A Libertarian simpleton's view of what should happen when a major disaster strikes.
FEMA is a waste of taxpayer dollars. At least, that's what Ron Paul said in an interview on CNN: " I think it's bad economics. I think it's bad morality. And it's bad constitutional law."…
Article comments
76 - Paul
Glenn, I'm not sure that you understand what crony capitalism is.
"Crony capitalism is a term describing an allegedly capitalist economy in which success in business depends on close relationships between business people and government officials. It may be exhibited by favoritism in the distribution of legal permits, government grants, special tax breaks, and so forth."
It's government involvement in the marketplace that allows for monopolies and cartels and many other nasties to exist in the first place.
There's no way that more government involvement can ever repair the damage caused by government involvement.
With every decade that passes, the federal government gets more and more involved in more and more things, and all of those things get worse and worse.
77 - Leroy
Usually it is capitalists themselves who ask government to act in markets to promote their private interests: to subvert a bidding process, to disqualify a competitor, to award sole-source contracts, to renew an existing contract, etc.
The reason we have monopolies is because business prevails on government anti-trust divisions to not prosecute anti-trust cases.
In my fathers day business would call out the government police to beat and kill striking workers.
Nowadays, in several states, rightists are pushing for state laws that would prohibit (as felony) undercover reports of violations by companies in animal abuse and other agriculture areas. They are asking that the government pro-actively stop reporters from investigating companies.
Corporations are not innocent victims of government abuse, in fact they are pro-active in seeking government intervention on their behalf. Thus, the enormous sums they spend bribing politicians with 'campaign contributions'.
Ag-gag bills
78 - Paul
Leroy, what you described are aspects of crony capitalism.
And I was with you until the "rightests" thing.
Truth is, there's not a dime's worth of difference between the two major parties except for their rhetoric. Except for a few individuals, both parties are bought and paid for by special interests. Anyone who does not understand this at this point is naive and/or in denial.
79 - Clavos
Truth is, there's not a dime's worth of difference between the two major parties except for their rhetoric.
As applies to crony capitalism,
Quoted for Truth.
80 - Allen Scott
Glenn-
It's not the government that's requiring flood insurance - it's the LENDERS. You can't have a real estate market at all - whether residential or commercial - if you don't have lenders.
Actually there would be no real estate market without BUYERS. IT comes down to the individual. Lenders are forced by GOVERNMENT to make risky loans all the time and the latest government fiasco as led to the current recession we find ourselves in. Lenders were forced by the federal government to underwrite loans for people who were unable to pay them back and offloaded these high-risks loans to Freddy and Fannie who packaged them together into a derivatives market and floated this paper all over the world. When the economy took a downturn these investments lost most of their value and since the original borrower never had the resources to repay, the housing market took a major hit.
SO what did the government do? They went to work to figure out a way to get tax-payers to pay for these mortgage defaults and thus remove the responsibility from the borrower to the tax-payer.
This forced compliance to BAD BUSINESS INVESTMENTs has led to the biggest financial recession in modern history.
The same holds true for over building in flood zones. THERE are NEEDED businesses around waterfronts but not all water-front real estate is necessary for the survival of the American economy.
Besides why are there never any government programs worthy of a budget review? Why is the military the only government agency that gets the budget cutting ax? Why are all other federal programs deemed "holy ground"? Most of them are bloated, wasteful, and redundant. Most could be eliminated and the average American citizen would not even miss them.
FEMA is just one of many programs that should be reviewed and possibly eliminated. IMO.
81 - Biju
Pauls right, let Mississippi flood their farms instead of FEMA doing it. If your locality has extra snow 1 year, you get a local tax for extra snow removal. Mississippi can give New Orleans 1 time tax for reimbursing farmers for washing away their topsoil instead of risking NewOrleans.
None of those fed agencies are needed.
82 - BettyLiberty
Why he does not support FEMA
83 - Glenn Contrarian
Allen -
It doesn't matter how many people want to buy - if the lenders will not approve mortgages, they will not approve mortgages...
...and they're NOT going to approve mortgages in the flood plain that comprises much of America's heartland if they have to take on the LIABILITY of the property in the aftermath of a major flood.
Do you not realize that this is all about LIABILITY? Any good businessman tries to avoid liability whenever possible... and lenders are NOT going to risk hundreds of billions of dollars (that is NOT an exaggeration, btw) by taking on the liability of land that cannot be insured...regardless of how many people want to buy.
