The End of The World, Again.

I keep saying that I'm not prepping for the end of the world, just the end of my world

Here in Vermont, many people's safe ordered worlds have ended.  Property damage is bad in many areas.  A friend in  Upstate New York tells the story of a co worker who now has nothing left but the scrubs in her car and the pajama's she was wearing when the Sheriff banged on her door, yelling "You have to evacuate now!  Not ten minutes from now!  NOW!"

I read a statistic that said that, after a major disaster, 40% of small businesses fail.  I see farms that just won't be able to make it past the crop failure this year,  business that will just have to shut their doors and be done with it.

I also see homeowners who, without flood insurance, will just say "screw it" and  never return to their home, maybe moving in with family or friends.  The saddest part is that some of these people TRIED to buy flood insurance but were told, "No.  Your house came through the 1927 flood.  No way it's going to flood now."

Perhaps I'm being overly pessimistic, but all I have to do is talk to my friends in Louisiana to feel that I am not.  An area with no road access is called a "wilderness".  Going by this, we've got more a bit more wilderness today than two weeks ago.

The political bullshitting has already started, with Congress creatures from both sides wondering where the money is coming from.  I got an idea...How about we start means testing Congress creatures?  Like we do with other government program?  If you are worth more than $1 million, how about you donate your Congressional salary to a fund for recovery, rather than taking it out of Medicaid funds? And if you're a pauper, living just on your Congressional salary? How about you donate 100K out of it.  I'm sure you can get by on 50% (roughly) more than what the median US income is (median income is 42K.  Congress creatures make about 175K).  That'll give us 5 to 7 million to get started with.

Better yet, let's go back to taxing the rich at 90%.  That's how we built all those freeways in the first place.

I'm just ranting because I'm frustrated.  In the end, it isn't even about how much money there is or is not.  This is the new normal. I keep hearing that phrase.  Usually with a shrug and a "What are you gonna do?" sort of gesture. Disasters will happen, because they always happen.  People will get on with their lives, doing what they have to do.   In three days time, we're on to the next news item.  If CNN's really lucky, some celebrity will do something egregiously embarrassing, and they can stop talking about disasters for a while.

When that palls, they'll move on to the end of someone else's world.