When government fails

Most of the New Orleanians seeking public shelter are poor and black. Barbara Bush, the president’s mother, earned no thanks from him for her remark that because many survivors “were underprivileged anyway”, their Astrodome quarters are “working very well for them”.

Warnings were loud and clear - but still city drowned
With hindsight, it is clear that the seeds of what one Republican senator called yesterday the “woeful” government response were sown with shoddy planning..
..Despite calls since the September 11 attacks for a comprehensive new evacuation plan for New Orleans, the one in place last week had last been updated in 2000,..

In order that all men might be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it. Dr. Samuel Johnson

FEMA Wants No Photos of Dead

U.N. Report Cites U.S. and Japan as the 'Least Generous Donors'
While crediting the United States with being the world's largest donor, the report points out that among the world's richest countries, America is second to last in aid as a portion of its national income, with Italy bringing up the rear. Japan was third from the bottom. Aid per capita from donors ranges from more than $200 in Sweden to $51 in the United States and $37 in Italy.

Seeking Oil in Troubled Waters
Deputy Secretary of State, Robert Zoellick has warned that Beijing's ties with 'troublesome' states such as Burma and Zimbabwe, were ''going to have repercussions elsewhere'' and the Chinese would have to decide if they wanted to pay the price.

Is FEMA Ready For Bay Area Earthquake?
We've never been able to get that message through to the Department of Homeland Security. The funding has systematically gone into terrorism and away from natural disasters," she said.

In fact, she says in the West Coast region -- covering the Bay Area -- the number of federal specialists dealing with earthquakes is a simple number: just one.

Quick Overview

• The U.S. Department of Energy said that:
  Supplies of crude oil were down 6.4 million barrels to 315.0 million barrels.
  Supplies of unleaded gasoline were down 4.3 million barrels
  Heating oil supplies were up 500,000 barrels.
  Refineries were running at 86.8% of capacity last week.
  Crude oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve remained unchanged at 700.5 million barrels.
  Underground supplies of natural gas were up 36 billion cubic feet last week to 2.669 trillion cubic feet. Supplies are now down 3% from a year ago.

• U.S. jobless claims were down 1,000 last week to 319,000. Job losses due to Hurricane Katrina were estimated at 10,000.
  

• U.S. wholesale sales were up 0.5% in July while inventories were down 0.1%.
  

• Today's USDA Drought Monitor shows extreme drought conditions hanging on in northern Illinois and southwest Arkansas.
  

• Japans index of coincident economic indicators was at 22.2% in July, an sign of contraction. Bank of Japan Governor Toshihiko Fukui said on Thursday the BOJ would need to make sure deflation was well and truly beaten before scrapping its ultra-easy monetary policy, and he appeared to leave the door open to leaving rates at zero even once the policy was abandoned.
  

• The unemployment rate in Australia remained at 5.0% in August, the lowest in 29 years.
  

We are away - updates resume Friday, September 09, 2005

Experts: Too many people in nature's way
The expanding U.S. population "has migrated to hazard-prone areas — to Florida, the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, particularly barrier islands, to California :(

They cite examples of poorer nations that in ways do a better job than the rich:
No one was reported killed when Ivan struck Cuba in 2004, its worst hurricane in 50 years and a storm that, after weakening, killed 25 people in the United States

Oil
U.S. Refineries are struggling back. On Monday crude oil flows improved enough to allow 10 refineries in the Gulf Coast and Midwest to climb back up to full capacity. However four Gulf Coast refineries look to remain shut affecting some 5% of U.S. capacity.

Flood horrors the US can't hide

Perhaps now, following the disaster on the Gulf coast, the people of the US will wake up to the fact the current administration is not and never has been primarily concerned with the welfare of its citizens ..

..I'm sorry Bush had to cut his vacation short. But at least he got past war protester mom Cindy Sheehan without getting noticed. I'm really angry.

While Bush fiddles, New Orleans dies

With the water coming from the sky and the bottom of the sea, driving with such ferocity that a major American city, New Orleans, followed its face into the water, George W. Bush was at North Island in Coronado, Calif., speaking to a blindingly white audience of 9,000 sailors in uniform..

..Friday, showing up on the fifth day of a national tragedy, Bush made a little humorous aside about the times he was in New Orleans celebrating too much. Beautiful! If he tried to walk fifty yards he could have tripped over somebody's dead black grandmother under a blanket


"We need food and water and they sent us men with guns" : Katrina survivor

United States of Shame It would be one thing if President Bush and his inner circle - Dick Cheney was vacationing in Wyoming; Condi Rice was shoe shopping at Ferragamo's on Fifth Avenue and attended "Spamalot" before bloggers chased her back to Washington; and Andy Card was off in Maine - lacked empathy but could get the job done. But it is a chilling lack of empathy combined with a stunning lack of efficiency that could make this administration implode


"The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government": Thomas Jefferson:

Superdome Evacuations Temporarily Halted

At one point Friday, the evacuation was interrupted briefly when school buses pulled up so some 700 guests and employees from the Hyatt Hotel could move to the head of the evacuation line — much to the amazement of those who had been crammed in the Superdome since last Sunday.

"How does this work? They (are) clean, they are dry, they get out ahead of us?" exclaimed Howard Blue, 22, who tried to get in their line. The National Guard blocked him as other guardsmen helped the well-dressed guests with their luggage.

Chart of the day


The personal saving rate is now a negative 0.6%

Harder they fall: Sydney's biggest housing slump
With home prices in the city still about seven times the average annual wage - well above historic ratios of five times typical pay - economists are predicting more falls over the next five years.

Quick Overview

• Employers added 169,000 workers to payrolls in August and the unemployment rate fell to 4.9% from 5% in July, the Labor Department said Friday.

Disaster scenario for refining
a sizable proportion of gulf production has been shut down, including 95 per cent of oil and 88 per cent of natural gas, or 1.43 million barrels a day of oil and 8.8 billion cubic feet a day of gas. That represents about 20 per cent of the United States' oil production and a quarter of natural gas output.

No one can say they didn't see it coming
In 2001, FEMA warned that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S. ..

Quick Overview

• Wholesale gasoline prices continued to rise because Hurricane Katrina, and retail outlets in many states already were feeling a supply pinch and raising prices well above $3 a gallon, news services reported Thursday.
  

• The Department of Energy said that underground natural gas supplies were up 58 billion cubic feet last week to 2.633 trillion cubic feet. YoY supplies are down 2% . This before Katrina.
  

• The U.S. Minerals Management Service said today that 90% of oil production and 79% of natural gas production is still down in the Gulf of Mexico.
  

• Bloomberg.com is reporting that eight refineries are closed due to Hurricane Katrina and that it will may be a month or more before they are running again. Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Energy said that some refineries may not work again for several months.
  

• U.S. Jobless claims were up 3,000 to 320,000 last week.
  

• Personal spending jumped 1% in July as consumers continued to take advantage of automakers’ discounts, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.
  

• YoY average U.S. home prices climbed 13.43 percent to June.
  

• The Institute for Supply Management said Thursday that its manufacturing index slowed in August to 53.6 from 56.6 in July.
  
  

• U.S. Construction spending held steady at a $1.099 trillion annual rate in July, stemming four straight monthly declines, the Commerce Department said Thursday. Lumber was up it's $10 limit.
  

• Brazil's economy grew at 3.9 percent from a year earlier more than expected.
  

• The European Central Bank kept it’s key interest rate unchanged at 2.0% and lessened its growth estimates for the Euro zone from 1.4% to 1.3% in 2005 and from 2.0% to 1.8% in 2006.