84 - Glenn Contrarian
Paul -
You and I agree wholeheartedly about what crony capitalism is...but what you're not getting is that you canNOT take on crony capitalism by weakening the government. Why? Because the weaker the government, the less the legislators in that government are able to resist the money. Again, see Citizens United.
85 - Paul
For those interested in seeing how government involvement in things ruins them, watch this - College Conspiracy -
This is an eye opener.
86 - Glenn Contrarian
Paul -
Ah - it's all THE GOVERNMENT! It's THE GOVERNMENT'S FAULT!
Wrong.
If anything, the video shows that what doesn't belong in education is the PROFIT MOTIVE. Why do you think prices are skyrocketing? Why do you think they're charging ever more for tuition, books, fees, and whatever? Because the universities and the colleges need to make MONEY...money that they can use not only to pay themselves, but to pay for advertising and insurance and new stadiums and whatnot.
If you get rid of the profit motive, Paul, then all of a sudden people concentrate more on doing what needs to be done, and doing it rightly.
Let me introduce to you what's wrong with the profit motive: here's a tale of two shipyards - one is guv'mint run (PSNS - Puget Sound Naval Shipyard), and one is strictly civilian-run (Todd Shipyard). I've worked in both while stationed on the same ship...and I can assure you that NO sailor onboard wanted to be at Todd. Why? Because it was unsafe and dirty and we had to hide all our tools and personal stuff because they'd sprout legs, so to speak. Whereas PSNS was clean and safe, and the workforce could generally be trusted to not steal all our stuff.
What was the difference? The profit motive. Todd Shipyard - unlike PSNS - was out to make money. That's why they would spend less on safety, and on cleanliness...and they'd spend less on their personnel, too, which is why their personnel would steal us blind if we gave them the chance.
This is why I know firsthand that all of you who are so convinced that the government ruins everything...you've drunk way too deeply of Reagan's "government is the problem" Kool-Aid.
There's a place for the profit motive, certainly! And that place is in BUSINESS...and pretty much ONLY in business. Why is it we're willing to pay taxes for a fire department that puts out fires, and police that catch bad people, but not for doctors who save our lives? Why should for-profit health insurance companies get to decide whether we live or die based on how much profit they make?
And so it is with education - why is it that our colleges should be making decisions on the quality of the education based on how much money they do or don't make? They should be concentrating on EDUCATION, and not on the profit motive!
The profit motive belongs in business, and only in business. Everything else that enables you, me, and all Americans to participate in business - fire protection, police, military, health care, and education - should not be subject to the profit motive. It's not a matter of getting the oh-so-bad guv'mint out of education - it's a matter of getting the burden of the profit motive off the shoulders of our educators.
87 - Paul
Glenn, I looked at that Citizens United site. Are you for of against them? All of the Neocon names involved turned me off.
88 - Glenn Contrarian
Paul -
I'm strongly against the Citizens United decision - the LAST thing we need is the unfettered ability of Big Business to involve themselves in elections!
89 - Paul
Glenn, I think we agree on many things. We seem to disagree on why and how things got as messed up as they are and on what could improve them.
90 - Clavos
...and they're NOT going to approve mortgages in the flood plain that comprises much of America's heartland if they have to take on the LIABILITY of the property in the aftermath of a major flood.
And that makes sense; it's reason enough for the government Not to step in and waste tax dollars.
91 - Clavos
@#86:
Your comment completely ignores the effect that making a profit has on goods and services: it forces businesses to be efficient; in order to make a profit on an ongoing basis, you have to provide good products and good services.
The government doesn't have to make a profit, so it can be slipshod about what it does (and for the most part, "slipshod" describes government activity to a T), which is why the USPS, for example, is on the verge of collapsing after years of racking up multi-billion dollar losses.
92 - Glenn Contrarian
Clavos -
Do you really want to go down the USPS road again? Nobody, but nobody is going to make a profit accepting and delivering letter mail - repeat, letter mail - with the mandate that they have to be able to deliver to ALL addresses in America six days out of the week.
That's why you don't see ANY big business stepping up to get in on the business. They'll do packages and express mail, sure - but letter mail? Shirley you jest, sir!
