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What did people expect when they built in floodplains with no flood insurance? My question is why taxpayers have to keep subsidizing the cleanup and rebuilding

What did people expect when they built in floodplains with no flood insurance? My question is why taxpayers have to keep subsidizing the cleanup and rebuilding in these areas.

zem 2y ago
think of it as your taxes and their taxes both paying into a national disaster insurance scheme run by the government.
- xingped 2y ago
  I'd agree, but if it's a floodplain, I think it's fair to be annoyed when you pay taxes into this fund AND you pay into your own insurance, yet a bunch of folks choose not to buy insurance when they should and expect to get paid out of this fund instead. It should be a last resort, not an "I just decided not to buy my own insurance" backup plan.
  - zem 2y ago
    there is very little living space in the US that is not subject to some sort of natural disaster. where i live in california, e.g., fire insurance is getting increasingly expensive and many insurance companies are opting out of offering it altogether. what you should be annoyed about is that you have to pay for private natural disaster insurance on a per-disaster-type basis rather than the government explicitly providing a national pool by default. edit: also it's worth considering that the worse the land in terms of risk, the poorer the people who will be forced to live there because they were priced out of everything else. with climate change accelerating this will increasingly be a factor, and it is unconscionable to expect those people to bear the burden of insurance themselves. this is what a civilisation is for.
    - none4methx 2y ago
      We should also fix the part where some dunce with a letter put a town where physics (at least occasionally) put a river. What we call a civilization should have education at least equivalent to a seven year old sand castle architect. Not hubris so large we go broke attempting to occupy the waterspouts of the world just because there’s pipe and cable there.
      - antisthenes 2y ago
        > We should also fix the part where some dunce with a letter put a town where physics (at least occasionally) put a river. How do you fix that, short of moving the entire town (which is going to cost almost as much as rebuilding it)? The dunce that established the town is long dead, and his relatives probably moved away to better pastures.
    - xingped 2y ago
      If I'm understanding you right, I totally agree with your idea of a national government-provided disaster insurance akin to universal health insurance. Throw it on the stack of things that should be like that and not run by for-profit companies. Unfortunately that will likely never happen. Except maybe Florida right now because it's almost happening by default.
decremental 2y ago
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hackerspews 2y ago
First of all, this is perhaps the most cruel, hurtful response to 200 dead people and thousands of their loved ones and friends who lost entire cities overnight. Based on your generally-rightwing post history, though, I'm not surprised. Second, natural disasters affect everyone, especially when we've decided to go full-steam ahead on altering the climate. Going from a category 1 to a category 4 in, what, 24-48 hours, is NOT normal. Except now it is, and it's millions of people who are vulnerable. It's only a matter of time before New York gets another hurricane. You live in a society, and unless you want to conjure up some Mad Max hellscape world where everybody's just shooting at each other (based on today's rightwing zeitgeist, though, that wouldn't surprise me), I suggest you get used to the idea of the richest government in the world actually helping its citizens. Otherwise, what is the goddamn point? Grow up.

What did people expect when they built in floodplains with no flood insurance? My question is why taxpayers have to keep subsidizing the cleanup and rebuilding in these areas.

zem 2y ago

think of it as your taxes and their taxes both paying into a national disaster insurance scheme run by the government.

xingped 2y ago
I'd agree, but if it's a floodplain, I think it's fair to be annoyed when you pay taxes into this fund AND you pay into your own insurance, yet a bunch of folks choose not to buy insurance when they should and expect to get paid out of this fund instead. It should be a last resort, not an "I just decided not to buy my own insurance" backup plan.
- zem 2y ago
  there is very little living space in the US that is not subject to some sort of natural disaster. where i live in california, e.g., fire insurance is getting increasingly expensive and many insurance companies are opting out of offering it altogether. what you should be annoyed about is that you have to pay for private natural disaster insurance on a per-disaster-type basis rather than the government explicitly providing a national pool by default. edit: also it's worth considering that the worse the land in terms of risk, the poorer the people who will be forced to live there because they were priced out of everything else. with climate change accelerating this will increasingly be a factor, and it is unconscionable to expect those people to bear the burden of insurance themselves. this is what a civilisation is for.
  - none4methx 2y ago
    We should also fix the part where some dunce with a letter put a town where physics (at least occasionally) put a river. What we call a civilization should have education at least equivalent to a seven year old sand castle architect. Not hubris so large we go broke attempting to occupy the waterspouts of the world just because there’s pipe and cable there.
    - antisthenes 2y ago
      > We should also fix the part where some dunce with a letter put a town where physics (at least occasionally) put a river. How do you fix that, short of moving the entire town (which is going to cost almost as much as rebuilding it)? The dunce that established the town is long dead, and his relatives probably moved away to better pastures.
  - xingped 2y ago
    If I'm understanding you right, I totally agree with your idea of a national government-provided disaster insurance akin to universal health insurance. Throw it on the stack of things that should be like that and not run by for-profit companies. Unfortunately that will likely never happen. Except maybe Florida right now because it's almost happening by default.

decremental 2y ago

[dead]

hackerspews 2y ago

First of all, this is perhaps the most cruel, hurtful response to 200 dead people and thousands of their loved ones and friends who lost entire cities overnight. Based on your generally-rightwing post history, though, I'm not surprised. Second, natural disasters affect everyone, especially when we've decided to go full-steam ahead on altering the climate. Going from a category 1 to a category 4 in, what, 24-48 hours, is NOT normal. Except now it is, and it's millions of people who are vulnerable. It's only a matter of time before New York gets another hurricane. You live in a society, and unless you want to conjure up some Mad Max hellscape world where everybody's just shooting at each other (based on today's rightwing zeitgeist, though, that wouldn't surprise me), I suggest you get used to the idea of the richest government in the world actually helping its citizens. Otherwise, what is the goddamn point? Grow up.