« Prison Works. | Main | Timmy Elsewhere. »
September 30, 2005
Shock! Horror!
Hold The Front Pages! Shock ! Horror!
Bold Headlines!
Exclamation Marks!!!!
Stunning news from the NY Times:
WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 - After Hurricane Katrina left hundreds of thousands of people homeless, the Federal Emergency Management Agency signed contracts for more than $2 billion in temporary housing, including more than 120,000 trailers and mobile homes. But the agency has placed just 109 Louisiana families in those homes.
A month after the disaster, the federal government's temporary housing effort is stumbling.
The inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday that FEMA was freezing many orders for trailers, although the agency disputes that. Members of Congress, complaining that a $236 million deal to lease three ships to house evacuees was far too expensive, are calling for an investigation. And under an alternative FEMA program to give victims cash to find their own housing, 332,000 households have been approved in just a week.
Extraordinary is it not? Simply stunning? Against all the formerly known rules of economics and politics?
Markets work better than Government provision? Really, who would have thought it?
It may well be that there are times when Government needs to finance access to a market but can we now, with this example (109 families as against 332,000 households in the same time period), please put to rest the idea that Government needs to be the provider of any but the most limited (say, military, legal system, etc) goods and services?
This does have rather large implications of course. HUD, national health care, social security, veteran’s medical treatment, the Army Corps of Engineers, well, you make your own list.
The Government paying for those in need to access goods and services is one thing (which we can have a different argument about) but clearly, if that is what we decide to do we should make damn sure that it is markets that are the mechanism, not actual provision of the goods themselves by Government.
Because they’re not very good at it. Clearly.
September 30, 2005 in Economics | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/23056/3280827
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Shock! Horror!:
» A roof over your head? from Web of Contradictions
This week The Economist welcomes a rise in the proportion of UK households in temporary accomodation living in private sector housing, most of it arranged by local authorities but some leased directly from landlords (subscribers only). T... [Read More]
Tracked on Oct 1, 2005 4:56:32 PM
» Quick Hits from QandO
And speaking of Congressmen who could stand some basic economics, check out Tim Worstall...(whose blog has been added to the blogroll) [Read More]
Tracked on Oct 2, 2005 3:19:24 AM
Comments
HUD? What is that? Heads-Up Display?
I really have been avoiding the news for too long (it's not my fault, they keep cutting to clips of Tony Blair without any warning that viewers of a sensitive or nervous disposition should turn the sound off).
Tim Adds: Housing and Urban Development. That part of the Federal Govt that builds ghettoes.
Posted by: inactualfact | Sep 30, 2005 5:54:17 PM
