Civil_War2_Time:

I do know here in Houston that all employers wanting hire help at wages that would assist somebody to get back somewhat on his/her/their feet should be stopping by the Reliant Complex, and ignoring the street corners for some time to come. Illegals would then have to resort to measures that would either bring in better schwag, or they would move away from here/get deported.

don't know what part of houston you are in, but in my part of houston, no one expects the refugees to find jobs. the white collar workers will be relocated to work for their current employers at offices in houston.

as for the refugees in the 'dome, they were living off the government to begin with, will get more hard cash for doing nothing than they ever believed possible and would only have their assistance cut if they DID go to work.

life for the illegal aliens in houston will not change one bit.

yes, this is truly an administration that reswards failure. the more abject the failure, the more glory bestowed upon it. the next move for the esteemed mr. browne will be to take over alan greenspans seat at the federal reserve.
i'm clairvoyant.
move over miss cleo.

"In Washington, President Bush acknowledged the withering criticism of his administration's Weeners to Hurricane Katrina"

I love the Fark filter.

nerfball

I'm out near 6 and 10...but I'm from Alvin. It was a suggestion that the business owners (of which I've worked for several and hired many illegals myself on those street corners), should try and jump-start these people who've lost everything. Working can not only help us to help them, but it can take the mind off of the problems you would otherwise let eat at you daily. Like I said, better schwag, too.

jwhite905


Well, after your failure's swards start to wear out, you HAVE to re-sward them. It's just common sense.

Geotpf
I love the Fark filter.

Yeah, that actually had me laughing after I posted. I've been inadvertently "boobies'd" once or twice, but never "weener'd" until today.

jwhite905


What is a "pos town"?

My god, I can't believe what Barbara Bush said. I mean, how arrogant and racist can you get?

Loosing all your property hurts whether you are uber-rich or whether you are uber-poor. Your family gets torn apart, you're put in some strange place where you don't know anyone, your now competing against thousands of people for a replacement low-wage earning job.... and on top of that, most of these people didn't have rental or housing insurance and will have to deal with loosing everything they owned. Sure, it wasn't a plasma tv... but that low end tv that they just lost probably cost them a months wages.

I've never wanted to slap Barbara Bush before... now I'm just shaking in anger.

uricake

I believe is stands for Point Of Sale. As in "Our store recently upgraded our P.O.S. system, which will make check-out mush easier"

/Oh wait, no he was talking about New Orleans. He meant Piece of Shait.

Mean while, Captain It10t is sending Major Ch$nn$y to survey the scene of the crime in order to file a report on how it's going farkup his Captiancy even more. That's classic and would be hilarious IF it wasn't so damn real and so hellishly scary.

The person quoted above for the POS was drunk. You can tell by the way he slurred the word 'much'. I hope he isn't driving.

Civil_War2_Time:

I'm out near 6 and 10...but I'm from Alvin. It was a suggestion that the business owners (of which I've worked for several and hired many illegals myself on those street corners), should try and jump-start these people who've lost everything. Working can not only help us to help them, but it can take the mind off of the problems you would otherwise let eat at you daily. Like I said, better schwag, too.

i live in midtown, used to work in downtown, just switched to the galleria area. bottom line is that the people who were too poor to get the hell out of town before the storm hit were poor because they lack education and had no skills to offer. to think that they are suddeenly going to develop skills and a reasonable work ethic is sheer fantasy. they are looking at more free money from the feds than they dreamed was possible and the only way they can screw that up is to get a job and not be indigent.

we might like to think we can help these people by offering them jobs, but the reality is that they are wards of the state (our state now). these people will be welfare babies no matter how many jobs we offer them.

mexicans, on the other hand, have a tremendous work eitjic. illegal aliens want to work, which is the reason they risked their lives to get here in the first place.

yea, i'd like to hire someone who needed help, by the fact is most of the refugees who can help themselves have job skills and will help themselves. the rest will roll in free money and drink wine without a screwtop for the next year or so. they aren't interested in actually working when the party for them is just starting.

Don't you have to have a job in the first place to become jobless?

/just asking

Here's just a few economic hurdles the US will have to overcome in order to avoid Great Depression #2:

- huge fiscal & trade deficits
- gigantic current-account debt
- rising health care & SS costs
- jobs moving overseas
- jobs lost to Katrina
- slowing GDP growth, revised down 1% after Katrina
- peak oil: gasoline shortages, 50% higher natural gas prices this winter
- record private debt levels
- negative private savings rate
- real estate bubble
- record numbers of adjustable rate & interest-only mortgages
- record numbers of mortgage refinancing which is sustaining consumer spending levels
- rising interest rates
- rising inflation
- simultaneous wars in Iraq and Afganistan
- war against Iran after it starts selling oil in Euros (March '06)
- falling US Dollar (fell 8 months out of 9 against the Euro)
- threat of diminishing foreign investment in US dollar due to above factors

Anyone who thinks the US can prosper forever is smoking something I'd like to get my hands on. Yes, if the US economy falls, many others will fall, that doesn't mean it won't happen.

nerfball

A few quick points:

1) Many people with skils may be unemployed for a while. Small businesses that were wiped out and had maybe 10 employees... Those may not ever be rebuilt. The largest employment sector is small businesses, so there will be a LOT of perfectly skilled people with not enough companies to hire them.

