that so many people died because cynical developers and bribe-taking mullahs sought a fast buck has sent a shock wave throughout the country.

The earthquake has also revealed the abject poverty of parts of Iran. Bam and most of its satellite towns and village lacked the minimum infrastructure of urban and rural life in the 21st century. There were only 250 hospital beds and 31 doctors for a population of over 150,000. The region's one small airport could not take in even medium-sized aircraft bringing in relief. And when relief arrived, there were no vehicles and certainly no roads to carry them to those most in need.

That level of poverty, often associated with sub-Saharan African states, comes as a shock when it is observed in an oil-rich country like Iran. A nation that has earned almost $500 billion in oil revenues alone in the past 25 years finds it hard to believe that some of its regions were as undeveloped as Burkina Faso.

The earthquake also focuses attention on the nuclear power plant that Iran is building on the Bushehr Peninsula. The plant is on the same geological fault line that destroyed Bam. Each year, thousands of tremors of various degrees of intensity are recorded on that fault line.

Bushehr itself has thrice been destroyed by earthquake in recent times (1877, 1911 and 1962). It is not hard to imagine what an earthquake that destroys a nuclear power plant could do to the entire Persian Gulf area.

The Germans who designed the Bushehr plant and the Russians who are building it assure everyone that it could withstand tremors of up to 7.2 on the Richter scale. That is almost one degree higher than the tremor that destroyed Bam. Also, the available historical data show that the region has not known tremors of more than 7 on the Richter scale. But there is no guarantee that a higher-intensity tremor will not strike in the future.

The Persian Gulf, through which passes almost half of the world's imported crude oil, is a shallow body of water that consists entirely of the continental shelf. (On average it does not go deeper than 90 meters). The destruction of a nuclear plant by earthquake in so shallow and narrow a waterway could create a disaster many times larger than that of Chernobyl. It would affect eight coastal countries directly, while dealing a severe blow to world trade by halting oil exports for months if not years.

The Bushehr plant may have made some sinister sense under Iran's program to develop nuclear weapons. Last month, however, Tehran announced that it had suspended that program and would open the country to meaningful inspection of all its nuclear sites in the future.

If the Tehran leadership is sincere, it must also review the necessity of building the plant at Bushehr. All the economic and political arguments are against the completion of the plant. The Bam earthquake has added a scientific argument: Iran should do nothing that could produce the world's biggest nuclear disaster if and when earthquake strikes Bushehr again.

E-mail: amirtaheri@benadorassociates.com

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[fish hawk]

there ya go, Capitalism saves lives.

[nutmeg]

ping!

Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my infrequent ‘miscellaneous’ ping list.

[UnklGene]

Good article. Thanks!
IRAN'S POLITICAL QUAKE
By AMIR TAHERI

[lainde]

Sanity ping~

[Conspiracy Guy]

The Buddha and Walmart comments were intended as humor. Sheeesh! Are we becoming so sensitive that a poster has to label every comment.

I am not PC and won't start today.

CG

[Conspiracy Guy]

True.

I really wasn't trying to be relevent at all.

CG

[spacewarp]

Only one negative to this article. Andrew was in 1992. Not 1998. I was down there. It was a miracle that there wasn't more loss of life. If it had come in 10 miles further north, the elderly they had been unable to evacuate would probably have been killed. Estimates were as high at 100,000 that they couldn't get out that wouldn't have been able to take the direct fury of the hurricane, but managed to survive the lower speeds.

I got fired for not showing up to work that day in the glass building I worked in. I was much better off for not working there.

[spacewarp]

One of the most amazing stories (in my opinion, and there were a lot of amazing stories) to come out of Hurricane Andrew was the Habitat homes.

Former President Carter came down and donated sweat and effort along with quite a few other volunteers (I don't give Carter much credit for anything, but when it's due, it's due.) They built 8 houses in a neighborhood of over 3000 homes. The houses were there for about 6 weeks before Andrew came through. Combined, the eight houses lost three shingles from the roofs. The remainder of the over 3000 homes in the neighborhood were demolished. It was as if someone had dropped a bomb and every house was hit. Except the Habitat houses.

The reason was that the volunteers didn't know about code and so they used too many nails, too much caulk, too much paint, too many screws and too heavy for the wood. The housing code was so unrestrictive that they were able to cut from $600 to $1200 per house off. The Dade County building codes were increased to nearly double for boards, nails, paint and other things. Houses built after 1993 should be able to withstand nearly a duplicate storm to Andrew.

The insurance companies and the county both knew about the code being deficient. Both parties decided to ignore it. After Andrew, for nearly all Florida construction, the insurance companies started to refuse to insure homes unless they were built to the new code. Other cities and counties don't impose it, but the insurance companies do.

The biggest miracle of this story is that Jimmy Carter screwed up big enough to actually get something right.

Paul