N.O. Lower 9th Ward

[southsideirish71]

I stand by that opinion.

 

Unfortunately posting on a message board doesn't convey feeling. I did not 'snap'. I am not shaking with anger. Just providing my viewpoints and opinions. I respect yours. I hope you respect mine.

 

But you do convey a "feeling" from peoples post, and then stand by it just after you posted the above. I see the logic now.

 

:banghead You should run for congress.

[BigSqwert]

Unfortunately posting on a message board doesn't convey feeling. I did not 'snap'. I am not shaking with anger. Just providing my viewpoints and opinions. I respect yours. I hope you respect mine.

 

But you do convey a "feeling" from peoples post, and then stand by it just after you posted the above. I see the logic now.

 

:banghead You should run for congress.

I was referring to you stating that I snapped. I didn't snap.

 

This is getting ridiculous now.

[sti3]

Worldnetdaily is a far right-wing site, FWIW.

 

And you can't get Louis Vuitton handbags at the Guess store.

 

So some people misused cash. Big freaking whoop. I'd be willing to bet the vast majority used the pittance on necessities.

 

As for the original topic, I've never owned a home so I don't know how I'd react if someone was going to demolish my home that I thought was salvageable.

 

Lord knows why I let my friend 'Swert draw me into this asinine thread.

[LowerCaseRepublican]

Did anyone get around to answering my original question -- that being if a person/family had a pre-Katrina mortgage on the house, would they still have to pay if the house was demolished?

 

If that's so then they have somewhat of a right to be pissed -- cuz they have to dole out for that plus start all the Hell over again. Might be why some people are bending over backwards to defend their houses.

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

Did anyone get around to answering my original question -- that being if a person/family had a pre-Katrina mortgage on the house, would they still have to pay if the house was demolished?

 

If that's so then they have somewhat of a right to be pissed -- cuz they have to dole out for that plus start all the Hell over again.  Might be why some people are bending over backwards to defend their houses.

 

 

 

Its called insurance. If you can afford a mortgage then you can afford to have it, especially when you live in a storm prone area which rests below sea level.

 

 

There's no way these homes which are marked for demolition are going to be lived in again. They are just too heavily damaged.

[THEWOOD]

Worldnetdaily is a far right-wing site, FWIW.

 

And you can't get Louis Vuitton handbags at the Guess store.

 

So some people misused cash.  Big freaking whoop.  I'd be willing to bet the vast majority used the pittance on necessities.

 

As for the original topic, I've never owned a home so I don't know how I'd react if someone was going to demolish my home that I thought was salvageable.

 

Lord knows why I let my friend 'Swert draw me into this asinine thread.

 

Is this a question or a statement? If it is a question the answer is NO. I never said that they were being purchased at the Guess store. She works at a mall and has friends at other stores who would witness the act.

 

In your next line you say you dont care that some peope misused tax dollars. How can you say that? So we should let these people keep b****ing about not getting any help yet they go out and spend money on s*** they dont need. Yeah thats real smart you have nothing to your name and no job so lets go to the strip club and blow off a lil steam.

[sti3]

In your next line you say you dont care that some peope misused tax dollars.  How can you say that?  So we should let these people keep b****ing about not getting any help yet they go out and spend money on s*** they dont need.  Yeah thats real smart you have nothing to your name and no job so lets go to the strip club and blow off a lil steam.

I guess I'm more concerned about the truly enormous misuses of tax dollars. Such as increasing the deficit by cutting taxes on rich people and our little caper in Iraq. The sum total of all the debit cards probably amounts to 1 day's worth of Iraq.

[YASNY]

I guess I'm more concerned about the truly enormous misuses of tax dollars.  Such as increasing the deficit by cutting taxes on rich people and our little caper in Iraq.  The sum total of all the debit cards probably amounts to 1 day's worth of Iraq.

 

Taxes were cut across the board. Not just for the wealthy.

[Balta1701]

So, what I would say is this...an American city is completely destroyed. There were people with and without money which lost their homes. People with and without insurance which lost their homes.

 

Now, the key in my eyes is this; there were people without insurance who lost everything. In any American city which is destroyed, that same thing will happen...it is simply insanity to expect that every single person inside a destroyed american city will have insurance against the force which destroyed the city.

 

So, as I see it, in general there are 3 options. 1...you can do nothing, tell the people without insurance they're totally out of luck, and let people starve to death. I find this intolerable, especially considering it's not those folks' fault that the Corps destroyed the barrier islands and built levees only for a Mag 2. Hurricane. Secondly, you can hand out aid, but use some sort of means testing to decide who gets aid...i.e. you find out which people are truly needy and you specifically direct aid to those people. Third, you could just hand out aid to everyone.

 

The government has chosen the latter plan in this case. While this is fair, it's not necessarily the most cost-effective method of helping people. Everyone, whether they had insurance against that specific disaster or not, has been eligible for the government assitance. So is it surprising that government assistance is turning up in high-end stores? Not in the least. That was how the Bush Admin. chose to deal with this tragedy.

 

How would I have done it? Find some way of classifying the people who lost homes based on their means. There's no reason for the family with flood insurance and tons of savings who moves next to 1 of our posters within 2 months to receive tons of aid from the government, but there's plenty of reason for the family renting a house which loses all of their property because of crappy levees to receive that aid.

 

Will some of these people be stupid enough to blow that aid at strip clubs? Unfortunately yes. There is simply no way to prevent people from being stupid. If you give them money that can only be used on certain goods, they'll take the money they do have and blow that on a strip club. Some people simply cannot be helped. But does the fact that 1 small group of Americans decides to be stupid justify completely ending the recovery aid programs? No. If 95% of the people use the aid properly, then even if 5% use it improperly, it is doing an extraordinary amount of good in helping people out of a tragedy caused in a significant part by government ineptitude.

