Peter and Aesop both ask the same question: Should the government ‘let’ people build a house in an area known to be prone to disasters like hurricanes? The reasons that they give:
- it costs local and state authorities huge amounts to maintain access to such areas to protect them, fire and rescue departments to aid those living there during disasters, etc.;
- Insurance companies typically won’t insure against hazards that are so easily foreseen, meaning that either they have to be compelled to do so through legislation, and/or subsidized to do so from taxpayers’ coffers, and/or have state-aided insurance plans such as flood insurance to cover the risks they will not.
- There’s all the infrastructure (roads, power, water, sewage processing and disposal, maintenance, etc.). That’s not just capital cost to provide them all, but ongoing running costs year in, year out.
- There’s the expense of subsidizing and/or providing insurance coverage.
- There’s the burden of restoring services to such areas when natural disasters disrupt them (which also means the resources devoted to doing that can’t be used in other areas where they may be needed, imposing additional delays and costs).
- There’s the additional bureaucracy and complexity of legislation and/or regulation accompanying all of the above.
These positions seem reasonable. They are also tyrannical and wrong. If we were to grant government the power to declare that you can’t live somewhere because it is too expensive to provide services there, then you open the door to government getting involved and ruling over your entire life.
Owning guns is too dangerous, and therefore illegal. So is smoking, drinking alcohol, eating salt, eating fatty foods, and not exercising 1 hour per day. SCUBA and sky diving, contact sports, owning a car that is capable of speeds more than 40 miles per hour, as well as roller skates, bicycles, and air conditioning (Climate Change!) are all dangerous.
Governments were created, among other things, to provide for the common defense. Services like fire, police, and rescue are properly part of that response. Don’t tell me how we should have for profit fire and rescue services- we tried that, and it plain doesn’t work. (Seriously- read the link before you comment)
Water, power, roads, and all of those other services are paid for by companies that have been granted a monopoly by the government. They aren’t paid for by taxes in many cases, but by fees passed on to consumers.
Back to the subject- when the government decides that it’s most cost effective to make everyone live in tenements in downtown Detroit, come back and explain to me how you didn’t see that coming. But hey, you can sign on to the Green New Deal if you prefer.
33 Comments
redacted · September 30, 2024 at 5:04 am
That aesop said that didn’t surprise me at all ( The Holy Bible speaks of those who value themselves too highly). But when I read Mr Grant last week: 😳😒 I thought perhaps it is some deficit of bein S’effrican. Then I realized that Mr. Dutoit is from that neck of the woods and has yet to verbalize such “insight”. I am with you sir! Greatly saddened to see just how many still choose to be blind.
oldvet50 · September 30, 2024 at 6:01 am
I have no problem with anyone living/building wherever they wish. I do have a problem with them having me subsidize it. My insurance is high enough, so I do not wish to pay more so someone can rebuild his beach house for the tenth time. Sure, they pay a little extra for the greater risk, but nowhere near enough to cover the actual expense. I am also curious to see if insurance companies will pay for the vehicles that were flooded out when they were left parked in a flood zone and were told to evacuate but did not. I know some people that did that. Their attitude is “It won’t cost ME anything; it’s insured” – Thanks a-hole!
Divemedic · September 30, 2024 at 6:16 am
And yet my insurance premiums pay for people to be overweight, eat unhealthy foods, drive expensive cars, and engage in risky sexual behavior.
Aesop · October 2, 2024 at 7:33 am
But they won’t cover 17 liver transplants in a row, just because Sumdood likes to drink to excess. And the government doesn’t tax me to buy him more liquor, and another donor transplant, nor try to take my liver to make him whole.
So insurance, at least, has some limits within the bounds of rationality.
Disaster relief has no such limitations, otherwise it would be once in a lifetime for most people, and never for people building stupid houses in stupid places.
