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Re: Tim McCulloch...are you alive?

RYAN LOUDMUSIC JENKINS said:
You and me both, greedy people don't feel the same as us though!
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This is why some forums ban political discussions, when the go-to response is ad hominum attack that often escalates with responses in kind.


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I won't bore the list with an explanation of what insurance is. This is more like socializing losses IMO.

It is unpleasant to appear so ungenerous at times like this, which may be why such topics get raised when they do. Neighboring states have offered assistance (TX). The local oil industry (big in OK) and at least one well known (local) NBA player have made significant charitable financial commitments.


JR
 
Re: Tim McCulloch...are you alive?

FEMA is a social contract. Socializing losses is what we did for the banks.
Insurance companies couldn't handle loses the size of a Katrina or Sandy or Moore. Disasters of that scale require a country's resources. Disasters of Fukushima scale require international assistance. That's why we realized as a nation that certain risks are both so rare and so devastating that for-profit insurance companies are not the proper way to distribute the risk.
This isn't an attack or political. As part of the human tribe and as Americans, we rise and fall with the assistance of others. It's part of civil society.
But to each his own.
 
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Re: Tim McCulloch...are you alive?

John Halliburton said:
I certainly hope that somehow when new schools are built, that somehow a design that incorporates access to an underground shelter from each classroom is done. Moore and other towns nearby were hit during the three days of tornados, including one of the most powerful recorded(EF5 with 318mph winds) in 1999 that whipped through.

Best regards,
John

John
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This.

After 20 elementary school children died in Connecticut, people were frothing at the mouth "something should have been done to prevent this tragedy". Here we have 20 (at least according to the reports I've heard) elementary school children dead due to a lack of an adequate tornado shelter. Where are the pundits demanding something be done to prevent this? It's not like we don't know how to build storm shelters...
 
Re: Tim McCulloch...are you alive?

Rob Timmerman said:
This.

After 20 elementary school children died in Connecticut, people were frothing at the mouth "something should have been done to prevent this tragedy". Here we have 20 (at least according to the reports I've heard) elementary school children dead due to a lack of an adequate tornado shelter. Where are the pundits demanding something be done to prevent this? It's not like we don't know how to build storm shelters...
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We do that here in my city. Wichita school district a pioneer in FEMA-approved storm shelter safe rooms | Wichita Eagle
 
Re: Tim McCulloch...are you alive?

Something that those in other parts of the country might not realise, is that for the better part of the last decade, the Oklahoma Legislature has been defunding the educational system here. One theory that I have heard is that the now Republican dominated Legislature has been defunding the educational system in order to extract revenge on the teacher's union (OEA/NEA) for almost exlcusively supporting the Democratic party. Who knows? But, we have had a real problem funding our schools at an appropriate level.

A couole of years ago, we had a State ballot question which would have required the Legislature to fund our schools at the average of all of the six surrounding states. I voted against it because it did not provide a way to fund that increase, and I also felt that it did not go far enough. A few weeks after the poll, I got a call from a survey group asking about how I voted for this question and why. When they asked if I supported d and increase in funding, I told them that I supported an increasen of educational funding by 10 times what it currently is. The survey guy was just speachless.

Not one school that I have attended in Oklahoma had an underground storm shelter. The only way to surrvive an EF4 or EF5 tornado is to get underground, with a proper reinforced steel door. Building an underground storm shelter big enough to safely accomodate 300-400 elementary school students and staff (and up to more than 2000 for high schools) would likely cost as much, if not more than, building the school itself. Plus we have a high water table in many parts of the state. And, the government, being the government, I'm sure would hae to piss on every aspect of building a storm shelter in a school and would drive the cost up even more. It's a bad position to be in, with no good solutions.
 
Re: Tim McCulloch...are you alive?

