Re: Katrina and the Evacuation of the Poor and Infirm: Market Failure?

[Fred Foldvary]

--- Jeffrey Rous [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 I recently saw a table of murder rates through time
 (maybe in Freakonomics) and, through that measure,
 it  appears that we are living in a relatively low
 homocide era.

Right, if you don't count the holocaust, Gulag deaths,
China mass murders, Cambodia slaughters, Rwanda
genocide, etc.

Fred Foldvary

Re: Katrina and the Evacuation of the Poor and Infirm: Market Failure?

[Jeffrey Rous]

I guess the market failure would be one of capital markets not being able to 
respond fast enough and offering high interest loans to the poor and infirm in 
N.O. so that they could pay to evacuate within a day or two. Possibly, the 
market for information failed in that people in N.O. did not fully understand 
the expected cost of staying... or did they and they simply got bitten by being 
on the wrong end of an expected value calculation? Given the high cost of 
evacuating entire hospitals, I would have to say that both of the above 
contributed to the demand side of the non-evacuation disaster.

-Jeff


 Alexander Guerrero [EMAIL PROTECTED] 9/6/2005 6:32 PM 
It is necessary, at least too me, to get details of what you consider market
failure in this case, assuming the hurricane of this class could be
considered a 'public' good.

Regards

AG



  _

From: ArmChair List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Michael
Giesbrecht
Sent: martes, 06 de septiembre de 2005 16:49
To: ARMCHAIR-L@mail04.GMU.EDU
Subject: Katrina and the Evacuation of the Poor and Infirm: Market Failure?



The government (local, State, and Federal) appropriated responsibility for
the Mississippi River levy system, the drainage systems, the pumping
systems, the road ways, and the bridges, but apparently, they left it to the
market to provide the service of evacuating the poor and the infirm. Since
they poor and infirm were not, to any great extent, evacuated, is this an
example of market failure?





Best regards,
Michael Giesbrecht

Re: Katrina and the Evacuation of the Poor and Infirm: Market Failure?

[AdmrlLocke]

In a message dated 9/6/05 8:50:04 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:


I'm not sure the premise is entirely correct.  About 30% of the
(former?) population of New Orleans is below the federal poverty line,
yet 80-90%


The federal poverty line is just a politically-determined level at one time useful to liberal Democrats for beating middle-income Americans into a state of guilt in which the liberal Democrats could more easily consfiscate more of their income and give it to people who vote for liberal Democrats.  The American poverty line today is someone around the (real) median income of Americans in 1950.