Message Strategy Session

[j_b]

[video:youtube]AzDwXr9szxw

[j_b]

Per usual David Cay Johnston nails it:

 

GOP Favors Public Option for Property, Not People

 

Atop the front page of the New York Times today is a color photo of Georgia homes flooded up to their rafters, an image that illustrates how when it comes to insurance our Congress applies two standards, separate and unequal, one for property and a lesser one for people.

 

Unlike people without health insurance, homeowners have access to public option flood insurance.

 

Even those who fail to take personal responsibility to buy insurance to protect their property can get benefits, thanks in good part to politicians who are leading opponents of public option healthcare.

 

[..]

 

Congress is so generous in its subsidies for property that the public option for flood insurance even covers property built in flood prone areas. And you can literally buy insurance on the day of a flood in some cases, and 1 day before in others.

 

Along the Gulf Coast, on the barrier islands on the Atlantic, in below-water expanses behind river levees and in desert communities plagued by flash floods, our federal government is there using tax dollars to help take care of damaged property.

 

But people? Providing a public option so people can buy health insurance through the federal government is "socialism," according to Senator John Kyl, the Republican senator from Arizona, a desert state where flash floods are as permanent a feature of reality as sickness and injury. Will someone ask Kyl why he favors what he calls socialist policies for property, but not people?

 

[..]

 

We have elevated property above human lives. That members of Congress who frequently proclaim their religious faith and cite the Bible as their guide would put property above people suggests they need to actually read the texts they claim guide them. Neither Jesus nor the Old Testament prophets ever put property first. They did however denounce those who did, labeling their deeds with a simple word: evil.

 

Two standards, separate and unequal, for the health of property and the health of people, are un-American. This bias in favor of property over people should be ended with all deliberate speed by raising the standard for people to that of property. A public option would be one small step in that direction. 


 

 

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-cay-johnston/gop-favors-public-option_b_296703.html

[j_b]

[video:youtube]AMPAd8goZXs

[JayB]

I'm all for phasing out Federal Flood Insurance.

[olyclimber]

lol. you mean like giving up on the levees? this could be political suicide Jay!

[j_b]

I'm all for phasing out Federal Flood Insurance.

 

I can't say that I am surprised. Then, we'd have a situation like occurred in California after the Northridge earthquake when the pay out was greater than the sum of all earthquake premiums ever collected, and insurance companies refused to issue further quake insurance. The state had to step in and create an insurance pool to provide coverage for homeowners. Ergo, we'd be right where we started. Also note that despite the state stepping in, premiums are still so high that only about 15% of homeowners carry quake insurance in California.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

lol. you mean like giving up on the levees? this could be political suicide Jay!

 

mean old levee, taught me to weep and moan

[JayB]

I'm all for phasing out Federal Flood Insurance.

 

I can't say that I am surprised. Then, we'd have a situation like occurred in California after the Northridge earthquake when the pay out was greater than the sum of all earthquake premiums ever collected, and insurance companies refused to issue further quake insurance. The state had to step in and create an insurance pool to provide coverage for homeowners. Ergo, we'd be right where we started. Also note that despite the state stepping in, premiums are still so high that only about 15% of homeowners carry quake insurance in California.

 

Any public expenditure that promotes additional building in an area that's prone to flooding is dumb. If we're sending public funds to homeowners in flood-prone areas, it'd make much more sense incentivize their relocation to non-flood prone areas. I understand why people take the concerns about increased catastrophic flooding in river valleys and coastal areas seriously, but it's difficult to comprehend why someone who does so would think it's a good idea to support policies that promote the concentration of lives and property in those same areas. At the very least the government should phase out coverage for any new construction.

 

 

[j_b]

You are throwing out the baby with the bath water. Of course, national natural hazard insurance without appropriate regulations on where and how to build promotes building where it shouldn't happen but you can't ignore that topography and transport forces a disproportionate share of construction in flood plains and by the sea. We won't even talk about tornado alleys, earthquake zones, etc ...

[Phil K]

Not to mention:

 

[JayB]

You are throwing out the baby with the bath water. Of course, national natural hazard insurance without appropriate regulations on where and how to build promotes building where it shouldn't happen but you can't ignore that topography and transport forces a disproportionate share of construction in flood plains and by the sea. We won't even talk about tornado alleys, earthquake zones, etc ...

