Nix Bits

Over at Wet Bank Guide, Markus has an excellent post concerning the rising storm with the insurance industry. In the face of record profits, insurers are scrambling to pull out of Louisiana and Mississippi just as they did in Florida after the 2004 hurricanes. The state governments will do what they can, but utlimately fixing this would have to happen at the federal level. And I think we all know the liklihood of that with the current administration.

If you’re collecting money from people while shifting all of the risk and cost back to them, this isn’t insurance. It’s a protection racket. Pay up or the bank will take your home away, that is their entire business model. They might as well send some guy in to threaten to break our legs. Given the behavior that being uncovered by Mississippi’s attorney general, the insurance companies probably aren’t too far away from hiring guys to enforce their business model with baseball bats.

In a different vein, but equally excellent is this analysis of Louisiana’s coastal restoration needs at the Third Battle of New Orleans. This is another issue the requires committment at the Federal level.

Coastal restoration planning and implementation is every bit as important as the urban planning efforts to the rebuilding and sustainability of New Orleans, and must be taken into consideration in any discussion of the future of New Orleans.

It’s not the storm that’s going to do us in. It’s the aftermath. While much of America hasn’t forgotten us down here “in that part of the world“, our federal government largely has.