Divemedic · October 2, 2024 at 9:29 am
So we should stop responding to the state of California? They have earthquakes, wildfires, mudslides, and a host of other disasters. That goes double for the out of control crime in the gang infested cities like Compton. Anyone who builds or lives there should not receive any help. Or insurance. At all.
Aesop · October 3, 2024 at 6:44 am
Insurance I have no problem with.
You’ve already buggered the discussion by conflating a private means of shared risk, with government handouts, which have no premiums, and no limit on payouts.
With a car, you crash one while insured, you get a payout.
You crash five, you get cancelled. (In fact, probably for far less than five.)
With disaster payouts, you can build the same house in the same place endlessly, and keep collecting checks. (And people do exactly that.)
After one payout, you should be done for life.
After two to the same location even with different owners, that location gets blacklisted forever.
No government money (read: robbing taxpayers who didn’t build a stupid house in a stupid place) forever.
No fire department. No roads. No nothing. No one’s coming to save you from the consequences of your own idiocy.
You want to pay for all that out of your own pocket, or do without, ROWYBS.
The Coast Guard rescues anyone, no matter how stupid.
But they also dock-seize your boat afterwards if it never should have left the harbor in the first place.
Want to build your house in a stupid place anyways? YOYO.
In every possible way.
As for California, you paint with a broad brush. 40M people don’t make disaster claims every single time. I went through two major earthquakes in 50 years. Neither one caused more than superficial damage, one of which was fully covered by privately purchased earthquake insurance. My total cost to government disaster relief in one lifetime: $0.
Never threatened once by wildfires, mudslides, floods, or anything other than earthquakes. But then again, I didn’t live in a wooden house with a dry wood shake roof in a chapparal canyon that burns every 2-5 years, and then slides down afterwards as regularly and predictably as the tides. Nor build a house hanging over the Pacific Ocean, and look all shocked and surprised that sometimes, there are storm tides that batter the hell out of such a stupid location.
If you want to end federal disaster relief forever for all canyons and beachfront homes in California, I’ll sign your petitions and subscribe to your newsletter.
But if we’re going to go all reductio ad absurdum, then back at ya. Florida is hurricane-prone. Most of the state is a couple of feet above sea level. So no relief for hurricanes or flooding ever for Florida either. Throw in the Mississippi Valley and Nawlins while you’re up, and you’ve got a deal.
As for “response”, after the last earthquake, FEMA showed up after the problems were solved. They were more useless than teats on a bull. Like always.
There are victims, and volunteers.
What’s asinine is paying the volunteers to go back, Jack, and do it again. Endlessly.
Private insurance, OTOH, has no part of this discussion, except that the market should dictate the premiums. When people get charged what they should for building stupid houses in stupid places, they’d stop doing it, or they’d pay dearly for the privilege, with no Uncle Sugar to swoop in and dole out buckets of Other People’s Money to repeat the folly.
Refusing to subsidize anything that asinine isn’t tyranny.
It’s simple common sense.
Jonesy · September 30, 2024 at 2:17 pm
I pay higher car insurance premiums living in the same county as Detroit. My insurance just went up almost $200 per month because of the number of “incidents” in my county. Not my neighborhood or my my commute or anything I did wrong. It has nothing to do with weather or geography, only behaviors of the pool I happen to belong to on their books.
Everyone is subsidizing something.
tsgt joe · September 30, 2024 at 6:41 pm
My insurance went down a bunch when I moved from oak park to midland.
oldvet50 · September 30, 2024 at 7:37 am
I agree. You should be uninsurable if your weight is, for example, 50% over the desirable for your height, sex, age, BMI, etc. At a certain age, you ARE effectively uninsurable. What are healthy foods? Nuts and dairy are supposedly healthy for you, but can kill others. There should be a limit on the liability on cars, too. Why do my rates subsidize a Rolls Royce, even a tax-subsidized Tesla?! In most cases, the law (I include contract law, too) requires you to have insurance. It is not a viable economic model anymore. More and more, people are opting out so the liability is spread over fewer participants thereby spiking prices. It will soon implode. BTW, All sexual behavior is risky – sometimes your wife catches you, which could be fatal.
