http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN0442295420080406?sp=true
Devastating hurricanes like 1992's Andrew and Katrina of 2005 have failed to put a dent in massive construction along the hurricane-vulnerable Atlantic and Gulf coasts, where millions of people face evacuation when a storm threatens.
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Despite the huge damage toll of recent storms -- $26 billion for Andrew and $20 billion for Wilma in 2005 on top of Katrina's $80 billion, several vulnerable coastal states have no statewide building codes. Louisiana only enacted one after Katrina. "You would think with Andrew and Katrina that would be enough to make something happen but it hasn't," Mayfield said.
Wait, why are people still building like crazy on the coasts even after Katrina? Oh yeah, because all of the Katrina victims got bailed out. If you get all of the benefits (sun, beach, culture) but none of the risks (losing your investment in a disaster) then you become an irrational person not to live on the coasts.
Miami-Dade County's post-Andrew building code, considered one of the nation's toughest, only requires construction to meet a Category 4 hurricane, one step below the maximum Category 5. Less than 10 percent of the county's buildings are new enough to have been built to that standard.
Why would anyone build to a Category 5 level? It is a lot more expensive and it doesn't give you any benefit. If your building blows down, the government pays to build a new one. So, why build a more fortified one when it cost you extra when you can have the government pay for the replacement.
Now, we have Florida governor Charlie Crist pushing for national hurricane insurance. You think you have massive growth on the coasts now, wait until you start charging people extra to live in the interior of the country...
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Awesome. Check out Bret Stephens comments here:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120761322423196601.html
So how is it that so many of the same people – liberals, "progressives," the bien pensant – who see themselves as heirs of King's legacy were, until fairly recently, Mr. Mugabe's fellow travelers, excuse-makers and apologists-in-crime?
"I used to have a simple answer to this question: In conflating the rights of the individual with those of the collective, liberals were guilty of what logicians call the fallacy of composition: the notion that what is true of a part must also be true of the whole. In American politics, this goes back at least to Woodrow Wilson, and his fixation with "national self-determination" – the view that individual freedom was contingent on group freedom, which in turn required ethnic or cultural homogeneity, political sovereignty and the mechanisms of state to control both."
Perhaps we should draft a gov't bill of rights to protect the fragile self-endowed power that seems to grow with each crisis.
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