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 ...
I am living in a trailer (not FEMA).My house got about 5 feet of water from Katrina. (My house is 11 feet above sea level.) State Farm paid off my insurance claim within about 6 weeks. I have paid off my mortgage and will rebuild a raised house that will put me ca 18 feet above sea level. The house will be built to comply with the new wind load codes.
I am staying here because I love living here. Most people in my neighborhood have not been heavily financially damaged if they had decent insurance because real estate values have remained strong. I own a condo in New Orleans that did not flood. It has appreciated in value by 50% since Katrina.
This area will survive and flourish again, but not because of handouts from the federal government. FEMA has been extremely inept and wasteful. (FEMA is spending $500 dollars per trailer just to build wooden steps with handrails.) I could go on and on. If you are counting on FEMA to be able to respond to the aftermath of a major terrorist attack, you should be very very worried. I am also tired of Federally subsidized stupidity and it begins with federal stupidity. Once again, our government has disregarded free market principles and blundered into an enormous boondoggle without regard for the eventual consequences.
The ones that didn't have insurance...oh well. I don't see why I should be on the hook for their lack of planning.
And as far as giving more money to the State of Louisiana, no frigging way. Not another dime. Everything that the Feds send down there seems to get stolen. The political establishment there has proved time and time again that they are not to be trusted.
They're especially not to be trusted with US taxpayer money.
Sorry, but that's just the way I see it.
L
Your state helped itself to an average take of 3.9 billion dollars from Louisiana's offshore oil and gas revenues over the past 50 years. It wasn't your oil, it wasn't your gas. It was Louisiana's coastline taking the beating and the sweat of Louisiana citizens doing all of the hard work. Your state did nothing to earn it's share of our money from our oil and gas offshore reserves. Yet, I'll bet you drive on highways and over bridges where you live that were financed in whole or in part by much of it.
Our resources have helped your state live in the modern world so you and yours could be nice and comfortable in the wintertime. Our card of thanks from you? The shaft along with pompous insults. What a class act you are Lurker.
Good luck to you.
L
Hey, have you sent any more foul mouthed Freepmails to lady Freepers recently?
L
97.2% of all the monies generated from Louisiana's offshore oil and gas revenue has been stolen alright. By the 49 other states, including yours.
Try again.
L
Explain to me how Illinois deserves to get any money at all from the production of oil and gas off of the Louisiana coastline. The first offshore well was drilled in 1938. Under Harry "The buck don't stop till it comes here" Truman in 1945, the offshore waters were federalized and the states were ripped off. He knew a gold mine when he saw one. Ever since, you and your home state have stood in line with all the other 49 for your free money at the expense of Louisiana. Grand scale theft. No thank you card, just the shaft.
Louisiana does not own the Gulf of Mexico.
If you don't like the law, write your Congresscritter. But, I don't remember any of the LA delegation making a big issue out of this before the hurricane.
Now it's just another bunch of corrupt LA pols trying to find another revenue stream for their bass boats, offshore bank accounts, hookers, drug habits, etc etc.
Get back to me when you vote that bunch of crooks and morons out of office. Maybe I'll be slightly more disposed to talk about shoveling more $$ your way.
L
You're right about how they stole the offshore oil but you probably aren't old enough to remember how they stole the oil that wasn't outside the state limits.
The oil companies used to send nice, polite, handsome young men with the gift of gab all over the swamps and the prairies tremblant to sweet-talk illiterate cajuns and coonasses into selling their oil rights for a dollar or two.
Hey, that's the free market, right?
We sell our birthrights for a mess of pottage, too bad for us.
Even though you stole from us we've helped keep you warm in the winter and helped to hold down the price of gas in your car. You've criticized our politicians as corrupt theives. When are you going to tell your own politicians to stop stealing our money? I'll bet that'll never happen. You'll just say it's not something you did. It's a law that was passed by Congress in 1945. You don't care if that law is right or wrong as long as you get your share of our money.
Like I said, write your frigging Congresscritter and get the law changed.
And I don't have any of 'your' money, and I'm working very hard to see that you don't get any of 'my' money, either.
L
Part of the problem now is that NO and LA want STATE CONTROLED grants and the GWBush wanted to give individual grants per home owner.
Also there was a fox story saying the looting continues TO THIS DAY because NO PD is not patrolling the homes.
Also people are not being allowed home and the courts are allowing mass bulldozing. These people are no longer in control of their own lives. Those that were supposed to use tax dollars with fiduciary responsibility were using the money for gambling vacations.
You must be joking right? You and your state have joined forces with all the other states who've enjoyed this free money every year and blocked these request each time they've been made. Ya'll love our money. You love our money. No way, you'll even consider giving it back to us. Greed has no honor.
You must be joking right? You and your state have joined forces with all the other states who've enjoyed this free money every year and blocked these request each time they've been made. Ya'll love our money. You love our money. No way, you'll even consider giving it back to us. Greed has no honor.
Since when do the natural resources in the Gulf belong to Louisiana...?
In your dreams...
Take a good hard look in a mirror. The 100 mil LA got for 'levee improvements' went to build a casino for Harrahs. That thing hasn't turned a profit yet, and it most likely never will.
There's absolutely no reason to assume that your officials will have any better judgement if they're given more Federal tax dollars.
Past behavior is an excellent indicator of future behavior, and LA politicians have a long and well documented record of thievery when they are allowed anywhere near the public treasury.
So the best way to prevent any further theft is to not send them any more money.
So, once again let's review.
The State of Louisiana does not own the Gulf of Mexico.
The State of Louisiana does not own the resources in the Gulf of Mexico.
The State of Louisiana lacks Constiutional Authority to impose any tariff on goods leaving its borders for any other State. This would include oil resources.
The State of Louisiana has already pissed away hundreds of millions of dollars in federal aid earmarked for hurricane and flood mitigation.
There's absolutely no reason to assume that LA officials would show any better judgement in the future than they have in the past.
So now put away the persecution complex, take your meds, and step away from the keyboard because you're starting to look even more silly than you did the other night.
L
Oh yeah, I forgot, New York should get that money. Right. You and your state have gotten almost as much oil and gas revenue money from Louisiana's offshore drilling as Louisiana itself. That's really fair isn't it? It all came to be in 1945 when ya'll stole our money. Simply helped yourselves to our money.
So, when you were buying flood insurance, what did you do, take that discount insurance with the 200 thousand dollar deductible?
I'm the last person to say that NY should get anything...NY is the only state worse than Lousiana...I've heard that Louisiana is the NY of the south in terms of corruption. And having been there once I can testify to it. Except your roaches are healthier.
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