Divemedic · September 30, 2024 at 8:09 am
Cool. Now while you are enjoying your dinner of soy, kale, and crickets, ask yourself if this is any different than those who would outlaw guns because there are too many shootings.
oldvet50 · September 30, 2024 at 9:37 am
You surprise me with your liberal leanings. I am a meat and potatoes guy (never tasted kale, but love soy sauce on my Chinese takeout) and no type of guns should ever be outlawed but some people should be. All I was saying is that insurance is being abused by the few and soon we all will lose the protections it used to afford us.
Divemedic · September 30, 2024 at 9:45 am
How am I advocating leftist? You are the one saying that since insurance is more expensive than what you want to pay that the government should step in.
The market will find a solution once enough people can’t pay. The government should stay out of it.
oldvet50 · September 30, 2024 at 11:02 am
The gov has already stepped in and said you WILL insure these people – you cannot and will not discriminate – yet that is the very definition of risk – to discriminate. I am saying the government should stay out of businesses and let the market find a solution. The only role the gov should play is that it should be certain the company has resources to pay its claims. IOW BillyBob’s Insurance with no assets should not be allowed to sell policies. I think you and I agree, mostly.
Divemedic · September 30, 2024 at 11:29 am
They don’t require an insurance company to insure everyone regardless of risk
Steady Steve · September 30, 2024 at 10:20 am
Luxury car drivers pay a higher insurance premium for collision/comprehensive insurance. Your only cost vis a vis expensive cars is if you choose to carry higher liability insurance in case you are at fault, even in “no fault” states.
TakeAHardLook · September 30, 2024 at 11:33 am
Life is a sexually-transmitted disease with a 100% fatality rate.
wojtek · September 30, 2024 at 11:31 pm
The actual title of Zanussi’s movie was “Life as a deadly sexually transmitted disease” 🙂
TakeAHardLook · September 30, 2024 at 7:43 am
I wonder if this topic is like the abortion issue: essentially unresolvable.
I do not wish to see FedGov given any more power over us, but every insured driver in America pays a bit more in premiums when, for example, a wealthy guy in Naples, FL (during Ian) leaves his McLaren (a $1M+ car) at ground level, later to be destroyed. Could he NOT have driven his car to any one of Naples’ multi-story concrete municipal parking lots (top floor) in the time available before the hurricane hit? There’s one at the intersection of Vanderbilt Beach Road and The Gulf of Mexico–and it did fine, surge & all! Just a modicum of planning would be all that is necessary.
I recall the ABC News commentator John Stossel, ironically thanking us for replacing his Westhampton Beach Road home–for the third time. He was investigating the sweet deal that a lucky few in his flood zone (aka: The Atlantic Ocean) enjoy who are covered by some arcane ‘common good’ insurance law. I’ve boated on the water off WHB many times, and, as a former Long Islander, know only too well the fragility of a barrier beach. All of the infrastructure serving those barrier beach homes comes through conduits running under an inlet. An inlet!
And, each time after big storms we again see blacktop, piping, electrical conduit, etc, upended by the Atlantic Ocean, once again to be rebuilt at public expense. Millions of dollars to support half a dozen or so homes.
The only way to end that particular boondoggle would be to condemn all barrier beach homes, plant sawgrass & other species to protect the dunes and hope for the best. I was always “amused” when backhoes moved millions of tons of sand around in order to allow the construction crews in, when I could be fined $600 + /- for even WALKING on a dune in the same spot. WTF?
Could the solution be that a risk behavior involving the insuring of private property (McLarens, beach houses) be levied upon the owner to a much greater percentage than previously? Again, I don’t want FedGov or local gov telling us what we can/cannot do, but the cost of our largesse should be better apportioned.