And who also gets hurt if we jack up the cost of letter mail to where the USPS makes a profit? All the businesses who send you the junk mail that we all hate...but that most of us actually use enough of the time that it's a major moneymaker for American businesses.
Letter mail will from now on be a money-loser...but it's a crucial part of our nation's business infrastructure - and I think you know that.
93 - Glenn Contrarian
And Clavos -
it's reason enough for the government Not to step in and waste tax dollars.
So...if the government doesn't step in to ensure that flood insurance can be had, no lenders will lend for mortgages...and the real estate market for much of America's heartland (major cities, small towns, and especially the farms) collapses and dies.
But hey - at least you'd be able to keep a few of your Precious Tax Dollars!
94 - Clavos
That's why you don't see ANY big business stepping up to get in on the business.
Wrong. They're not "stepping up" because the law prohibits them, granting the USPS' exclusive right to First Class. From a Cato Institute White Paper published last November:
Congress grants the USPS a statutory monopoly on the delivery of first-class and standard mail and restricts mailbox access to mail delivered by the USPS.
But probably not for much longer. the losses have grown to the point even Washington is gagging. Cato again:
The USPS does face increasing competition from correspondence sent via a variety of electronic alternatives. While the USPS may have a statutory monopoly over a portion of physical mail, new technologies are allowing Americans to bypass the organization on all of its lines of business.
You say:
Letter mail will from now on be a money-loser...but it's a crucial part of our nation's business infrastructure - and I think you know that.
Actually, that's the kind of mail that's dwindling fastest in the face of electronic mail competition. Because of electronic and private overnight services, plus online billing and payments, Cato notes: From 2007 to 2010, the USPS lost $20 billion, and its debt increased from $2.1 billion to $12 billion. The USPS expects to hit its $15 billion legal borrowing ceiling in 2011. As a result, the Government Accountability Office placed the USPS on its "high risk" list of troubled federal agencies in 2009.5 These financial problems are not temporary. Postal experts expect a future of stagnant-to-declining revenue for the USPS with stable-to-increasing expenses unless Congress makes major reforms.
As to the First Class mail you set so much stock in:
The decline in USPS revenues has been driven by a large drop in mail volume, particularly for profitable first-class mail. The recent recession has hurt USPS finances, but the demand for mail delivered by the USPS has been steadily falling as consumers and businesses have shifted to electronic alternatives.
First-class mail volume has fallen 19 percent since 2001, and it is projected to fall another 37 percent by 2020. From 2006 to 2009 total mail volume dropped from 213 billion to 177 billion items, a 17 percent decrease.8 By 2020 the USPS estimates further volume declines of about 15 percent, to 150 billion pieces, which would be the lowest level since 1986.
I wrote an article about the USPS problems two years ago. The only thing that has changed is that the USPS' condition has worsened significantly.
and the real estate market for much of America's heartland (major cities, small towns, and especially the farms) collapses and dies.
But only in those cities and towns. Those people will have to live somewhere; they'll move and buy houses in areas that aren't flood prone and on higher ground in their current areas.
Your problem is that you always engage in scarce thinking. No vision.
95 - Glenn Contrarian
Um, Clavos -
I wasn't concentrating on first class mail...my reply had much more to do with JUNK mail...which is usually not first class.
But only in those cities and towns. Those people will have to live somewhere; they'll move and buy houses in areas that aren't flood prone and on higher ground in their current areas.
C'mon, Clavos - you know very well that if a place is flat, chances are REAL good that it's a flood plain. In fact, the only sizable flat place I know of in America that's not a flood plain is the California high desert.
Have you been to Nebraska lately? Or Iowa? Or Kansas? What about Minnesota or Michigan or the Dakotas? What do they have in common? They're largely FLAT...and are mostly flood plains.
So your solution is that most people in these states (and several others) is that they will just up and move?
There's a time for being dogmatic, Clavos...but there's also a time for being pragmatic. This is one of the latter.
96 - Clavos
Yep
97 - Clavos
I wasn't concentrating on first class mail...my reply had much more to do with JUNK mail...which is usually not first class.
Doesn't matter what you were "concentrating on," the fact is the USPS is terminal.
It's only a matter of time
98 - Glenn Contrarian
Clavos -
You really, truly think that Big Business is going to allow the USPS to die when junk mail is central - and often crucial - to their business? Really?
