"Salvation Through Private Property Alone"


Reasons why the public sector isn't usually the best solution
Brad Edmonds writes on private property and how it might have changed history.

I'll begin with Katrina: No one can stop a hurricane, nor affect its strength. Remember, though, that the hurricane did ordinary catastrophic damage to Louisiana and Mississippi. It was the existence of "public property" that resulted in subsequent flooding and bungled relief efforts that harmed the greatest number of people the most. If property were private, there wouldn't have been government levees to fail. Either that section of New Orleans wouldn't have been settled, or private levees would have been in place and been maintained far better than the government ones.

A likely scenario for private ownership of the levees would have seen their ownership in the hands of investors, and their upkeep paid for by insurers. Insurers would then charge homeowners in the levee-protected areas enough to cover the cost of maintenance. As it was, since government money paid for maintenance, it was possible for that money to be diverted — as it was, in this case, by the Bush administration, toward the war on Iraq. Then, in the aftermath, government employees turned away private trucks loaded with relief aid. The State continues to squander money earmarked for relief efforts, such as with the non-flood-zone approved house trailers rotting in the mud in Texas and Arkansas. Private insurance companies, who have to compete with each other to retain customers, do better than this.

Worth thinking about.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Tue - April 25, 2006 at 04:55 AM  Tag


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