Can a conservative explain to me why i should be paying for Texas' disaster relief when ...

[K1052]

Insurance just isn't sexy. And people just don't want to pay for something under the guise that they believe they will never use it.

Sounds like we need to put requirements in place like we do for driving that are stringent. e.g. If you live within x miles of a coast, you have to have flood insurance. Something to that tune.

Since companies could not write those policies for anything less than a ruinous premium we'd be talking about government insurance. The federal flood insurance program is a mess already with premiums nowhere close to what is required to keep pace with payments on claims, they're going to have to raise the program's debt cap really soon too now (headed north of $30B). At some point the wisdom of allowing building into costal areas and in places that are at risk for flooding needs to be reevaluated. As it stands the federal policy creates somewhat of a perverse incentive to actually build into these places.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Since companies could not write those policies for anything less than a ruinous premium we'd be talking about government insurance. The federal flood insurance program is a mess already with premiums nowhere close to what is required to keep pace with payments on claims, they're going to have to raise the program's debt cap really soon too now (headed north of $30B). At some point the wisdom of allowing building into costal areas and in places that are at risk for flooding needs to be reevaluated. As it stands the federal policy creates somewhat of a perverse incentive to actually build into these places.

I was actually hoping that the events of Katrina would have encouraged people to not rebuild there, clearly not the case. I'm sure plenty of Houstonites will rebuild as well because 'it's home'.

 

[K1052]

I was actually hoping that the events of Katrina would have encouraged people to not rebuild there, clearly not the case. I'm sure plenty of Houstonites will rebuild as well because 'it's home'.

I don't think a lot of New Orleans can ever be made reliably safe from flooding, maybe if they shrunk the area in need of protection. I'd expect another hurricane to wreak havoc there eventually.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

I don't think a lot of New Orleans can ever be made reliably safe from flooding, maybe if they shrunk the area in need of protection. I'd expect another hurricane to wreak havoc there eventually.

It can't, you'd need to elevate a bowl 50' above sea level to make that happen. New Orleans is probably one more solid hit away from full bankruptcy/evacuation/Waterworld.

 

[fskimospy]

You can see my responses in bold.

Jesus dude, this is embarrassing. Where to start.

Nope, that's what you want me to be arguing. No one said anything about cutting state spending but if that is what is needed you've made assumptions to support your conclusion. Hyperbole surely is a good sign of a solid argument. /s

Of course we are talking about cutting state spending. You think Texas is going to find $100 billion+ in its budget without cutting spending? Utterly delusional.

So your proof of a state not receiving additional federal aid for a disaster causing deaths is to show how a federal healthcare program not expanding has lead to deaths? You are making quite the jump to conclusions. Your posts could have been a lot shorter had you responded by saying, "ta da! Magic!", you've stated A and then said because of Y, therefore Z.

Is this really that hard to follow? Expanding Medicaid leads to more government spending on health. States with more spending on health have lower mortality than those with less spending. Therefore, less health spending = greater mortality. Large spending cuts that would be necessary to pay $100 billion+ in debt would almost certainly cut health spending, A->B.

Seriously don't know how that was hard to understand.

I've counted about four uses of logical fallacies from you, if that's not out of character for you then I guess I need to pay better attention to your arguments.

I keep asking what these are and yet you can't seem to answer. I strongly suspect this is because you don't know what they are, as evidenced by your previous accusations in this thread.

This would be another straw man and now you are asking me to prove a negative. Let me help you out to show where your logic breaks down:

This is an embarrassing lack of basic research knowledge and a misunderstanding of what a straw man is. What I said was simply taking your argument to its logical conclusion. You might not like that, but that's your fault for making it.

Showing no relationship is not proving a negative, it's research that fails to reject the null hypothesis, the basis for all empirical research. Show me research into health spending that can't reject the null hypothesis.

