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So I take it that, as long as we have FEMA to come rushing in with taxpayer money regardless of how stupid the risk, we don't need an insurance industry to manage competing risks and we don't need people preparing for risks. Let the Federal government decide what constitutes acceptable risks and bail people out regardless. Right?

Cain should know better.

That's right. And the catchphrase "Stop playing with people's tragedies -- these are real people we're talking about" is the major excuse for the Nanny State: it could apply equally well to Rick Perry's Gardasil decision; Social Security; Medicare/Medicaid; ObamaCare; a "guaranteed minimum income" scheme; etc. Real people everywhere have problems and tragedies. That doesn't mean that they should "externalize the costs" of these tragedies by not adequately preparing for them and then having everyone else pay for them when they occur. That's not the function or role of a federal government.

I understand that one of the most effective first-responders during Katrina in New Orleans came from the private sector: Wal-Mart, which was able to stock and supply lots of bottles of fresh water to victims of the storm. FEMA was basically useless.

Here is Cain, talking about getting rid of the EPA, when he doesn't understand that it exists to manage socialized risks. If we truly wanted a free-enterprise based environmental management system, the first two prerequisites are tort reform and deregulating the insurance industry.

Think about it this way: The FAA told the airlines it was just dandy to disarm pilots and install cheesy cockpit doors in order to get another first class seat. Three airplanes were highjacked and flown to their destruction and the Bush administration "rewards" the idiot executives who made that stupid business decision with $12 billion in taxpayer dollars. If we want the environment to work that way, the results will be catastrophic. That's why I wrote a book showing how free enterprise system truly can address these intangible issues.