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How Many Times Should America Rebuild New Orleans?

Rebuild New Orleans?


  • Total voters
    27
He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.
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He who is contented is rich.
Lao Tzu

“Loss is not as bad as wanting more.”
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“He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.”
Lao Tzu

"There is no disaster greater than not being content; There is no misfortune greater than being covetous.”
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“The sage shuns excess, shuns grandiosity, shuns arrogance.”
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“Possessing rare treasures brings about harmful behavior.”
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“When there is no desire,
all things are at peace.”
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The softest things in the world overcome the hardest things in the world.
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Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it.
Lao Tzu


 
Wouldn't continuously rebuilding a failing area cause more suffering?

Wouldn't relocating the city lessen that suffering if the city was moved to a more stable environment, one not below sea level?
I keep asking the same question.How does one move an entire city and who pays for it?
Why do people keep avoiding that question.
 
I keep asking the same question.How does one move an entire city and who pays for it?
Why do people keep avoiding that question.

Instead of paying for a reconstruction of the city, take the funds and use them to build a new city, on land above sea level. You need to think long term. Would you rather spend 90 billion every time there's a hurricane, or spend 'X' amount once and build a better, more stable city?
 
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Instead of paying for a reconstruction of the city, take the funds and use them to build a new city, on land above sea level.

Having been to New Orleans a few times I cannot even begin to fathom what that would cost - even if you could find the proper location and get the cooperation of everyone involved.

Any estimates?
 
Great idea,but the problem here is that the sociopaths here don't want to pay for it.

I was operating under the assumption Uncle Sam was committed to paying for the rebuild anyway. Paying citizens to move out instead while creating and educational opportunity for university students to redesign and engineer the place with the latest 21st century infrastructure while maintaining its French Colonial charm without the obstacle of a million people living there while its being redone all at the same cost; actually at a net profit.

BTW. Everybody does get, not only is NOLA below sea level, its sinking more and more every day, right? Its just a matter of time....
 
Houston is not on the Mississippi River.

True, however it does connect into the Inter-Coastal Canal/Waterway. If shipping fees in New Orleans were at the rate that would be need to maintain that port and maintain the levies, going to Houston then cross shipping over the the river would be much more economical. But then again, anything needing to go onto the river could aslo go to Baton Rouge or even Memphis.
 
True, however it does connect into the Inter-Coastal Canal/Waterway. If shipping fees in New Orleans were at the rate that would be need to maintain that port and maintain the levies, going to Houston then cross shipping over the the river would be much more economical. But then again, anything needing to go onto the river could aslo go to Baton Rouge or even Memphis.

Yeah, and guess who filled the gap after Katrina and Rita ravaged New Orleans?
 
Having been to New Orleans a few times I cannot even begin to fathom what that would cost - even if you could find the proper location and get the cooperation of everyone involved.

Any estimates?

I know that Katrina cost us 110 billion dollars in damages and would likely cost that amount again if a similar hurricane hit. Masdar City in the UAE cost roughly 18 billion to support 50,000 people, 1,500 businesses, 60,000 commuters, and a solar plant. If you multiply that to equal the population of New Orleans, the cost is about 414 billion.

 
I know that Katrina cost us 110 billion dollars in damages and would likely cost that amount again if a similar hurricane hit. Masdar City in the UAE cost roughly 18 billion to support 50,000 people, 1,500 businesses, 60,000 commuters, and a solar plant. If you multiply that to equal the population of New Orleans, the cost is about 414 billion.


WOW!!!!! That is a whole lot of money.

Thank you for that information.
 
The point is, we always find a way to pay for things we deem important.

How much money have we wasted on Pakistan and Iraq over the last few decades?

Trillions?
 
Then shouldn't we do that for anyplace in this country that gets hit with tornadoes,earthquakes,cyclones,floods,wildfires,etc?