I think it's time you took your dogma out for a walk - it needs to go fertilize your neighbor's yard.
99 - Glenn Contrarian
BTW -
I remember a conversation with the postmaster who was pointing out how they always lose money on first-class mail, that it's junk mail that keeps the USPS going. There were times when we hundreds of pounds of junk mail, but less than fifty pounds of first-class mail.
And the math's not hard - if the USPS charges anywhere from seven to fifteen cents for each piece (and even less for postcard-style junk), the overall value to the post office is much higher than what is raised by first-class mail.
In other words, your arguments aren't what you believe them to be.
Barring a major catastrophe to our economy, the USPS will outlive you and me, and they'll still be delivering when our kids are old. Maybe they'll be delivering less, but they'll still be delivering.
100 - Clavos
...it's junk mail that keeps the USPS going.
Gee, that's too bad, because they're losing that business too, but obviously you didn't read my links, because you have it backwards: They make money on the First Class, it's the Standard (junk mail to you) that loses 'em money. From the same Cato report: First-class mail, which is the most profitable, accounted for 52 percent of those revenues.
101 - Glenn Contrarian
If first-class mail accounted for 52 percent of the revenues, does that mean that it's the most profitable? I think that falls under your correlation/causation rule...because while the first-class mail makes the most REVENUE, it does NOT make the most profit.
Why?
Because first class mail requires much more processing than does junk mail. More often than not, the junk mail arrives in bulk, either without addresses (which means we put one in every box) or addressed and sorted by the advertiser...and the only real processing by the USPS is by hand inside the post office. The revenue from the first class mail may be higher, but the time and effort and mechanical processing it requires means that it is less profitable than junk mail.
I think I enjoyed that one!
102 - Clavos
Once again, you don't read, Glenn:
First-class mail, which is the most profitable, accounted for 52 percent of those revenues.
Run your own analysis of what's profitable until the cows come home, but the experts who actually have studied USPS' operations and revenue streams have determined that First Class is the most profitable business segment they have, and it's the most rapidly declining segment, thanks to electronic mail.
and the only real processing by the USPS is by hand inside the post office.
Bullshit! They've had mechanical sorting systems since the 60s! I have a friend whose job consists of nothing but maintaining the automated sorting machines! You don't know what the fuck you're talking about, Glenn.
You're unbelievable! I link to TWO good reports, and you (who have never even worked for the USPS) think you know better.
What a piece of work you are Glenn.
103 - Paul
The USPS is suffering from a "controlled demolition" brought on like many other things, by crony capitalism. The USPS is forced to use private contractors to deliver much of its mail and forced to deliver bulk advertisements at rates that cause them to lose money big time. The USPS has been reduced to an entity that is funded by tax payers to deliver cut rate advertising to everyone's mailbox while Fed Ex, UPS etc. make out on the real stuff. Every time you receive some junk mail from the USPS, in a round about way, you paid for it.
104 - Leroy
91-clavos: No, it's not 'profit' that makes a company strive to be efficient, it's competition. A profitable company (like KBR) that has a sole source contract has NO incentive to be efficient. At best, efficiency is an incidental effect.
105 - mike
I was around when FEMA was set up. It started out as a place to appoint people for political favors!! no bull
Government line For our safety ha ha
Fear or Safety those lines are getting stale!!
Ron Paul!!! 2012...Don't Fear Freedom!!!!
Please check this cat out!!!! Dr. Paul!!!
I Want my country back!!!!! Damm it!!!
106 - Clavos
The USPS is forced to use private contractors to deliver much of its mail...
Not true. Private contractors are prohibited by law from delivering US mail. What USPS HAS done in recent years, is contract FedEx and UPS to do its long hauls (NYC-Miami, NYC-Chicago Chicago-LA, etc.), and the reason for that is because the USPS is not permitted to own a fleet of aircraft.
107 - Mike
The concept of FEMA sounds nice, but it's wrong on many levels. Constitutionally, morally, economically, and its efficiency.
The constitution clearly states, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." As federal law this makes it unconstitutional.
Morally it is wrong to use unwanted taxation or artificially inflating the currency to collect revenue. Theft and weakening the purchasing power of the dollar is immoral. If individuals want to donate to charity for relief efforts on their own, they should be able to.