If you guts have been watching the news coverage you would have seen an official on there talking about how the government had funded 100 underground shelters for the schools. He then goes on to say that the two schools that got demolished in this tornado were NOT funded for the shelters. It would have been a lot cheaper to put the shelters in. I hope the parents that lost their kids sue the city, state, county, and school districts until every single one of the government entities is bankrupt. I hope the teachers get in on the action too. Want to talk about a political scandal, having some schools with protection and others without is way worse than the IRS going after Tea Party groups!!!! As Halford would say, Some Heads are Gonna Roll?
 
Re: Tim McCulloch...are you alive?

RYAN LOUDMUSIC JENKINS said:
You and me both, greedy people don't feel the same as us though!
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-1.
More spending does not automatically solve problems. As the gov't is not subject to the checks and balances of a free market, there is little incentive for it to be efficient or effective. While I have no knowledge of the specific situation in OK regarding FEMA or educational spending, it is surely not an axiom that people advocating for limited government are greedy or uncaring, or that spending more money is always helpful and/or generous.

Side stepping the possible straw man arguments (from both sides of the issue) of FEMA effectiveness vs. funding, I will go on record of preferring the response of organizations such as the Red Cross, Salvation Army, Samaritan's purse, and the many local religious and non-religious groups with feet on the ground, which I suspect care a lot more for huring people than the gov't bureaucracy does.
 
Re: Tim McCulloch...are you alive?

RYAN LOUDMUSIC JENKINS said:
If you guts have been watching the news coverage you would have seen an official on there talking about how the government had funded 100 underground shelters for the schools. He then goes on to say that the two schools that got demolished in this tornado were NOT funded for the shelters. It would have been a lot cheaper to put the shelters in. I hope the parents that lost their kids sue the city, state, county, and school districts until every single one of the government entities is bankrupt. I hope the teachers get in on the action too. Want to talk about a political scandal, having some schools with protection and others without is way worse than the IRS going after Tea Party groups!!!! As Halford would say, Some Heads are Gonna Roll?
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So doing something - 100 shelters - is a bad thing, because they didn't do everything? Eliminating all risk of bad things happening is a nice idea, but up to this point no civilization has figured out how to do it.
 
Re: Tim McCulloch...are you alive?

And the beat goes on... For the record EF5 tornados are not that common and this one hit a couple ten square miles. That big one in Tuscaloosa, up the road from me in 2011 was EF5 or close. Unlike most natural disasters tornados while very violent, generally affect very small areas. One suggestion that isn't crazy is to proclaim a "weather day" not unlike a snow day when severe storms are predicted so we don't have all the meat puppets massed together at work places, or schools, or even shopping centers. While this is too expensive to practice widely, and I don't think we can predict these storms that accurately.... yet. If/when we can predict more accurately, we can reduce large scale loss of life by spreading out the people. Ironically this could increase the chance of modest loss of life, while reducing the chance of larger numerical losses.

The government is already doing it's job to require adequate shelters in new school construction, and investing in storm detection and warning technology. I recall having several days warning before Katrina, and oddly enough I didn't run out of cold beer despite being without electricity for several days.

Once again I can come up with a longer list of improvements for the education system. While starving the beast may be appropriate for a government growing like a cancerous tumor, education instead needs structural improvement. We already spend more money than many countries, and get a lesser result. While the teachers union here can be contentious, it could be worse like in Mexico O'Grady: Mexico, Where Teachers Take Hostages - WSJ.com where they are still holding hostages. NCLB (standardized testing) has been gutted by the administration allowing many states to opt out, the new educational reform program du jour, while more union friendly isn't likely to do any better.

Life involves risk and stuff happens. Government cannot protect us from every possible risk, while they are always willing to pass some new law promising exactly that. We only need to look around the world to see how good we already have it. While we are messing with the recipe and could lose it, if we aren't careful.

Of course opinions vary... While even I don't think the government caused the storms there is no question that scientific researchers are trying to influence the weather, one of the short list "holy grail" scientific goals, up there with cheap clean energy, plentiful food, etc. I would prefer seeing government funded research into reducing the severity of storms, than heavy financial incentives to promote electric cars, that failed in the market on merit when they were first invented over a hundred years ago. (Electric cars got displaced by oil powered vehicles, and the advantages still seem compelling).

JR
 
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