Worst Adminstration Ever

[mbarrick]

We all know the Republicans don't care about human lives or the sorts of freedoms one would expect in, oh, say, a republic, and are more concerned with profit, consolidation and abuse of federal powers (a.k.a. turning the republic into an empire), and dog-wagging imperialism... so let's look at where they have failed in these terms:

50% of U.S. food exports go out through New Orleans. There are only five nations on earth that produce a surplus of food: the U.S., Canada, Argentina, Ukraine, and Russia. Not only are the people of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama suffering the direct consequences, but soon people throughout South America, Africa, and Asia will have food shortages.

Between 15 and 20 percent of United States' foreign trade comes in through New Orleans. Most of the nation's steel and rubber comes in through New Orleans. What kind of impact is this going to have on the American auto industry? Most of the nation's coffee comes in through New Orleans - expect your morning cup of coffee to get a lot more expensive.

Understanding their own place and importance to the U.S. economy, the port of New Orleans had been requesting federal funds to upgrade the levees since 2001. Not only did the federal government not allocate the money, they reduced funding to a point that the levees were barely being maintained. Remember that prior to his election Bush had never been to any foreign country other than Mexico and didn't even know the name of the prime minister of Canada.

Between 20 and 30 percent of the United States' oil refining capability was (note the past tense) in the affected area. U.S. refining capacity typically runs at near 100%. Americans can expect gas prices to get a lot higher than $3/gal. And remember that it's not just SUV-driving suburban soccer moms that are affected by this. Ships, trucks, and trains need fuel, too, and with the port of New Orleans out of service, ships have to travel farther to reach alternate ports of adequite capacity like Los Angeles and New York, and subsequently goods have to be shipped farther at higher rates. This makes everything more expensive.

The word isn't in yet on how much lumber production in the south has been impacted, but it has been. Lumber prices are up around 15% and rising. 30% of the lumber normally consumed in the U.S. comes from Canada at a price that is artificially inflated 20% by illegal tarriffs. Add the increaces shipping costs from the more expensive fuel on top of that and understand that the price the average person is going to have to pay to rebuild their home is significantly more than it need be.

The cost of the war was already crippling the U.S. economy and driving up a debt so great that GNP barely covers the interest. He gambled with the most important port in the country by diverting federal funds for the levees to removing the rogue dictator installed by Reagan and Rumsfeld and fighting a war his own father avoided as untenable and fruitless, and lost the bet. There isn't one sector of the American economy that is not going to be affected by this.

The hurricane seasons of the last few years should have been ample warning that stronger storms are becoming more common, but remember that Bush doesn't believe the climate is actually changing (whether or not you think the change is the result of pollution or a natural variation, any idiot can see that change is happening). Shoring up and securing the most important port in the U.S. should have been a fundamental matter of national security - infinitely more imprortant to the American people than bringing "freedom" to a foreign nation - but unfortunately for us all, not glitzy enough to meet the political goals of power-hungry politicians too busy reading from Joseph Goebbels' Big Book of Propoganda How-To's (after replacing "Jew" with "Arab").

And with the American dollar being the reserve currency of choice for most of the world, its inevitable nose-dive is going to ruin the economy of most of the world. Countries like China that don't have U.S. currency reserves will prosper. Europe will proser as countries scramble to shift their reserves from dollars to euros (a trend that was already underway). This administration has taken the United States to the point where this disaster could easily cause the country to fall apart like the Soviet Union in the 1990's.

If this doesn't set off a major economic depression, I'll eat my hat (and if it does, I may have to). The irony is, as with the last depression, it is the "Red States" that will bear the worst of the economic damage.

Comments

Re: Very well written and I couldn't agree more in many cases ...

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

> but are they any more important than other States?

That's the point, they are. The three biggest ports in the US are New York, L.A. and New Orleans. New Orleans is the best connected of the three. The river connects New Orleans to the heartland of the country. New Orleans has more rail connections than the other ports. It is more centrally located. That's why it is where it is. New York State Governor DeWitt Clinton saw it after the Louisiana Purchase - the Erie Canal was dug to make New York competative with New Orleans lest New York become a backwater as the west was settled. I'm intentially ignoring the immediate human cost, and looking at the implications for the economy and security of the whole country. In that context that one city is and has always been more important than any other city on the river. Florida is nowhere near as important strategically or economically.

The projects to improve the New Orleans levees so that this vital port could withstand a category 5 had been going on since the 1960. The funding started to dry up in 2003, just when new studies in the wake of the 2002 hurricane season were coming out to show that the work remained inadequite.

"It appears that the money has been moved in the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that’s the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can’t be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

-- Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 8, 2004.

The science to show what was needed in the light of increacingly violent hurricane seasons was done during this administration. The diversion of necessary funds away from an area genuinely vital to the security and economy of the United States was done by this administration. That article may likely have been part of the "everything we can".

And all that being said, it only redoubles the point that resources should have been marshalled as soon as it was clear the storm was on it's way.

You know me. I do my homework before I spout off. I agree that is was inevitable, but the port is there for a reason, and that reason is important. A president that can't see that isn't worthy of office.

And, by the way, Venice didn't sink. Venice was settled intentially by Roman refugees fleeing the Huns. It was consciously built on a swamp to make it inaccessible to the Huns' mounted armies. And because it worked it was spared a lot of the nastiness of the fall of the western empire and became an important hold-out of the ancient world during the dark ages. But that's a whole big story of its own.

Re: Very well written and I couldn't agree more in many cases ...

[diapholom.livejournal.com]

it's funny you say you do your homework
before you spout off
motivated to show off your "intelligence"
in the end your vanity is your undoing
were you able to save any life in this one
or did you just preach AGAIN to the converted
liberals are super moronic

Eat me

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

So sayeth someone who embeds screaming guitar solos in his journal. Leaf knows me, you don't.

Real men don't need to bolster their egos with LJ communities like realmen. Yes, by American standards, I am a liberal. I believe in liberty, not opression, lip-service to freedom, and blind patriotism directed at a man not qualified to shine shoes. I've been a soldier. My father was a soldier. My mother grew up under and saw her firend die under German occupation. My granfather fought in the Resistance. I'm a card-carrying member of the Royal Canadian Legion. I know people first hand that lived through Nazi Germany and the territories they occupied. And you know what? Anyone and everyone who remembers the Nazis first hand sees your nation going down the same path, and I am ready and willing to fight that tooth and nail.

One of the great cities of your nation is in ruins, and it's ruin will have ramifications you obviously can't grasp, let alone the human cost. Your president is a laughing stock in every nation on Earth, including his own. You are ingnorant of your place in the world and the importance of what is (and is not) happening. You are the problem because you believe the lies and elected the liar. Thousands have died simply to win your vote and that blood is yours to bear.

You are judged on what you do. Have you helped, not just now, but ever? Do you support those you love? Can you? Have you ever been bloodied and bruised for the sale of someone else? Have you ever run in to a burning building to make sure everyone was out safely? Have you ever looked anyone in the eye who has lost everything and given help without expecting or receiving reward for doing so? Have you ever stood up at your on detrement on behalf of those that were too afraid to stand up for themselves? I have.

And don't flatter yourself that this is wholly written on your behalf. This is a general reubuttal for the commonplace ignorance that leads to dangerous faith in despotic liars for which I find you archetypical.