Economically it rewards poor judgment by sending aid to those who made a risky decision, and creates malinvestment by distorting resources. If insurance companies were denying insurance on several properties that should be a very important indicator to a buyer that perhaps this property isn’t a wise choice to purchase. Insurance companies should be the primary financial providers for natural disasters. Also FEMA ignores the broken window principle of destruction. They claim that in this moment of tragedy, there is opportunity for economic growth. The government needs to spend billions in relief, and because they spend it creates jobs in cleaning up. The broken window principle goes as follows:
“A young hoodlum, say, heaves a brick through the window of a baker’s shop. The shopkeeper runs out furious, but the boy is gone. A crowd gathers, and begins to stare with quiet satisfaction at the gaping hole in the window and the shattered glass over the bread and pies. After a while the crowd feels the need for philosophic reflection. And several of its members are almost certain to remind each other or the baker that, after all, the misfortune has its bright side. It will make business for some glazier. As they begin to think of this they elaborate upon it. How much does a new plate glass window cost? Two hundred and fifty dollars? That will be quite a sum. After all, if windows were never broken, what would happen to the glass business? Then, of course, the thing is endless. The glazier will have $250 more to spend with other merchants, and these in turn will have $250 more to spend with still other merchants, and so ad infinitum. The smashed window will go on providing money and employment in ever-widening circles. The logical conclusion from all this would be, if the crowd drew it, that the little hoodlum who threw the brick, far from being a public menace, was a public benefactor.
Now let us take another look. The crowd is at least right in its first conclusion. This little act of vandalism will in the first instance mean more business for some glazier. The glazier will be no more unhappy to learn of the incident than an undertaker to learn of a death. But the shopkeeper will be out $250 that he was planning to spend for a new suit. Because he has had to replace a window, he will have to go without the suit (or some equivalent need or luxury). Instead of having a window and $250 he now has merely a window. Or, as he was planning to buy the suit that very afternoon, instead of having both a window and a suit he must be content with the window and no suit. If we think of him as a part of the community, the community has lost a new suit that might otherwise have come into being, and is just that much poorer.
The glazier’s gain of business, in short, is merely the tailor’s loss of business. No new “employment” has been added. The people in the crowd were thinking only of two parties to the transaction, the baker and the glazier. They had forgotten the potential third party involved, the tailor. They forgot him precisely because he will not now enter the scene. They will see the new window in the next day or two. They will never see the extra suit, precisely because it will never be made. They see only what is immediately visible to the eye.”
Finally its efficiency. Katrina is the prefect example of this. It took days for FEMA to respond to the tragedy in New Orleans. And when they got there what did they do? They blocked outside relief efforts. Wal-Mart trucks containing water and supplies were turned away; the Coast Guard was prevented from delivering diesel fuel; a 600-bed Navy hospital was left unused; firefighters were ordered away from flood sites; donated generators were refused; and rescue attempts by private citizens were rebuffed. Is FEMA really an agency that should be given billions of dollars more?
108 - Merk
Abortion = Ron Paul is personally against it, the Constitution does not allow the fed's to regulate it. He wants to get the federal gov out of the debate and allow the states to decide if they allow it or not, which should be based on the constituents voice. He wants to defund Planned Parenthood from fed money. If you think that is a bad idea go study the origins of the organization, Margaret Sanger and the eugenics movement in the US, which was one of Hitler's big influences. I am personally against abortion for ME but if a woman wants to have one, go for it, just don't use my tax dollars.
Gay marriage = Ron defines "marriage" as being between a man and a woman. Ron wants all governments, state and fed, out of the marriage business i.e. why do you need a license from the state? Why should the gov control that? Again he says leave it up to the states to decide what "marriage" is. But Ron also says that all voluntary contracts between people should be valid and gay/lesbian people have every right to be domestic partners and share in those benefits of insurance, tax filing (until it is abolished) etc. Groups don't have rights, i.e. there is no "Gay Rights" or "Straight rights" there are only individual rights. If those rights were respected as they are supposed to be this issue would not even be an issue. All voluntary contracts entered into by individuals should be legal.
As for FEMA, I don't think you understand where he is coming from. If a location is so dangerous to build that no private company will insure it then why should I have to pay for it when it gets destroyed? Can I go live in that person's beach house for a few weeks a year since I have to pay for it if it gets destroyed? After all I am subsidizing their beachfront lifestyle.
