Posted on 01/29/2006 2:17:44 PM PST by Uncle Sham
Don't leave us to foreclosure Sunday, January 29, 2006 Here in a community full of ruined homes, it takes no imagination to predict an epidemic of foreclosures that could devastate families, cripple the recovery of greater New Orleans and strain the nation's economy. If your flood insurance payout isn't nearly enough to cover your mortgage, you wonder if you'll have to abandon your unlivable home. If you look down the block at a dozen other damaged houses and know that your neighbors are in the same bind, you understand the fear of losing your neighborhood to blight. If you travel daily past block after block of empty, flood-marked houses, you understand how large the hole in our economy could become. This explains why U.S. Rep. Richard Baker is not giving up on his proposal for a federally backed buyout of flooded-out homeowners and small business owners. He wants Congress to create a corporation that would release Hurricane Katrina's victims from their mortgages, sell bundles of property to developers and help get storm-ravaged land back into commerce.
(Excerpt) Read more at nola.com ...
When you're making plans, one of the things you have to take into account is the facts on the ground.
This is especially true when you are dealing with what economists call "market failures."
For example, there was no real free market solution to the Great Flood of 1927. The Army Corps of Engineers had to build levees all up and down the Mississippi River.
Similarly, there is no real free market solution to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Buying up properties in what should be wetlands and scraping the land clean and prohibiting rebuilding -- that's not a free market solution.
Uncle Sham doesn't live in New Orleans, and his house is fine.
I don't live in New Orleans, and my house is fine.
And the people in New Orleans haven't actually got that promised $80 billion yet.
You and your kids were nice to send bottled water and pencils and Barnes and Noble gift cards. But these people don't have any houses and they don't have any furniture and they don't have any clothing and they don't have pots, pans, plates, dishes, forks, spoons, knives.
If someone just burned every house in your entire town, every store, every business, every car, every truck, every tool, and told you to pull yourself up by your bootstraps -- 200,000 houses gone, 400,000 people homeless and lost their livelihoods -- well, I won't wish that one you but maybe you'd know how it feels.
I always wondered what would happen in America if some terrorists set off a nuclear bomb in one of our cities. Never imagined it would be like this.
I've lost my faith in America. People like you killed it. You're a very nice man but you just have no clue and you don't want one. Nothing wrong with looking out for Number One. That's what keeps them alive all over the world. I just thought America was better.
So, now I know.
No, you know what? I don't care what you think.
Stay in your cushy world and look down your nose at people who are worse off than you.
I feel sorry for you.
Maybe that's because it was UNDER FREAKIN' WATER at the time, genius.
It wasn't under water the last time he was there, was it?
Or do you actually know anything other than what you see on the O'Reilly Factor or hear from Rush Limbaugh?
All the loans??
Do you have a link to credible source?
What do you consider a "credible source"? Rush Limbaugh? World Net Daily? Reverend Sun Moon, who owns the Washington Times?
Do tell.
"Trillions won't be enough for Louisiana Dems."
Yup!
I wonder whose pocket all the money is going in.
I think they're more corrupt than New Jersey.
And don't even think of being a landlord down there.
YOU'LL wind up in the poor house while others live for free- literally!
I was thinking along the lines of maybe a government statistic website, or an article or quote by a local state housing official.
My point is that it would be unusual for ALL the loans to be from GinnyMae or FreddicMac.
You're right, not all the loans are guaranteed directly. But if you understand the way the various federal agencies and quasi agencies are structured, that should not cause you to feel any relief.
Given your earlier nastiness, I don't feel like it's a productive use of my time to educate you any further.
This means that the other 49 states, if you divide the leftover 46.71 billion dollars among them, averaged .95 billion dollars during this time. Pretty good deal for them as Louisiana did all of the work and suffered all of the coastal erosion and damages for a measly .07 billion dollars. No one with a straight face on this forum could say this is in any way fair to Louisiana.
Since I was unable to locate how much money the feds have sent to us from the years 1953-1985, I've projected the figures at the 2.8% average that I can account for. Since 1953, the feds have taken in (in 2005 dollars) a total of 199.78 billion dollars in offshore Louisiana oil and gas revenues. If we averaged the 2.8% every year during this period, we were only given 5.69 billion of this amount. Once again, the other states on average got 3.96 billion each for doing none of the work, losing none of the resources, and damaging none of their coast. 47 years of working hard for the 49 other states for a paultry 1.7 billion dollars total. And they have the nerve to accuse us of being greedy?
I'm going to research how much has been sent to each state because I think it actually might be possible that some states might have received MORE than Louisiana did dring this time period. Before 1945, all of this money would have been the property of the state of Louisiana. Must be nice to be able to steal another states money for over 50 years then tell em to go screw themselves when they need help.
Louisiana has been getting the shaft on that offshore oil revenue since before Huey Long made a campaign issue back in the 1930's.
I think this is one reason that the other states refuse to allow offshore oil production -- they've seen how Louisiana gets screwed on the deal.
Did you see how the governor of West Virginia just shut down coal mining because it's not safe?
The same could be done in Louisiana -- except that all the politicians are in the pocket of Big Oil.
Everybody that hates Louisiana politicians for being on the take sure enjoys their cheap gas, don't they?
And when the hurricane knocked out the infrastructure and the prices went up, didn't everybody scream then?
I don't live in Louisiana anymore and ya'll's politicians make me sick, too, but damn, this is crazy. But Big Oil is too big to take on. I don't see how it can be done.
"Too big to take on" means one state can't tell the federal government what to do, and if the federal government wants to let Louisiana's wetlands get ruined then so be it.
This administration isn't going to help, and all the Democrats will do is Big Oil to throw some money their way.
They're all a bunch of crooks . . . . Republicans, Democrats, hardly a nickel's worth of difference between them, just big talk.
You know maybe, just maybe, if LA government weren't a completely corrupt sinkhole some of us around here might feel differently about 'aid'. But given their track record at graft, corruption, and outright theft I don't see how anyone with a modicum of intelligence can do anything but look at these demands with a very jaundiced eye.
You got 100 million to strengthen the levees. It got spent on a casino. That's all I need to see.
LA government isn't responsible enough to be trusted with any more government money. From what I've seen not many of the citizens are either.
L
I think they're (Louisiana) more corrupt than New Jersey.
..........................................
New Jersey? Nah...Tony Soprano couldn't hold a match to the stupendously sleazy NYS Dems who along with the emasculated Republicans who run this state like Stalin ran the Kremlin.
Some areas that flooded were not designated as being at risk of flooding on the federal flood zone maps. Therefore insurance was not required by lenders. The feds are currently redrawing the flood zone maps.
Yeah, this is a tough one.
But throwing the baby out with the bathwater doesn't actually solve anything.
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