Whenever I had an insurance physical & a blood draw, I signed that I was a non-smoker and I hoped that my premium would reflect some benefit. I’m sure they checked my carbonmonoxyhemoglobin levels. Maybe I did get a better premium, I cannot prove same.
I also know that when in med school in NYC we often saw patients (whom we had just tuned up in the asthma clinic) step outside & light up a smoke, for chrissakes! I somehow doubt that
they checked “Smoker” on their health insurance applications.
Risk vs. reward–and who pays? Is this resolvable without allowing government additional intrusion into our affairs?
Damned if I know!
TakeAHardLook · September 30, 2024 at 8:00 am
Looking at Aesop’s take on this topic I am inclined to agree with his “Stupidity Tax” on private property in precarious or historically risk-prone areas.
Like those L.A. homes built on stilts with god-like city light views: when the San Andreas Fault shyts the bed, let the wealthy guy rebuild on his own dime. Leave the rest of us out of the equation.
Steve S6 · September 30, 2024 at 8:23 am
Lahaina. They didn’t even get their protections.
Sorry midwest but y’all are downwind of any Yellowstone super explosion so you can’t live there. We have these nice 15 minute cities for you.
Yes all too easy to abuse such regulation, and gov has a history of being an abuser.
Steve S6 · September 30, 2024 at 8:40 am
Flip side of the coin. You can live there but it will cost you and we’ll waste it. Squints trying to see the difference…
https://secondcitycop.blogspot.com/2024/09/speaking-of-wasting-money.html
Anonymous · September 30, 2024 at 9:11 am
I read the private firefighters link. Some “firefighters” were criminals, and government was protecting them from prosecution by the victims they harmed? That’s why you shouldn’t have a monopoly on crime control, either.
JB · September 30, 2024 at 10:40 am
Lets talk about the most Marxist part of city government, that goes by the name of Code Enforcement and the Boards that write these Communist codes. Take the time to read your cities municipal codes. Its Extortion. You think your land and trees and sprinklers and toilets and water heaters and radio antennas are your property. But its really not. You have to pay the city for a permit to trim your tree, dig a hole, replace an old toilet or water heater, or put up an antenna for Ham Radio. I have been cited endless times for Trump signs, spreading dirt, digging up an irrigation pipe, trimming trees and other petty code violations that do not harm life or safety or constitute a public threat. Fines for such activities are extortion. And not enough of us have the means to hire costly lawyers to fight for our rights.
Divemedic · September 30, 2024 at 11:27 am
While some codes are overly restrictive, they aren’t communism.
Tsgt Joe · September 30, 2024 at 7:42 pm
When I was young, I really believed in the government, hell, I even marched off to war believing in the government. Today at age 75, not so much. I do believe you should be able to live on flood plains, on the coast, on earthquake faults even in the cone of a volcano if you want, at most the government should have to warn you of the risk ( not all faults or flood plains are obvious). However I absolutely dont think the government should assist or subsidize your risk taking, further I dont think others through insurance should have to share in your risk.
Divemedic · October 1, 2024 at 6:19 am
LOL. That is what insurance is- a shared risk pool. You are sharing the risk of your home being damaged with everyone else who has insurance.
tsgt joe · October 1, 2024 at 10:50 am
I get that insurance is shared risk but should the guys that live on the hill have to be in the same risk pool as the ones in the flood plain.
Divemedic · October 1, 2024 at 10:56 am
They are and they aren’t. There are more posts coming on exactly that.
Vlad · September 30, 2024 at 11:03 pm
Being a retired fire guy I liked the link about firefighting in the bad ol’ days.
The “plug guard” is also where the term “plug ugly” came from.
Aesop · October 2, 2024 at 7:25 am
You want laissez-faire, right up until it costs you.
I’d be fine with letting people build whatever, wherever.
Just no services, and no disaster relief. Ever.
Do that, and I’ll march in your parade.
What I object to is asinine libertine excess, on my dime.
Build your house out of kindling in a brushfire zone? Eat me when it burns down. BFYTW.
