Hurricane Sandy - the upside

[VatorMan]

Originally Posted by Stangkiller

Profit? nooo, rake them over teh coals, then do it again to make sure we got all the pennys out too.

But that comes later. Remember, the upper NE corridor is 90% union. Can you invest in the Mob ? What's their stock symbol?

[simpleman68]

Originally Posted by VatorMan

What's their stock symbol?

I thought it was FUG
Scott

[mrvette]

Originally Posted by VatorMan

But that comes later. Remember, the upper NE corridor is 90% union. Can you invest in the Mob ? What's their stock symbol?

M.O.B.com

Or like this Joizey gal I used to see decades ago, her fadda was a 'enforcer' for the 'Boom Boom Boys'.....

he never killed anybody, but was a prize fittaah, and so dey asked him to off someone once, he declined on religious reasons, dey nevvah asked again, so he went back to breakin' legs/etc.....

seriously true story.....

[onedef92]

Originally Posted by mrvette

M.O.B.com

Or like this Joizey gal I used to see decades ago, her fadda was a 'enforcer' for the 'Boom Boom Boys'.....

he never killed anybody, but was a prize fittaah, and so dey asked him to off someone once, he declined on religious reasons, dey nevvah asked again, so he went back to breakin' legs/etc.....

seriously true story.....

[Joecooool]

Originally Posted by GS Ragtop

So lesseee. Big company gives money to ocean-side home owners who hire lots of people to do repair work and buy supplies for the repairs.

Hmmmm. I believe this is Trickle-Down in action!!!

The vast majority of claims will not be from beach front homes. I believe it will be from businesses and communities miles inland that are currently under water.

[VITE1]

Originally Posted by Joecooool

The vast majority of claims will not be from beach front homes. I believe it will be from businesses and communities miles inland that are currently under water.

Those communities and businesses will have to get the money from somewhere and that money will go back into the economy and trickle down.

But is has to come from someplace first.

And the place that the money comes from will want to make it back with a profit.

[mrvette]

Originally Posted by Joecooool

The vast majority of claims will not be from beach front homes. I believe it will be from businesses and communities miles inland that are currently under water.

Yah gotta point, beach homes are minimal in construction and furnishings for a REASON.....


but the major shit inland, anudder story.....

to type out my best recollections of the NY/NJ accents, been a while.....

[VITE1]

Taxpayers Get Soaked by Government's Flood Insurance - ABC News

Taxpayers Get Soaked by Government's Flood Insurance
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Commentary
By John Stossel

Sept. 20





As you watch those pictures of houses under assault from Hurricane Isabel, doesn't it make you wonder: Why do people build their homes so close to the water? They must have known a hurricane might do this. Why would they take such a foolish risk?


Well, people take the risk, because our government encourages us to take it. I know all about this, because I did it myself.

In 1980, I bought some beachfront property on Long Island, N.Y., and built a house there. It was a big investment for me. The down payment took just about all of my savings, and I knew what can happen to people who build on the edges of oceans. But I took the risk because the government made me a promise.


The promise was national flood insurance. It made my house and my neighbors' homes possible. After all, no bank will give you a mortgage unless you have insurance.

Private insurance companies were reluctant to sell insurance to those of us who build on the edges of oceans, and were they to offer it, they'd charge an arm and a leg to cover the risk. But this wasn't a problem for me, because you offered to insure my house. I know you didn't do it personally, but you, as a taxpayer, are the guarantee behind federal flood insurance. Should a big storm wipe out half the coast, you'll cover our losses — up to a quarter-million dollars. Thanks — we appreciate it — but what a dumb policy.

The subsidized insurance goes to affluent homeowners on both coasts — from Malibu Beach, where movie stars live, to Kennebunkport where the Bush family has a vacation home, to Hyannisport, where the Kennedy family has a summer home, to the Hamptons, where I bought my house.

The insurance premiums were a bargain. The most I ever paid was a few hundred dollars. Federal actuaries say if the insurance were realistically priced, it would cost thousands of dollars. Why should the government guarantee water's-edge insurance? Why should the government be in this business at all?

A decade ago I spoke with James Lee Witt, who ran FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, for President Clinton. FEMA's current director is busy with this week's hurricane, but his agency's policy hasn't changed much, so let's look again at the discussion I had with Witt.

Witt told me he thinks the flood insurance saves federal tax dollars. "If this insurance wasn't there, OK, then people would be building in those areas anyway, OK? Then it would cost the American taxpayers more dollars if a disaster hit that community and destroyed it," he said.

He said it's cheaper than offering additional disaster relief.

Should We Subsidize Insurance for Drunk Drivers?

That's government logic for you. Since we always spent huge amounts of taxpayer money bailing out people with disaster relief, politicians 35 years ago said, why don't we try to recover some of that money by selling flood insurance?

As so often happens, the program had unintended consequences. The cheap insurance encouraged more people to build on the beach, so the insurance risk is now huge. Today, $645 billion in property is guaranteed by Uncle Sam.

Geologist Orrin Pilkey at Duke University says this policy is simply "stupid." Pilkey has been one of the most persistent critics of the government's policies. He says both disaster relief and federal flood insurance just encourage people to stay in harm's way.


We've got to get around this 'sympathy at all costs' for people who are suffering from natural disasters," Pilkey said.

Witt disagreed. He said, "Should we just walk away and say, 'We're not going to help you'?"

If I were a drunken driver who kept wrecking my car, should there be federal car insurance to make sure I have cheap car insurance?

Washed Away

Witt pointed out that the government did require me to put my house on stilts. That was a good thing because 16 years ago, most of my beach just washed away. It wasn't even a hurricane, just three days of big surf and suddenly I didn't have waterfront property. I was over the water. Still, the house survived because of the stilts, and what a view I had then.

Uncle Sam didn't even raise my insurance premiums. In fact, he spent millions more of your tax dollars to rebuild my beach. Up and down the coast, the Army Corps of Engineers dumped sand on hundreds of beaches.

This seems like a dumb policy too, since a study of replenishment projects found the new sand usually washes away within five years. But the government does it anyway — and you pay for it.

I asked Professor Pilkey what he thought of people like me who build houses on beaches? "I think you're a vandal and extremely costly to our society," he said.

A few years ago, I got a call from a friend. 'Happy New Year,' he said, 'your house is gone.' And it was. During a fairly ordinary storm, the ocean just dug up the sand under the pilings and took the whole house away.

There it was the next day on the front page of the newspaper. I'd always wanted to make front page news, but not like this. It was an upsetting loss for me, but financially, I made out fine. National flood insurance paid for the house and its contents. I could rebuild my house, and the government would insure me again — and again. I didn't rebuild. I'd learned my lesson; I sold what was left of my land. But the outrage is that federal flood insurance exists at all. There is a quarter-million-dollar limit on each payment, and as long as I build my house in accordance with zoning laws and ordinances, there is no limit on how many times the government will pay if a house keeps washing away.

Give Me a Break.

And this is one reason why the bill for Sandy will be so high. Rewarding stupid and ill conceived action sis just a bad idea.