Notes On New Orleans: An International Free Port
It could happen. Another hurricane (Rita) may hit or cause New Orleans to be flooded before the week is out, and take and destroy what little bit was left.
Thought experiment: Suppose this was three or four years down the line and the federal government has spent half a trillion dollars on reconstructing the city? This is a reasonable prediction. When the government is spending my money, twos tend to become fives and the two hundred billion will easily become five hundred or more. This is the way of statecraft. No dollar goes unspent and there is always something (and someone) else to funnel to. This doesn't even go to the question of graft. This is New Orleans. What say?
What if, at that point the city had been rebuilt and taken down once more by another "100 year storm"? Do we borrow more from China, so that the government can rebuild again? The Chinese have already started to wipe their asses with our T-Bills.
Why not consider opening up New Orleans to an experiment in economics? Make this the world's first truly free trade zone (FTZ). Not the wimpy shit that some governments claim as FTZ's, but a real live, wide open town. Try this on for size, mommy; let New Orleans rebuild itself! No government built this unique place the first time around, so why should a government have to rebuild it?
Surely there will be the basics like roads and water that government will insist only they can provide adequately. But this introduces the awful argument of displacement; ie: that certain things can only be done a certain way, not looking to alternatives. This is mostly a problem of those in government, who's concepts rarely, if ever, allow them to seriously consider the still widely unappreciated energy and vigor that a true free economy brings to the world. Even the poor conservatives in the Republican party (now owned and operated by NEOCON!) mostly cannot conceive of taking a look at what built cities in the first place, and applying some of that to all of this.
Turn this city, outside of the operation of law enforcement, totally and unambiguously over to private enterprise and individual initiative. Can this be worse than the way that things have been running so far? Free the slaves!
If New Orleans HAD been run as a private city and this all happened, it would be demanded that it be turned over to the government, who is the only proper administrator of society (so I hear) . Everything that went wrong after Katrina in New Orleans was the failure of government. I call for the state and federal government to remove themselves from their awful failures that has cost this city and nation so much, and give the ropes to private, competitive companies, operating on a fair footing and equal basis without favoritism or preference by government, and let them and the small and large business community rebuild New Orleans.
I think you would have a very pleasant surprise.
Joe Postove
Thought experiment: Suppose this was three or four years down the line and the federal government has spent half a trillion dollars on reconstructing the city? This is a reasonable prediction. When the government is spending my money, twos tend to become fives and the two hundred billion will easily become five hundred or more. This is the way of statecraft. No dollar goes unspent and there is always something (and someone) else to funnel to. This doesn't even go to the question of graft. This is New Orleans. What say?
What if, at that point the city had been rebuilt and taken down once more by another "100 year storm"? Do we borrow more from China, so that the government can rebuild again? The Chinese have already started to wipe their asses with our T-Bills.
Why not consider opening up New Orleans to an experiment in economics? Make this the world's first truly free trade zone (FTZ). Not the wimpy shit that some governments claim as FTZ's, but a real live, wide open town. Try this on for size, mommy; let New Orleans rebuild itself! No government built this unique place the first time around, so why should a government have to rebuild it?
Surely there will be the basics like roads and water that government will insist only they can provide adequately. But this introduces the awful argument of displacement; ie: that certain things can only be done a certain way, not looking to alternatives. This is mostly a problem of those in government, who's concepts rarely, if ever, allow them to seriously consider the still widely unappreciated energy and vigor that a true free economy brings to the world. Even the poor conservatives in the Republican party (now owned and operated by NEOCON!) mostly cannot conceive of taking a look at what built cities in the first place, and applying some of that to all of this.
Turn this city, outside of the operation of law enforcement, totally and unambiguously over to private enterprise and individual initiative. Can this be worse than the way that things have been running so far? Free the slaves!
If New Orleans HAD been run as a private city and this all happened, it would be demanded that it be turned over to the government, who is the only proper administrator of society (so I hear) . Everything that went wrong after Katrina in New Orleans was the failure of government. I call for the state and federal government to remove themselves from their awful failures that has cost this city and nation so much, and give the ropes to private, competitive companies, operating on a fair footing and equal basis without favoritism or preference by government, and let them and the small and large business community rebuild New Orleans.
I think you would have a very pleasant surprise.
Joe Postove
posted by Mr. Liberty at 3:46 AM
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