Miscellaneous

A: He has his own web site, so he must be an expert. He wrote this piece  for his own newsletter, Risk Management Reports, which he humbly describes as ?a synthesis of the leading thought on risk and uncertainty from hundreds of different sources.? Somewhere this leading thinker got the idea that New Orleans has been destroyed by floods once every eleven years. Why build a home that will be destroyed once every 11 years, he asks. I?ve lived here since 1960, and I?m pretty sure that there?s been only one calamity in my lifetime like the failure of the federally built levees. Before that, there was 1927, when someone dynamited the levees. Before that, ...

Ashley, help me out here.

__________

p.s. (1/3/08, 8:00 p.m.): Vance?s, uh, thoughts, raise a few questions:

1. Vance acknowledges that many other places besides New Orleans are at risk of suffering a natural disaster, e.g. the Outer Banks, the San Andreas Fault. Where in the U.S.A. is there no such risk? If we find this risk-free place, can we re-locate 300 million people there?

2. Given that the U.S.A. needs a port near the mouth of the Mississippi River, where does Vance propose that the port and the city to support it be located?

3. Kansas is at risk of killer tornadoes. I know because I saw The Wizard of Oz. Trouble is, Kansas grows food ? lots of it. If we tell those Kansans what Vance is telling New Orleans, who is going to plant and harvest all that wheat?

Point being: people don?t inhabit a place because it?s risky or risk free. They inhabit a place because there?s an economic necessity for somebody to live there. In New Orleans? case, the nation requires a port near the mouth of the Mississippi. That?s why Jefferson wanted to buy New Orleans from Napoleon.