I need food, water, and access to shelter. eating beens drinking well water and living in a shanty is sufficient to meet all of my needs. i don’t “need” electricity or a vehicle, unless I live real far from my job. and if my shanty gets blown over by a hurricane I can rebuild it out of my own pocket probably.

Thanks for the von Neumann-Morgenstern napkin calculation, Darwin. Very good point; this would be the “actuarially fair” zero profit premium, of course. And how many hurricanes have hit New Orleans in recorded memory? Three or four since the Louisiana purchase? Sounds like the new rates are probably closer to reality.

Maybe I’m crazy, but did the risk really triple or quadruple after the storm? Is is possible, just possible that the insurance companies took advantage of situation to make money?

Why is it hard to believe that would have gone up this much? Katrina, after all, was a fairly major event.

Insurance companies are in the business of making money. If they aren’t constrained by things like competition or supply and demand in setting their rates, then why weren’t they charging four grand for a policy before the storm? If an insurance company could make money selling policies at a rate most people are willing and able to pay, why would they set rates at a level most people are unwilling and unable to pay? Why, in fact, would companies be refusing to write new policies in certain areas at all, regardless of price? If there motive is making money, then that doesn’t make much sense. You don’t make money by pricing all your customers out of the market. The idea that all the insurance companies would do this, and that no company would step in and offer lower rates to get these potential customers, is just implausible. Saying that the insurance companies are greedy and only care about making money makes it more implausible, not less.

granted, and good for those who did! That, nor anything else you said disagrees with what I said.

I would differ with you on the state of the police force (most did stay, there were a few who committed suicide, sadly). I think being abandoned in the middle of a natural disaster zone with precious few resources is a tremendously tall order, and while there were lessons learned I think most New Orleanians came away with a better view of the force overall.

On the government side, while the buses was a terrible decision, just think about how much experience people have with evacuating entire cities. Something is bound to go wrong. Additionally, a lot of people just don’t leave. They don’t want to. They’d rather wait it out, despite warnings.

The government should have been better, I’d agree.

To your ps: William Jefferson, who was re-elected primarily b/c all the Republicans voted for him instead of his rabidly pro-abortion opponent. Of course, he was ousted in 2008 for Catholic Congressman Cao and his trial is happening right now I believe.

What world do you live in? There is no oil or gas pipelines that flow into Texas from NO. We have plenty of oil and gas here thank you very much. Our workers live close to the cost, but mostly not on Galveston Island.

Louisiana gladly subsidizes other states when they have an emergency and it’s not unreasonable to expect the same kindness. ”

Yes, and, you may or may not recall it, but those Texans you’re dissin sent more of it then just about anyone else. We took the homeless in with deep generosity.

The problem with New Orleans (and Louisiana) go way beyond being a bowl that wants to fill with water. It is deeply corrupt (though much improved of late). That’s the real reason that so many died, and so much was lost. Your mayor failed to act in evacuating his people, and so many were stranded, and all the buses destroyed. The governor failed to call in the necessary resources and grant authority to bring in the federal resources being offered. Many policeman deserted, some became looters, and not a few turned out to be not real at all, just a way for some corrupt individual to collect their paycheck.

Before you respond. None of the corruption is by the hard workers in the oil, shipping and fishery industries, but they take some blame for continuing to put up with the problem.

ps. who was that congressmen who had a freezer full of cash, and STILL got re-elected in LA?