New Orleans-Failure of Leadership(No Mention in State of Union)

[mrbowler]

In some ways you have to question why people re-elected Nagin to do the job...after the numerous previous failures. Sure state & national failures are to blame also. On a national level you have to wonder why President Bush did not include or talk about how his leadership has/is progressing in New Orleans??

"Here's what I believe. I believe that the great city of New Orleans will rise again and be a greater city of New Orleans"

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The senators and staffers took a bus tour of the city including the flood-ravaged Lower Ninth Ward, which is still largely uninhabited.

"Welcome to the isle of New Orleans!! Forgotten by our own country," read a sign carried by one of several demonstrators.

[mrbowler]

I would imagine that FEMA/Leadership sure doesn't want to talk about this?

I guess the way to prove that "big" government doesn't work-is to have people working in leadership(top down), and do a miserable job that way you can say that government doesn't work, and you will be proven correct. It all comes down to the people who are elected/appointed.

Are FEMA Trailers Making Residents Sick?

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[whitequeen96]

OMG, mrbowler, so THAT'S why the current administration is doing such an awful job!

[mrbowler]

Originally Posted by whitequeen96

OMG, mrbowler, so THAT'S why the current administration is doing such an awful job!

LOL..In your opinion-I don't know if I would use the word "awful job". I do have some examples in which I thought the President has actually made some positive leadership decisions, but overall I think you are closer to the truth. It just seems that on multiple fronts the quality of leadership has failed-at some point in time you have to ask where the "buck stops"-either the people you have hired/appointed/promoted are not up to the task or the skill level is not up to the task at hand. The sad part about New Orleans is that you have rebuilding going on by the Army CE, and you have folks saying that if a Cat 3 hits you will have the same problem again-Oh well I guess that will be somebody else's problem.

[Au H2O]

Originally Posted by mrbowler

I guess the way to prove that "big" government doesn't work-is to have people working in leadership(top down), and do a miserable job that way you can say that government doesn't work, and you will be proven correct. It all comes down to the people who are elected/appointed.

Nah, govt is at it's core inefficient and unwieldy. The Bu****es are just particularly adept at incompetence.

[Au H2O]

What a weird censor script! Let's see, can we say Bush-ites?

Edit:

It seems so. I wonder what the problem is when you take out the hyphen? Other than the semi-naughty word that's inside it... Silly little script...

[mrbowler]

Originally Posted by Au H2O

Nah, govt is at it's core inefficient and unwieldy. The Bu****es are just particularly adept at incompetence.

I guess you could argue that corporations get inefficient and unwieldy as they become larger with the difference being that making a larger profit will make them more efficient, and compared to government I would say that is prob. true, but I can find examples of government in which they have do/done many positives-so I have to wonder why?? IMO it comes down to leadership/people. It's easy to say that big government is bad/incompetent/inefficient, but in some cases it is better then the alternatives IMO. Should we disband the military, postal service, nasa?
I do tend to agree with you about the Bu****es

[Au H2O]

Maybe, but I wouldn't hold out the Postal Service as an example of efficiency. For example, I can send a package via either of the USPS primary competitors and have better tracking of it's progress and it's delivery. It will also be cheaper (sometimes by as much as half). That's not even considering the hidden costs of a federalized mail system.

As for the military, while I do believe that a military is a necessity, it has become a fiscal sinkhole of mammoth proportions. NASA's not any better with its expensive (ultimately useless) shuttle program, for example.

[mrbowler]

Originally Posted by Au H2O

Maybe, but I wouldn't hold out the Postal Service as an example of efficiency. For example, I can send a package via either of the USPS primary competitors and have better tracking of it's progress and it's delivery. It will also be cheaper (sometimes by as much as half). That's not even considering the hidden costs of a federalized mail system.

As for the military, while I do believe that a military is a necessity, it has become a fiscal sinkhole of mammoth proportions. NASA's not any better with its expensive (ultimately useless) shuttle program, for example.

I believe that the U.S. Postal Service does not examine all aspects of the different types of mailings to determine various measures of efficiency-although I believe the GAO has made various recommendations. Personally I would like to have a larger sampling of packages sent thru various methods to determine whether or not your personal experience is the norm or not. In general terms it does appear the people support the belief that anything the government does must be able to be done better & cheaper by the private enterprises, and in the short term that may be true, but it does seem(this is just my personal opinion) that as companies in the drive to keep costs as low as possible, and keep productivity as high as possible have created a working environment in which the workers will/have create a backlash in the quality of workmanship/service in that they feel they are just a commodity, and the distribution of profits/wealth are not being distributed throughout all ladders of the pay scale. I agree with your statement about the military budget-especially most recently(bush adm.) earlier the amount of the GDP being spent on the military was lower. With NASA it all depends if you have a long term vision in that the Shuttle Program was just a building block to create further missions such as Mars, and maybe something in the future a possible creation of life on another planet-i.e. more resources etc. It is one of those costs in which a private company might not be willing/able to fund...eventually you might have companies buying land rights etc on another planet-who knows-it all depends on what you believe is possible.

[Au H2O]

I remember actually seeing a study much like what you're looking for. I'll do some digging...

On the subject of distributing profits, my position is that labor is a contract. In other words, it is worth exactly what both parties freely agree it is. If the labor pool for a position is deep then the wage prospects for the individuals within that pool will be more modest than those who's qualifications are more advanced. For example, the CEO of the company should profit more than the janitor when the company prospers. Conversely, the CEO should suffer more when the company fails. I dislike "golden parachutes" just as much as I do inflated union scales.

The problem I have with NASA is that we've poured billions of dollars into the space program with little noticeable results. I remember as a boy being told that by 2000 people would be living on the moon, that we would have sent a man to Mars, ect. Instead, we ended up spending the past 30 +/- years performing "gee wiz" experiments inside a beefed up glider.

[mrbowler]

Getting back to OP-Looks like another coverup at FEMA....you know these stories blow in, and it makes headlines then fades away. It just doesn't seem like anybody is in charge of the large ship U.S.A....then again this is prob. more of those folks that are classified as "other type of people".


FEMA Knew Of Toxic Gas In Trailers:
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"Since early 2006 has suppressed warnings from its own field workers about health problems experienced by hurricane victims living in government-provided trailers with levels of a toxic chemical 75 times the recommended maximum for U.S. workers, congressional lawmakers said yesterday"