2) If we are talking about picking up illegals on the corner, we are not talking about skilled labor. There is no reason that those refugees who DO work hard (they are not ALL crackheads and welfare moms at the dome), can certainly do the day labor that the illegals are doing.

pos = piece of shiat, I see.

Heads up to moms and dads: Urban Dictionary also claims that POS is also used by instant-messaging teens to indicate that a "parent is over shoulder". Funny.

There are a lot of smart dumb people in the media today. It's because at least 2/3 of college athletes major in "Communications" and then they end up with jobs in broadcasting.

Now you've done it.

Flame war about religion, politics, race relations, and illegals all day long if you want. But to insult Communications majors is just plain wrong.

BojanglesPaladin:

There is no reason that those refugees who DO work hard (they are not ALL crackheads and welfare moms at the dome), can certainly do the day labor that the illegals are doing.

if i was living in n.o., working at a stereo store, i'm not going to go out and dig ditches in 90 degree heat for minimum wage. ain't gonna happen.

the displaced workers from the storm are coming to a job market that dwarfs the market of the entire effected region. there are jobs in houston for those with skills. for anyone who would have to compete with illegals, the free cash is more than what they would get by working.

uricake
what is a pos town? POS=P-I-E-C-E O-F S-H-I-A-T=nawlins=detriot. nawlins, pos the term could be interchangeable. i'm basically lazy therefore i use the lower case.
whilst we're on the subject of the work ethic of the mexicans. yes, today they take any and all jobs. back in the 1950's one could say the same about the blacks. and then came the great society....we know the rest. we can also foretell the future re: the mexicans.

Anyone have any idea how the pollution in the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico will affect the food supply?

Developing...

falser
good points, the stock market has had a nearly 25 year run. that's without precedent. real estate prices...about the same. we're certainly ripe for something unpleasant to occur. it's called the maturity of odds. what goes up, comes down.
the american experiment is near, if not at the end.
buy tinfoil and make hats with it.

"Studies show that people who reguarly attend a house of worship are more likely to vote GOP. The same studies also show that people who regularly attend a house of pancakes are more likely to eat syrup."

reasonable fark caption:

"DUMBASS: People build city 30 feet below sea level, right next to the ocean in a hurricane zone; what could possibly go wrong?

Bo,

Good points.

I myself was just trying to point out that these people, after losing so much, may have just gotten the spark they need to get off their asses...and actually start over. It's the starting over aspect of it that provides hope to these refugees, and that means more than people think.

It's basically that you gotta give them a bit of hope that there might just be a future out there that a bit of training/employment can provide. I'm thinking along the lines of "Rosie the Riveter." Little skills outside Domestic USAdom, but in a short amount of time, millions of them were in the workforce for a common, positive goal.

Saying that they have no hope, that they are doomed to repeat their lifelong histories...well, that is just what they don't need to read/hear right now.

with all the money pissed away in foreign aid, this could and should go towards getting our own underclass back into a productive mode. fark the illegal aliens---spend the tax money on our own poor.
here in pugetopolis, a refugee family from ethiopia got a habitat for humanity house. this, when we have homeless americans---some of them veterans--living under bridges. i don't care if they smoke crack and robbed stores. throw some money at them via re-training programs. we really do need to help our own people.

Could it be that Katrina becomes this generation's Dust Bowl?

BojanglesPaladin

1) Many people with skils may be unemployed for a while. Small businesses that were wiped out and had maybe 10 employees... Those may not ever be rebuilt. The largest employment sector is small businesses, so there will be a LOT of perfectly skilled people with not enough companies to hire them.

This is where the devastating impact is going to occur. These people had productive jobs with a permanent place in the economy. Small businesses, especially those of the family kind, were part of what made NOLA so farking cool. You know, those places where you could get the dank catfish or oyster po'boys and bait and shiat, the bodega-type places. Those will likely be replaced by McDonalds, Starbucks, Olive Gardens, Dairy Marts, Seven-elevens and the like. It happened in New York when Giuliani and Bloomberg came in and started to squeeze the little guy out of the equation. White collar jobs are completely gone. Unless the person has a job that allows mobility where they can keep up the work from elsewhere, any white collar employees are going to be out of work for a substantial amount of time. That will be devastating to Louisiana's already poor economy.

2) If we are talking about picking up illegals on the corner, we are not talking about skilled labor. There is no reason that those refugees who DO work hard (they are not ALL crackheads and welfare moms at the dome), can certainly do the day labor that the illegals are doing.


These jobs are transient, not permanent, and well suited for illegal aliens and such because they are usually transient as well. There has always been a class of laborer in the US to take these jobs, like the slaves, or immigrants, or chain-gangs, or the people put to work by FDR's New Deal programs. Essentially, they are not jobs that put anything substantial into our national or state economies, and they do next to nothing for the average American worker as far as pay, benefits, or social mobility. It is folly to think that these jobs are going to be filled by someone else.

