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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (10359)	10/21/2006 11:46:23 PM
From: carranza2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217974

I've never been to New Orleans. One of these days I will go there. And you will be well received. My home is not at sea level, but fairly near to the Mississippi River, which throughout the years has raised the land along its banks as it flooded. Like you, I will not live in a place where obvious risks could be my undoing. I have never owned a home which is not solidly built and as much above sea level as possible given the physical constraints here. And I would never invest in real estate here for reasons which Katrina made obvious. Every workman who has seen my home says it is the place in which he would like to weather a hurricane. I had minimal damage to my home and no flooding. I did what I could to minimize a risk which was obvious. We cannot, however, blot out all risk. And, unfortunately, the kinds of risks we cannot avoid are the more serious ones, such as a WMD attack on NYC or DC. I say we can't avoid those risks because even if most us won't be affected physically and directly, such an attack will have large scale economic consequences whose ripples will inevitably reach us. I think in that regard 9/11 was merely a small harbinger of the future. Jay sees this clearly, Warren Buffett sees this, too. Even I see it. cnn.com I rebel emotionally at buying that Aztec barbarity in order to hedge against that risk, yet I think I finally understand why I rebel: there will be enormous profits made in gold when a WMD event happens, and it somehow bothers me that some will profit as others suffer. I suppose, however, that is simply the nature of the beast, no moral implications attached to the result.

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (10359)	10/22/2006 4:09:52 AM
From: energyplay	Respond to of 217974

New Orleans is a bit unusual geologicaly, and that makes building GOOD levees difficult. 1) In many places, Bedrock is not accessible. It is 2000, 5000, sometimes 10000 feet below the surface. The surface is sitting on thousands of feet of compressed but still very wet mud, which will flow and creep over time. 2) Almost all of the soil is this wonderful black velvet stuff made of very fine particles from the topsoil carried by the Mississippi River over hundreds of years. It is full of organic matter. If you hold it in your hand, then wash your hand off, you will see traces of black coloration from the organic matter which usually requires soap to remove. This is great soil for growing plants. However, it has the structual stability of a milkshake, and is as permeable to water as dishrag. So levees need to be much, much wider than they are tall... 3) The peculiar institution which is the government of Louisiana and New Orleans.... Houston, Texas, Mobile, Alabama and Pensacola, Florida are all roughly as close to the Gulf of Mexico and they seem to have functioning governments for some reason. I will agree with carranza2, New Orleans is in a class by it self when it comes to incompetence and corruption.