Build your house in the surf zone, and Nature stomps it to smithereens? Eat shit and die.
You made your choices, now live with the consequences, and pay for them out of your own pocket.
And if the state requires insurance, the company gets to charge you annual premiums at any rate up to the entire value of the home, without appeal. Their coverage is all you get.
If we could pass that, I wouldn’t give two hoots what you did or where you lived.
The minute anyone claims they “deserve” to lay an obligation on my wallet for their stupidity. that’s the tyranny.
Worst of all is that it’s usually rich @$$holes trying to shove both hands in Uncle Sugar’s pocket, which is why both of Uncle’s hands are always in mine.
Fuck that sideways, with a rusty chainsaw.
What you’re advocating is no different from saying people who drive drunk and kill people should get the same insurance rates as people who drive accident free, because there shouldn’t be any consequences for stupidity. And the government should buy them a new car too.
No sale. That’s not liberty, it’s subsidizing the perennially jackassical, because reasons.
Worse, it’s shilling for people so stupid they want to repeal the law of gravity.
If your right to swing your arm stops where my nose begins (and it does), then your right to make a disaster claim for your own asinine choices stops short of my wallet, and the public purse. Which means it stops short of state and federal disaster relief. People who play stupid games should win stupid prizes.
But the people who want that kind of freedom suddenly get all quiet when the realization dawns on them that it comes with responsibilities and consequences that can’t be passed on to people not responsible for the problem, and suddenly they’re all for full-blown Gibmedats Socialism.
Trying to wrap that in “freedom” turns logic on its head, and bankrupts language.
And trying to drag guns into the topic is specious: I don’t get dinged with another tax every time someone gets shot.
What it’s actually like is telling me I need to buy a crook a gun every time his gets taken away for using it in a crime.
The reality is that anyone who uses a gun is on the hook for his own conduct.
All I’m asking is that building a home get treated the exact same way: the consequences are on your head.
If you want to argue that even a criminal gets a public defender, well and good.
You don’t get Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr, and you don’t get your idiotic mansion rebuilt in the same stupid place.
So if your house in a stupid location burns down or washes away, you get the housing equivalent of a public defender: a blue plastic porta-potty. And a used one at that.
There ya go; your disaster has been relieved equitably.
Anything further is the actual tyranny at work here.
Actual liberty scares people to death, and the stupider they are, the worse it scares them.
And government banks on this, since ever.
Divemedic · October 2, 2024 at 9:30 am
No services means no taxes. Your deal is accepted. Let’s see how that works.
Hint: It won’t.
I live in Florida. Our building codes are fairly rigorous. That’s why Florida took the brunt of Helene, yet most of the damage is in Tennessee and the Carolinas.
Houses built in Florida after 1992 must be able to withstand winds of at least 115 mile per hour. My own house is built to the 140 mile per hour standard. That’s why my insurance is less than $1800 per year on more than $600k worth of house.
The houses that take most of the damage are right on the beach, or were built in the 1960s. Or both.
Aesop · October 3, 2024 at 6:57 am
Which begs the question: why have disaster relief (read: robbing innocent taxpayers) subsidize housing for idiots in places that are indefensible from common and frequent occurrences, even with existing building codes??
Both the home sites and the policy of providing any relief for them are indefensible.
After the second catastrophic loss in the same location, the mean IQ of the population has dictated that people are too stupid to be allowed to build anything in such places. So either give notice that they’re on their own when disaster strikes and afterwards, and banned from receiving any assistance; or simply declare anything built in such places a public nuisance, and knock it down. Declare it wildlife habitat and green space, and solve the problem forever.
Either/or, IDGAF which it is, as long as we stop subsidizing insanity from the public purse.
Aesop · October 4, 2024 at 2:44 am
And here it is, right on cue: the latest edition of The Gravy Train For Stupid People
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/rancho-palos-verdes-residents-affected-by-land-movement-to-receive-emergency-funds/ar-AA1rB9ir