Other than that commentary, you've been pretty on in this thread, Bo.

nerfball

That's exactly what I meant. I seriously doubt the welfare queens will feel the motivation to do anything besides waiting for handouts.

Solia: Anyone have any idea how the pollution in the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico will affect the food supply?

That depends on just how concentrated the toxic soup in NOLA is that they're pumping into Lake Potchatrin is. EPA admits it's a substantial risk but they don't know where else to put it. The bacterial contamination will eventually be digested by the sea, but that oil and stuff is going to be rather ugly for the wildlife in the area. I've been watching that closely and EPA isn't even addressing that matter, but I might not eat a clam from the East Coast for a while...and I love clams *sigh*.

Be prepared for the environmental warnings about seafood in about a month or so. They're letting this information out at a rate the American public can bear. You might have also noticed that noone is talking yet about the nuclear plant in NOLA *shudder*. On boingboing.net they've been doing a search for any information about it and they still can't find anything.

Wheat is going to go up because not only was there some waste this past week, but transportation is still disrupted. If farmers can't export as much of their food as they are used to, fields will lie fallow and the American consumer will bear the cost.

It's not just the price of gas that's going to pass on an increased cost to the consumer in the coming months.

/getting myself depressed again
//hey, maybe all those obese Americans will loose weight
///reaching here for a possible good outcome from this

nfw

Nice broad generalization. Most of them have gone, and will in the future go, to work. You ever look at statistics on the welfare rolls? Do you know how many of those people are either
1) disabled
or
2) single parents?

OMG, lexslamman and Bojangles Palladin are actually agreeing about something. Miracles can happen like this only on FARK.

Keep up the good work guys.

mychihuahuas

The more terrible fact is what the hurricane did to our major shipping corridor to the east and midwest, the Mississippi river. There won't be any oceanic traffic into the Mississippi for quite some time, if ever again. The Wall Street Journal did a great report on the environmental damage there. Due to the fact that a major shipping lane has been severely damaged, prices on almost all goods should rise. This, in turn, will hurt the economy because it effects 1) demand and 2) supply, in that companies cannot get their products to market as quickly and easily anymore.

mychihuahuas

Let it never be said that any of us lack the capacity for reason.

lexslamman
being disabled became the route to take when "welfare as we knew it" came about. this involves reading the newspaper and hiring disability attorneys---they advertise. they will hook you up with a compliant doctor and viola---an ssi check every month, discounted living accomadations, a disability placard for your car.
a lot of the single parents became that because of welfare. additional children meant more money.
when i see someone parked in a handicapped zone---their disability should be obvious to me.
paying welfare to a brood sow is patently foolish!

jobless "welfare queens"???


Oh, you mean all those people they sent to Houston?


PWNED!

mychihuahuas: but I might not eat a clam from the East Coast for a while...and I love clams

Me too. However, East Coast clam is too highly strung and self-important. I prefer Midwest clam, personally...

uh, what was the question again?

/gutter

jwhite905

I appreciate how you carefully dodged making a generalization. I don't think there is a debate on whether the welfare system is being abused and whether there are a lot of people on disability that shouldn't be. Hell, I live in Kentucky and work in an emergency department, and the fraud here is undeniable. It is farking massive.

Yet there are many who need these programs, and deserve them, unless we want to submit to a more darwinian way of life and let survival of the fittest take its course...

...which may be better for our gene pool anyway, however, Americans usually frown on eugenics.

DRTFA, but...

While construction should increase, as well as any supportive businesses, (trucking, construction material and supplies as well as cottage industries that pop up) I think there will be a net loss for this town.

After all, it was a Tourist Town (Bars, Hotels, Resturants, Casinos, gift shops, etc). That industry will take years to recover

Bush versus Palpatine: Who would you pick?

Vote for a new Prez

Evil(tm) Evolutionist

I think the market for trombone/trumpet players and umbrella dealers will drastically improve in the coming months.

Danger Mouse

Not only that, but it is likely, given our current economy and how it is structured to support the mega-monopolies, the great little creole kitchens and dirty open aired pubs will probably be replaced with bland middle-american chain restaraunts.

lexslamman [TotalFark]

Not only that, but it is likely, given our current economy and how it is structured to support the mega-monopolies, the great little creole kitchens and dirty open aired pubs will probably be replaced with bland middle-american chain restaraunts.

Oh fark. didn't think of that. I doubt the city could ever recover if they build a row of starbucks, GAPS, and what ever else you young kids spends thier money on these days.

The town will be re-built, it will either resemble LAs Vegas, or Huston or perhpas the French Quater will resemble Times Sq...way, we lost a piece of our culture.

/tear in eye for the seedy strip joints.

Pump the water out? Nah. I say turn it into the New Venice.

/Italy > France, anyway

Can't we make these people border guards? As an added incentive, they can loot the Mexicans they stop.

/problem solver

MrBelvedere

Yeah, because they did so well with guns and vigilante justice before...