It's a bit like home insurance. My home could burn down tonight. A terrible accident. Could have been the neighbors house or the guy 3 cities away or anywhere - not much is built that doesn't have the risk of fire. We buy homeowners insurance so that if our house does burn down we don't have to pay for it. Really we're spreading the risk out among many people so that nobody has to pay a lot of money to rebuild a burnt house.

This works well as long as people don't do stupid stuff. The odds of my house burning are pretty much the same as my neighbor's house burning. If I start doing things that will cause my house to burn down more often I break the system. Building on an active volcano where I can predict my house burning down about every 5 years for example - we're no longer spreading risk. What we're doing is subsidizing my poor decision with the insurance premiums of others. An insurance company would hopefully realize my idiocy and start charging me much higher insurance premiums to move it back to risk spreading and not subsidizing me.

So the question is whether New Orleans is at greater risk than the places that get hit with tornadoes, earthquakes, cyclones, floods, wildfires, etc...
 
The point is, we always find a way to pay for things we deem important.

How much money have we wasted on Pakistan and Iraq over the last few decades?

Trillions?

Iraq was only wasted because we turned tail and ran instead of completing the job.
 
Iraq was only wasted because we turned tail and ran instead of completing the job.

There was no clearly defined "job" in the first place. If anything, the money we put into Afghanistan the first time was wasted because we ran over to Iraq instead of actually finishing what we set out to do there. Then we had to go back and start over at square one.
 
I happen to absolutely LOVE the city of New Orleans. I would go there in a heartbeat for a vacation providing we were not in the summertime.

Its a great town with great people, great restaurants, great culture and is like no other place in America. It is a national treasure and we should not be so quick to write it off.

I am really torn on this issue, and not quick to write it off. I too have had some wonderful visits to New Orleans, and the people and culture are unique. However, given both the current below sea level location and the increasing frequency and severity of storms due to climate change it seems to make sense to help them move their city and culture, as much as it can be preserved, a little further north. Diverting future disaster including massive loss of life seems to me to being the overriding consideration here.
 
There was no clearly defined "job" in the first place. If anything, the money we put into Afghanistan the first time was wasted because we ran over to Iraq instead of actually finishing what we set out to do there. Then we had to go back and start over at square one.

The whole going back thing started when some idiot put the French in charge of an area. They were attacked and decided the odds were too great against them so they ran, gee, imagine that. Never mind that the Brits and the Americans have prevailed against the same odds, usually even greater ones, repeatedly. I haven't watched it that closely, but I don't think we have fully re-established control over the area the French surrendered.

The Job in Iraq was to take down SoDamned Insane. Unfortunately, Rumsfeld didn't realize that that also included small things like helping the people after we blew their infrastructure and government to kingdom come. No plan, no ideas and the biggest circle jerk you could imagine as a result. Of course, Bush has to take ultimate responsibility, since he wasn't bright enough to figure out just how dumb Rumsfeld was to begin with. Took him until his second term to actually start listening to Condi and dump Rumsfeld.
 
Nor as much as it would cost us if we were fighting it here instead of over there.

Very true.

I don't think it would've cost trillions if we never went to war in the first place.

We didn't go to war, they did. The ragheads committed war crimes on our territory, and we decided not to accept that behavior from them. So we set out to kill them.

Now let's get back to the subject of the thread.
 
The Job in Iraq was to take down SoDamned Insane. Unfortunately, Rumsfeld didn't realize that that also included small things like helping the people after we blew their infrastructure and government to kingdom come. No plan, no ideas and the biggest circle jerk you could imagine as a result. Of course, Bush has to take ultimate responsibility, since he wasn't bright enough to figure out just how dumb Rumsfeld was to begin with. Took him until his second term to actually start listening to Condi and dump Rumsfeld.

Let's be honest, the only reason we went into Iraq was Bush's personal vendetta against the guy who tried to kill his daddy. The Bush administration had to make up lies, trying to link Iraq to the 9/11 attacks, and continued to lie the whole damn time we were there. We had no business ever attacking them in our War of Terror.
 
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