109 - Jeremy Tempest
Anyone that opposes Ron Paul's common sense viewpoints is clearly a mass media brainwashed, welfare whore that hates God and America.
The simple truth is that Ron Paul is more intelligent, old fashioned and yet cutting edge with his truthful, honest, and real policies.
He has been and will be greatly blessed by God for his tireless fight to try and save America.
110 - Irene Athena
Glenn Contrarian, a welfare whore? NO. You've got to lighten up a little, a LOT, on the exaggeration there, Jeremy Tempest. I can appreciate your enthusiasm for Ron Paul, but you aren't helping his campaign at ALL by carpet-bombing message boards with insults for his detractors.
Instead, the attitude of the new "Christian Republican" is a lot more "live and let live,"
than it used to be. From a NewsMax article called "Ron Paul Steals the Show at Faith and Freedom Conference."
Bill Spiegel, a former member of the Senior Bush President's Economic Council and the Southern Baptist Liaison for George H. W. Bush, says, "Much of the money that was going to evangelical lobbies in Washington is now going to Ron Paul. And the Christian leaders in Washington have been taken by surprise.
"It is because the people are seeing what the leaders are missing. They don't want power; they want to be left alone to worship in freedom and Ron Paul is the only candidate who is defending that right consistently."
111 - Dr Dreadful
It's funny that a guy like Jeremy can be all for liberty and freedom out of one side of his mouth, and then out of the other say, "Anyone who doesn't think as I do is a !@#$%^& %$#@ and should shut up".
And he didn't even blink, either.
112 - travis
such a absolutly horribly written article! seriously i do not think that you could have twisted the views and/or words of Ron Paul anymore than what you have in this article.
113 - Tom
If anyone (Glenn Contrarian) is curious as to why there are so many new names here, this could be why
114 - Dr Dreadful
Nah, the same thing happens every time one of us writes about Ron Paul. I don't think he's curious or even surprised.
115 - Contradiction
I think Glenn Contrarian never took a look at the Hurricane Katrina cleanup botched by FEMA. Thousands of trailers sitting empty years after the storm, while thousands of displaced people remain homeless. Then they "
"lost" billions of dollars and wasted tens of billions of bureaucracy and acquiring products at ridiculous prices.
Glenn Contrarian must live in a fantasy world where government bureaucracy is efficient and corruption doesn't exist.
116 - Igor
115-Contradiction: many of us would be quite happy if you would publish a comment specifying the numbers and facts of the messed up Katrina cleanup. With decent citations to fairly independent sources, of course (dumb citations to Echo Chamber editorials will usually be hooted down, however).
You can only cite 3 URLs per comment (and sometimes you have to use 'tinyurl'), and there are some here who detest facts and figures and decry people who use them as 'empiricists', a low and miserable lot, so beware the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune.
But please, post away and enlighten us. There are none here so smart that they couldn't use both better facts and more articulate arguments.
As for facts, I actually looked at some of the post-Katrina cleanup action, at the time, and found horrible scandals in the much-publicized programs to help homeowners get back to normal. The multi-billion dollar programs were systematically looted by local politicians so that billions went into local civic projects such as improved ports and restitution of businesses, so that only a feeble stream of small cash trickled down to mere homeeowners. Billions were allocated by congress and only a few people received a few thousand to restore their homes.
Check it out.
117 - Wanda Dickinson
Have you ever dealt with these people at FEMA? I had flood insurance and cancelled it on 1/9 and they still have not refunded my money. They are giving me the run around as well as my insurance company who is there agent. These people treated me awful and I feel this government run agency needs to go private, so they will learn they have to treat people correctly
118 - Igor
If one depends on people choosing safer building sites, the opportunities are getting smaller: more territory in the USA becomes overdue for earthquakes every year. For example, the midwest (e.g., Illinois) is way overdue for a quake on the New Madrid fault, which last had a Big One in 1812, which is not celebrated in song and story today only because that area was sparsely populated in 1812, not densely populated as San francisco in 1906, or Fukushima in 2011.
Plus, we are threatening to increase earthquakes with Hydraulic Fractionating (fracking) in densely populated states like Ohio, where we now get routine collections of quakes at Richter 4.
Plus, we really have to resolve the difference we have in government insuring of corporations vs. individuals where we've been inclined to insure corps but not people, which seems perverse.