I've already spent more time on this nonsense than it deserves. If you want to argue that Texas assuming more than $100 billion in debt won't lead to any reduction in services that impact human health then knock yourself out. It's a transparently stupid argument and you know it. You made a mistake, so own up to it.

Here's my original post, to you btw, because context does indeed matter.

You'll note I'm specifically talking about voting and support of shitty policies and I asked you how do we stop such a thing (you didn't respond).

Here is my second post, again its arguing with another poster about the politics of the situation.

https://forums.anandtech.com/thread...ster-relief-when.2517194/page-6#post-39055329

We then have this quote which was responding to another poster about those that would die would be liberals (who don't vote).
https://forums.anandtech.com/thread...ster-relief-when.2517194/page-8#post-39056282

Which the poster rightly pointed out that it's not liberals who would watch others die its the right that would.

Which is why my response was one about politics and not one about morals and economics as you and jhnnn would like to make it out to be.

The reason I summarized for you is because my posts were few and far between and I don't expect anyone to follow them to understand their context. Of course when I explain the context of my posts I wouldn't expect you of all people to dismiss it but here we are.

Literally nothing in what you wrote even remotely implied that you thought aid was stupid in political terms but thought those terms were insufficient to actually think aid was stupid. I mean come on. You can't even admit you screwed up when it's written in black and white and quoted to you.

This thread has really been illuminating as to how similarly irrational some liberal posters on this board are to the conservatives they constantly complain about.

 

[zinfamous]

Bullshit, just because you lie about something doesn't "debunk" it. You can lie all you want.

lol @ this maroon!

 

[zinfamous]

Lol, the Washington Post. Yeah they'll tell the truth about politics...........not.

Yeah contrary to popular belief, that Nixon was a really good guy and was totally framed.

 

[Geekbabe]

There's only so much money to go around. Ie. you don't have insurance because dumbshit democrats prefer to spend it courting people who will never spend anything on you. Such is life.

I believe it is a Republican congress who is eager to make me uninsurable to fund tax cuts to 400 already mega rich families.

In terms of rebuilding aid, I think requiring people not to rebuild homes in flood plains is reasonable.

My health insurance is a separate issue from disaster relief, unless of course Dems wish to tie it together with disaster relief, thereby cultivating more hatred from suffering, everyday citizens.

I am just one woman, I don't want to see anyone suffer & judging from pics & videos I have seen, the people of Texas are suffering.

 

[fskimospy]

I believe it is a Republican congress who is eager to make me uninsurable to fund tax cuts to 400 already mega rich families.

In terms of rebuilding aid, I think requiring people not to rebuild homes in flood plains is reasonable.

My health insurance is a separate issue from disaster relief, unless of course Dems wish to tie it together with disaster relief, thereby cultivating more hatred from suffering, everyday citizens.

I am just one woman, I don't want to see anyone suffer & judging from pics & videos I have seen, the people of Texas are suffering.

While I agree we should probably just scrap the flood insurance altogether Obama did make a good change, which was requiring houses that were rebuilt with federal money to be built in a way that would lower the chances of them being flooded again in the future.

Trump of course decided to revoke that because Obama or something. Smart guy.

 

[Starbuck1975]

She lost for many reasons, one of which was that she was uninspiring. Another cause was that enough Bernie supporters didn't vote for her.

I don't see a distinction between Sanders/warren and the fringe left but that may be because we have different views on what exactly is the fringe left.

The fringe left are those who keep steering the DNC towards solving first world problems like renaming Columbus Day as opposed to real world problems such as pension reform, crumbling infrastructure, inmigration and loss of jobs to globalization.

There is a reason why Charlie Baker, a Republican leading a blue state in the Trump age, is the most popular governor in America.

Trump's incompetence and lack of moral character does not change the underlying issues that enabled his victory.

 

[theeedude]

How are Republicans solving loss of jobs to globalization? By cutting taxes on people doing it and cutting benefits for people impacted by it?