 

In any government bailout situation, you will have people who blow the money in pigheaded ways, but you will also have people who survive entirely because of the government aid. The goal should be to direct the aid as best as possible to the people who use it correctly. You won't be able to pull 100%, and either the people opposed to the current administration or the people who are totally anti-taxation will find the examples of the stupid people and highlight them, but that doesn't mean by any stretch that the aid isn't working, if it is directed properly.

 

I would advocate a "directed-aid" sort of program, where given the massive size of the government failure in this case, the government would try to bail out the people who didn't plan for the failure. We didn't do that, so some of the cash will be wasted. But if you even estimate that 50% of the people receiving the aid will use it to help themselves out of this mess, while 50% don't, then those who use it to help themselves will justify the expenditure. There should be ways for the government to raise that number if their goal is not to enrich campaign contributors, but you just can't ever expect 100% of the people to behave rationally, because they're people.

[kapkomet]

Taxes were cut across the board.  Not just for the wealthy.

That just tells you how brainwashed people are.

[BigSqwert]

Taxes were cut across the board.  Not just for the wealthy.

Last I checked the citizens of New Orleans were Americans. That makes them taxpayers too.

[EvilMonkey]

I would advocate a "directed-aid" sort of program, where given the massive size of the government failure in this case, the government would try to bail out the people who didn't plan for the failure.  We didn't do that, so some of the cash will be wasted.  But if you even estimate that 50% of the people receiving the aid will use it to help themselves out of this mess, while 50% don't, then those who use it to help themselves will justify the expenditure.  There should be ways for the government to raise that number if their goal is not to enrich campaign contributors, but you just can't ever expect 100% of the people to behave rationally, because they're people.

So then you are penalizing the people who actually prepared for disaster. THEY paid for insurance, why should they NOT get any aid that is available? Maybe they bought the insurance instead of going out to eat twice a week, or buying those extra packs of cigarettes? The money going to help the people who did NOT plan comes from all of us, including the people who DID prepare, so under your plan, not only did they 'pay' for themselves to be covered, they are also 'paying' for the selfishness of those who didn't.

 

Just a thought: if means testing os OK for receiving relief aid, is it also ok for receiving medicare benefits and social security benefits? I mean, there are people getting both that clearly don't need it since they had the foresight, luck or skill to prepare.

[YASNY]

That just tells you how brainwashed people are.

 

Riiiiiight.

[YASNY]

Last I checked the citizens of New Orleans were Americans.  That makes them taxpayers too.

 

Some of them were taxpayers. Some of them didn't pay any taxes because the didn't have enough income. Yet, they felt entitled to receive money from the Fed even though they payed zero taxes. They are so used to hand outs, that they couldn't accept being left out. f*** 'em.

[WCSox]

Some of them were taxpayers.  Some of them didn't pay any taxes because the didn't have enough income.  Yet, they felt entitled to receive money from the Fed even though they payed zero taxes.  They are so used to hand outs, that they couldn't accept being left out.  f*** 'em.

 

 

FWIW, there is a ton of poor white trash in LA and MS that manage their money just as irresponsibly. However, I don't see any of them playing the race card to try to pry money out of the government's hands.

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

 

FWIW, there is a ton of poor white trash in LA and MS that manage their money just as irresponsibly.  However, I don't see any of them playing the race card to try to pry money out of the government's hands.

 

 

One of my biggest pet peeves is how some black people think their actions are above reproach due to their skin color.

[BigSqwert]

One of my biggest pet peeves is how some black people think their actions are above reproach due to their skin color.

One of my biggest pet peeves is how some white know-it-all thinks they can deal with race issues when the chances are they have never in their life experienced racism on any level that a black person does on a daily basis.

[WCSox]

One of my biggest pet peeves is how some black people think their actions are above reproach due to their skin color.

 

Yep, there's certainly an "entitlement" mentality in many cases.

 

To be fair, I'm sure that there are a lot of poor white trash who are complaining about the lack of permanent handouts from Uncle Sam as well. They're just as worthless, IMO.

[WilliamTell]

One of my biggest pet peeves is how some black people think their actions are above reproach due to their skin color.

 

Same here. I don't deny racism, I still think it's out there but it's definately not as bad as it used to be. I think most black people are great, just like most white people, but there are always exceptions.

[WCSox]

One of my biggest pet peeves is how some white know-it-all thinks they can deal with race issues when the chances are they have never in their life experienced racism on any level that a black person does on a daily basis.

 

I've experienced reverse racism on several occasions.

[WilliamTell]

I've experienced reverse racism on several occasions.

 

So have I. That's getting more common than racism I think.

[BigSqwert]

So have I. That's getting more common than racism I think.

 

Wow. Leave to a couple guys in Oregon and Iowa to make claims of severe reverse racism. The poor white race. We have it so bad. Boo hoo

[WilliamTell]

 

Wow.  Leave to a couple guys in Oregon and Iowa to make claims of severe reverse racism.  The poor white race.  We have it so bad.  Boo hoo 

 

I said it's getting to be more common. Not that it's more common right now. Settle down, Oregon and Iowa have minorities too as much as you may think only corn and beans are in Iowa which must mean there are only white farmers.

[BigSqwert]

Settle down, Oregon and Iowa have minorities too as much as you may think only corn and beans are in Iowa which must mean there are only white farmers.

I know. I'm just giving you guys a hard time.

[WilliamTell]

I know.  I'm just giving you guys a hard time.  

 

haha alright. In Iowa we have more Hispanics and I guess I wouldn't call it reverse racism but there is a job discrimination for whites because managers are starting to lay off whites and hire more Hispanics for factory work.

Edited January 8, 2006 by WilliamTell