Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler OT: Katrina and World Support?

"In 1804, by the way, 28 YEARS after our Declaration, 35% of US citizens wanted to return to British rule. "

Totally inapplicable comparison. Arabs have had theocracy in their culture for a couple thousand years. I believe Iraq is worth a shot but I don't kid myself into thinking it's a done deal.

Riffman, If you cannot understand why people electing NOT to leave is worth mentioning, then I feel sorry for you.

We ALL have responsibility for our own actions, and the majority of people there decided NOT to heed the warnings.

Do I feel for them ? Yes. Do I blame the federal government for this ? No. Absolutely not.

As of Thursday morning, 13,000 National Guard troops were on the scene, less than 72 hours after the hurricane hit.

http://www.ngb.army.mil/news/story.asp?id=1755

In reply to:

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Totally inapplicable comparison. Arabs have had theocracy in their culture for a couple thousand years. I believe Iraq is worth a shot but I don't kid myself into thinking it's a done deal.

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England was a monarchy, and had been for centuries. We managed to scratch out freedom for ourselves from that monarchy.

"For the life of me, I cannot figure out why any human being would even think that the fact that some people chose to stay is worth mentioning or even an issue here"

I disagree. There are reports of people who chose to stay during storm and pass the time getting drunk together like it was some kind of party. I do not feel for those people, they had plenty of warning and the resources to leave. Instead of thinking responsibly, they decided to have a frat party. How many people without the resources now sufffer longer and have to wait for help while we evacuate these idiots?

The truth probably lies somewhere between our two opinions.

There is no question however that things are getting worse for a growing number of the population. Local governments are becomeing increasingly unable to give the support needed by the lower population segments in financial distress.

Perhaps we aren't losing many companies, yet, but we have lost a number of important industries that were able to employ many of the people now in jeopardy. You can't legislate intelligence or even common sense. These people need employment commensurate with their abilities, and far too many of those jobs have been exported to where the wages are more profitable to the companies and the economic climate is more forgiving of clean air and employee safety. It helps the bottom line to be sure, but does very little to help the unemployed and under-employed folks who could't escape the storm due to high gasoline prices in part caused by an increase in fuel demands by exactly those people who are now working in the jobs that many of those storm victims used to occupy.

A healthy Service Economy is great as long as we can all continue washing each others clothes. Sooner or later though, those washing machines are going to start to fail and somebody is going to be required to manufacture new washers and dryers. Will we still have the manufacturing infrastructure and capabilities to do the job?

As far as a profit to those companies helping in New Orleans, and doing business in general; Yes! by all means!! A reasonable profit is good and healthy and I wouldn't have it any other way! I did very well, thank you, as an Engineer in a number of very well run corporations over the years, but over the years I've also seen a number of disturbing changes taking place in North America that dosen't especially bode well for the future of an increasing number of our population.

A number of these changes don't seem to be helping those business which are currently profitable. With a reduced work force buying products, sales will certainly suffer, with increased fuel prices taking a more inflated portion of a families expendiatures, sales will fall more rapidly in tune with the increased costs of manufacture. No surprises there.

When Japan was recovering from the second world war, Japan had, for a while, a very poor reputation as a country which produced shoddy products. They, through good management, hard work and employee involvement managed to bring their reputation up to the point where it was a few years ago; of being able to produce the best(at a price point)product available. Their reputation is beginning to suffer a bit now as they're also being forced onto the export jobs bandwagon to keep up with the rest of the world. The people who are being placed in these new manufacturing positions don't have the drive necessary to produce products of a reasonable standard. Most consumer products, automobiles and like items excluded, produced under these circumstances are without question built down to a profit.

I have no problem with creating new markets and getting the entire world into the modern age, my problem is doing it in such a way that too many people have to suffer the move back to third world status right here in North America.

Am I thinking of just myself? Darn right I am!!

I don't want to see my pensions evaporate, I don't want to see my Social Security fade away, I don't want to see my hard won 401k savings eroded by financial and governmental irresponsibilites. A strong American economy with lots of high wage, high tax paying employees contributing their fair share, is entirely in my benifit.