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

Flood insurance is always a separate policy from the homeowners administered by the federal government. People who didn't buy into it will regret it and the saddest part is that its very reasonable. Those people will all be taking out SBA loans to cover their water related losses.

I never had it myself, however, I always looked at the topology of the area where I made my purchase to ensure that I was on the highest land available with enough contrast to ensure that I wouldn't flood even in the heaviest rainfall. In that area its impossible to avoid flooding.

Good riddance, fuck em. Though they will likely get a bail out because of the ol' "It's not MY Fault!" argument. As if they should be responsible for their own property and insuring it. Instead they want to piggy-back on the public as their insurance and bitch until everyone else cleans up their mess. Typical liberal fashion.

The truth of the matter is that it's even more ugly because you know they are paying bare minimum on their mortgage, so what they will end up with essentially is a 2nd mortgage payment.

I'm all favor of requiring people to have them if they have a mortgage and certain credentials (e.g. less than 200 mles from the coast OR if your home is at a certain level in relation to sea level). Regardless of if your house is near storm surge, flash flooding is always possible if you live at the short end of the stick and all the rain naturally flows to your area.

 

[brandonbull]

How have you not tired of hearing that broken record? I am gauging by your response that it is our resident agent provocateur.

Here is some advice in the form of a gif.

I love seeing the awesome posts from our resident Liberals on how superior they and their Blue states are when compared to the land of the deplorables. It does seem to be an easy life because their response to any uncomfortable situation is to label it racist and blame the Russian cooperating, klan supporting red states for taking all their money. I bet they are in meltdown mode after seeing images of people helping people regardless of color. That is not suppose to happen in Trumps America because only Hollywood celebrities, college professors, and the SJWs are allowed to help "people of color".

 

[bshole]

Good riddance, fuck em.

I have to wonder what it would be like to have a neighbor like you. I don't think you would actually attack them but it is pretty obvious you wouldn't lift a finger to help them if they were being attacked or were in distress.

 

[bshole]

I love seeing the awesome posts from our resident Liberals on how superior they and their Blue states are when compared to the land of the deplorables. It does seem to be an easy life because their response to any uncomfortable situation is to label it racist and blame the Russian cooperating, klan supporting red states for taking all their money. I bet they are in meltdown mode after seeing images of people helping people regardless of color. That is not suppose to happen in Trumps America because only Hollywood celebrities, college professors, and the SJWs are allowed to help "people of color".

I actually noticed black people helping out white people during the flood and it did give me a warm fuzzy. Why would you think liberals wouldn't like to see that? I am not making the connection.

 

[zinfamous]

How are Republicans solving loss of jobs to globalization? By cutting taxes on people doing it and cutting benefits for people impacted by it?

yeah but they tell their voters that democrats are the ones that are actually doing that. 4 decades of gaslighting makes for a powerfully uninformed base.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

Since companies could not write those policies for anything less than a ruinous premium we'd be talking about government insurance. The federal flood insurance program is a mess already with premiums nowhere close to what is required to keep pace with payments on claims, they're going to have to raise the program's debt cap really soon too now (headed north of $30B). At some point the wisdom of allowing building into costal areas and in places that are at risk for flooding needs to be reevaluated. As it stands the federal policy creates somewhat of a perverse incentive to actually build into these places.

Building onto coastal areas is fine.... as long as the flood insurance premiums are increased substantially to compensate for it.

Though I don't consider Houston to be coastal persay, we aren't exactly affected by storm surge.

 

[brandonbull]

Story in WAPO on how citizens of Houston have eschewed building codes in favor no limits on building and standards. They have also not properly planned drainage and flooding, and habitually put off floodwaters projects.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/investigations/harvey-urban-planning

Also there are stories on the national flood insurance, already $24B in debt, is in need of serious reform.

Lastly, some of the Obama era regs Trump is busy killing was orders for federal transportation projects to consider/mitigate impacts of natural disasters vis a vis climate change. IE flooding.