 

Using public money to underwrite the risks associated with private residences and commercial structures, aside from increasing the destruction of both lives and property in the event of a disaster, seems like an odd thing for a self-annointed progressive to support, given that you wind up with real-life consequences like people who are two poor to even consider visiting Martha's vinyard helping to pick up the insurance-tab for the multi-million dollar beachfront pads there.

 

 

[G-spotter]

Where are the safe places where people should live? Please define.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

Where are the safe places where people should live? Please define.

 

Where is there a kevbone-free area to post on cc.com?

[kevbone]

Where are the safe places where people should live? Please define.

 

Where is there a kevbone-free area to post on cc.com?

 

Your mom.

 

 

 

[j_b]

First, you appear to have reading comprehension issues for my post clearly says: "natural hazard insurance without appropriate regulations on where and how to build promotes building where it shouldn't happen" and then I went on about how topography and transport were the considerations of interest (and not the pleasure of the ubber rich to own mansions by the sea). But, of course, your sleight of hand allowed you to not acknowledge that much construction has to occur in the way of natural hazard.

 

Second, the poor often owns/rent in the worst part of flood plains so describing the problem as underwriting millions of dollar pads in Martha's vineyard is specious at best.

[prole]

Where are the safe places where people should live? Please define.

 

Obviously not Malibu, though the State will spare no expense whatsoever in protecting these homes and we're unlikely to hear much argument from the usual quarters against doing so.

 

[prole]

Where are the safe places where people should live? Please define.

 

Obviously not Malibu, though the State will spare no expense whatsoever in protecting these homes and we're unlikely to hear much argument from the usual quarters against doing so.

 

 

All of this is contrasted with the approach to fire ecology in low-income and largely immigrant downtown L.A., where periodic apartment and hotel fires have taken a deadly toll. Official laxity coupled with property-owners’ negligence and greed create a deadly climate of unbridled fire hazards. “Needless to say,” Davis writes,“there is no comparable investment in the fire, toxic, or earthquake safety of inner city communities. Instead, as in many things, we tolerate two systems of hazard prevention, separate and unequal.” The effect is “to recycle natural disaster as class struggle.”--more here.

[j_b]

John McPhee's Control of Nature has a great section about historical amnesia viz the chaparral fire/debris flow combo in the LA burbs. He suggests that forcing hazard disclosure on developers would go a long way toward alleviating the problem.

[prole]

Put simply in the review above, "federal subsidies to deal with natural disasters are one thing. Federal subsidies to support developer stupidity and greed are another".

[j_b]

Sure, I agree with that, and I understand I wasn't addressing the meat of your post.

[prole]

Sure, I agree with that, and I understand I wasn't addressing the meat of your post.

 

Great Caesar's Ghost!!! I would think not!

[j_b]

? sorry, I don't get it.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

? sorry, I don't get it.

 

no shit.

[JayB]

Where are the safe places where people should live? Please define.

 

I'd say if you can't:

 

-Afford the insurance premiums necessary to cover the risk to your private property.

 

-Afford to lose whatever percentage of your property would be destroyed by the risks that you can't afford to insure, or that no private insurance company will insure.

 

Then that place, wherever it may be, is too risky for you to purchase property until you can satisfy one of the conditions above.

 

[JayB]

First, you appear to have reading comprehension issues for my post clearly says: "natural hazard insurance without appropriate regulations on where and how to build promotes building where it shouldn't happen" and then I went on about how topography and transport were the considerations of interest (and not the pleasure of the ubber rich to own mansions by the sea). But, of course, your sleight of hand allowed you to not acknowledge that much construction has to occur in the way of natural hazard.

 

Second, the poor often owns/rent in the worst part of flood plains so describing the problem as underwriting millions of dollar pads in Martha's vineyard is specious at best.

 

Stating that much construction has to occur in the way of natural hazard doesn't constitute an argument for the public assuming the financial risks associated with such construction, much less for encouraging more such construction than would occur otherwise.

 

Incentives that concentrate more people, poor or otherwise, in flood plains is dumb. Ditto for mechanisms that transfer the costs of home ownership onto people who can't afford their own home.