Last year, on three ocassions, we packed up our speakers and went to my oldest Daughters house(which we thought may have been stronger than ours, it wasen't!)

While we were there for three hurricanes which had winds only as high as 114MPH, we had what could almost be called a near-month-long hurricane party. Had any of those storms even began to approach cat 3 level in our area, we had plans in effect to evacuate in the proper direction once that was determined. If yer gonna party; pick yer storm guests.

We fortunately, had the funds available for a hasty retreat.

F107 - We have seen dire predictions about the economy and business growth, especially manufacturing, for over 100 years. Each generation goes through a period in which they think "it is over".

Smile a bit - We have the highest and employment in the nation's history.

In the past 88 quarters (22 years), we have had 84 quarters of growth, and 4 quarters of retreat, in GDP. Two of those quaters were a direct response to 9/11, and the other two were in response to Iraq invading Kuwait in 1990.

Non residential business investement is growing at 12% ANNUALLY right here in the US of A.

If we could talk over a few beers, you might walk away feeling better about your retirement.

Or ... You might just get a buzz.

Well...Yeah...there are changes goin' on all the time and change can be difficult. I'm sure the truth lies somewhere between our two opinions and is entirely internaly reflected in our attitudes by our personal experiences and expectations.

Things were great in our house until our youngest Daughter gave us her four kids, and sudenly we began to notice others in our situation, and worse, as being much more prevelant that we had previously understood. From that point foreward our take on the general health of the North American economy took on a far more sinister cast.

So I think I'll state it this way: Things are great, but not as great as you think! Things are not so great, but not so not so great as I think.

Lets talk over those few beers now

Uh....let's talk about subs instead

Why would you feel the need to tell me you feel sorry for me? Puzzling.

I'm just curious why all the conservatives continue to mention that people chose to stay in a time where people have DIED. Ok then. They chose to stay. What do you want to do about it? Shoot them? Leave them there?

Monarchy and the history England is very different than the history of Arab countries. You have not convinced me.

Poverty Rate Rises to 12.7 Percent
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 31, 2005
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Even with a robust economy that was adding jobs last year, the number of Americans who fell into poverty rose to 37 million -- up 1.1 million from 2003 -- according to Census Bureau figures released Tuesday.

>>For the life of me, I cannot figure out why any human being would even think that the fact that some people chose to stay is worth mentioning or even an issue here.

There are two separate issues, both valid :

1. If more of the people who *could* have left had actually done so, it would have been much easier to look after the ones who Had to stay behind -- and what seems like an inadequate response might have been sufficient. The Superdome could have supported 5000 people for a week (for example) but was quickly overwhelmed with 25000+ people. You have to make some assumptions when you plan... and I think we would agree that at least PART of the problem is people who didn't follow the plan for relatively petty reasons.

Even worse, the people who stayed behind to party (or worse, to loot, or just because of lack of imagination) seem to be the biggest part of the problem now. They are bored, they are fighting, they expect that the government should have taken good care of them even though they did not follow the government's instructions. Bottom line, they are now one of the biggest parts of the problem and are disrupting efforts made for the larger group of people who are just looking to survive.

2. Notwithstanding the above, it does seem as if the actions of both local and federal governments could have been better. While I think we all agree that spending more $$ to beef up the levees before they collapsed would have been the ideal solution, there has been a couple of years to figure out "hey, one day this is all gonna come tumbling down, we'd better have a plan". I don't see signs of a good plan.

A trivial example would be the evacuation of NO -- from all the pictures they only used half the lanes on the highways so traffic jams getting out of the area were much worse than necessary. Didn't seem to be any real preparation in terms of potable water storage etc, even something as simple as building a few reservoirs which were high enough above sea level that even the worst case surge from a cat 5 hurricane would not go over the walls.

BTW, it seems like the main reason for shooting at the rescue workers is to encourage them to "come rescue me first" by bouncing a few bullets off the vehicles, ie "if you don't rescue me first you ain't gonna rescue anyone". I'm not even going to comment on that...