What it looks like is we are fucking this up big time, and need to start dealing with the impacts of climate change and natural flood disasters in a serious way. We have to stop the bail outs for foolish local zoning laws by enforcing some accountability on the local level.

Otherwise everyone else will just keep paying to constantly rebuild coastal communities fated to ever more damage from harsher storms.

What building codes could be put in place to handle several feet of rain in a day?

 

[zinfamous]

I have to wonder what it would be like to have a neighbor like you. I don't think you would actually attack them but it is pretty obvious you wouldn't lift a finger to help them if they were being attacked or were in distress.

the image in his mind of a democrat is about as realistic as some sort of leprechaun-unicorn hybrid creature.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

I have to wonder what it would be like to have a neighbor like you. I don't think you would actually attack them but it is pretty obvious you wouldn't lift a finger to help them if they were being attacked or were in distress.

I'll help a neighbor clean up, rescue, provide donations, etc... but no matter how hard I try I can't make $200k appear out of my ass, that's something only an insurance company can do from you taking responsibility for yourself and paying for it upfront.

 

[repoman0]

I love seeing the awesome posts from our resident Liberals on how superior they and their Blue states are when compared to the land of the deplorables. It does seem to be an easy life because their response to any uncomfortable situation is to label it racist and blame the Russian cooperating, klan supporting red states for taking all their money. I bet they are in meltdown mode after seeing images of people helping people regardless of color. That is not suppose to happen in Trumps America because only Hollywood celebrities, college professors, and the SJWs are allowed to help "people of color".

Houston is not "Trump's America," dumbass. Harris County voted for Clinton by a pretty significant spread. Not that your idiotic post would be rooted in anything near reality if that wasn't the case.

 

[K1052]

Building onto coastal areas is fine.... as long as the flood insurance premiums are increased substantially to compensate for it.

Though I don't consider Houston to be coastal persay, we aren't exactly affected by storm surge.

That's been the problem, premium increases in the federal program have been strongly resisted over time. As forecast now they won't come into the range of realistically paying for the program for about two decades and even that is pushed back a lot now certainly.

Houston is vulnerable to surge though not as generally as a true costal city. That said the models say that if a hurricane with just the right track pushed a major surge up the ship channel the damage would be apocalyptic.

 

[fskimospy]

The fringe left are those who keep steering the DNC towards solving first world problems like renaming Columbus Day as opposed to real world problems such as pension reform, crumbling infrastructure, inmigration and loss of jobs to globalization.

I think you mean Democrats in general, not the DNC, as the DNC is just a party fundraising organ that doesn't make or direct policy. Overall though, Democrats spend extremely little time on things like renaming Columbus Day. It's basically a policy nonfactor. The news media spends lots of time on that stuff because it's sensationalistic, but that's about it. Democratic policy is overwhelmingly geared towards expanding free trade while strengthening the safety net, better immigration policy, and infrastructure investment. That stuff isn't sexy though, so nobody pays attention.

 

[zinfamous]

Building onto coastal areas is fine.... as long as the flood insurance premiums are increased substantially to compensate for it.

Though I don't consider Houston to be coastal persay, we aren't exactly affected by storm surge.

so, to you, "fine" = "hey, as long as it can be rebuilt dozens of times!"

to me, "fine" = something that is not demonstrably stupid in the face of geography and environmental reality. I would easily expand into your definition, however, if we make mandatory flood insurance, without the expectation of federal assistance, so preposterously unaffordable as to make the concept of building in those areas completely irrational to even the most irrational of humans.

 

[fskimospy]

What building codes could be put in place to handle several feet of rain in a day?

Is this a serious question? Flooding is on a continuum. The more rain you get, the greater percentage of an area becomes at risk. Better building codes and smarter city planning/zoning would decrease the number of units affected, not eliminate them entirely.

I mean... duh?