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

[thetroll.livejournal.com]

failing to shore up the levees to handle a category five hurricane, despite all the recent warnings,

... is a failing shared by all past administrations, local state and federal. In fact, if you meander over to my journal, you'll notice that I've graphed the actual facts as reported by the NOAA, which show that in the 1970s through the 1990s, there were *less* major (Cat 3-5) hurricane landfalls each decade than the 1850s-present rolling average. So whatever these recent warnings are you refer to don't appear to have any demonstrable factual basis.

The point here, in case you're not bright enough to grasp it, isn't that Bush is blameless here, it's that the problem of disaster prepardeness is obviously systemic and although scoring political points off demonizing one particular individual makes your little leftie heart beat faster and all, it's rather anti-productive in terms of addressing the real problem. Sure, you're all in chorus bleating *now* that the shortage of levee funds is Incontrevertible Proof Of Absolute Evil. But who was making a national priority out of them when they started? Or in last fall's elections? Sure, sure, Bush should have spent whatever it takes to shore up these exact levees. Okay, let's flip that: Why weren't the Democrats pointing out in last fall's election all the failings that your 100% hindsight presents now -- surprise!! -- as being so blindingly obvious? Are they in cahoots with The Evil Booooosh as well, that they actively hid this necessity from the people? Or do you think that The Evil Booooosh had some magical source of knowledge that the Democrats didn't have access to? Or -- stay with me here, I know this is going to be a really tough leap for you -- could it possibly be that this complete lack of fuss on the issue demonstrates that BOTH major candidate's parties, with access to the same information, independently made the same judgement that this lack of preparation wasn't something that amounted to a major national issue?

Oh, sorry, I forgot, that line of inquiry doesn't support the thesis that The Evil Boosh is uniquely devilish in the entire annals of history, so of course there's no way you could ever consider that without your little leftie head exploding. Neee-eever mind.

And regardless of that oversight, his lingering for a day on vacation playing guitar and eating birthday cake while a vital national resource is in disarray should be something that should utterly incense any conservative or patriot.

Yeah, yeah, and a year ago your kind was bitching at him for responding too quickly to hurricanes.

Even before the storm hit, the president declared four counties disaster areas to speed federal money to victims. But that quick response fueled suspicion that he is using disaster politics to help his campaign in one of the most critical battleground states, a notion the president dismissed Sunday.

"Yeah, and if I didn't come they'd have said he should have been here more rapidly," Mr. Bush said.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/08/16/national/main636126.shtml

One thing your sort has to learn that when you spout manufactured outrage at absolutely everything the President does, when it comes to something like this where it's possible you might actually have a good point, people remember that you were vilifying him for exactly the opposite reasons in his response to a hurricane barely a year ago and proceed to discount your outrage as equally kneejerk and artificial this time around. Boy that cried wolf and all that.

(continued in part II after LJ-enforced length break...)