Cashing in on Hurricane Katrina

[Cutehumor]

My bro in law's sister is here ever since the hurricane hit. Well I found this out today and I'm shocked..

She gets 575/month in food stamps
her husband gets a 550/mo weekly paid check from his N.O job--did not miss one pay check from the hurricane from his gracious employer. In fact, he's back in N.O working!
$80k loan from FEMA-for the home that got destroyed, but they didn't have a home, they lived in an APT/CONDO!
$800/mo unemployment check for the wife, she intends to draw the max number of month benefit.
$2100 debit card from FEMA one time only
$1500 check from the Red cross
$2300 every 3 months from FEMA

Before the hurricane, they struggled. have bad credit, lived paycheck to paycheck, even pawned the wife's jewelry to pay bills..my sister told me. She told me they are "living it up" now

 

[Virtuoso]

I feel ripped off.

 

[Al]

I can't wait for the Government to go bankrupt so that this crap stops.

 

[medic]

FEMA needs to be privatized! Normally I am totally against the privatization of government agencies, but this is one where it would be for the best.

You don't wanna know how much $$$$ the prvate ambulance services are making from this deal. They claim to be helping out (and their employees are) while the CEO's are actually lining their pockets with FEMA money.

 

[wavinwayne]

I feel like

 

[Drew99GT]

Darn it! Why can't category 5 hurricanes hit Colorado

 

[Drew99GT]

quote:

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Originally posted by medic:
while the CEO's are actually lining their pockets with FEMA money.

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Goes along with the $3,000 contracts for putting blue tarps on people's roofs. Many of those contractors said they could re-shingle the darn roof for less

That is pure government incompetence.

 

[simple_gifts]

Would anyone change places with them?

 

[Pablo]

And we got Farrakkkhan in DC saying there aren't enough Fed handouts! Criminy.

People have no sense of pride/shame anymore.

 

[Kestas]

We could use a Cat 5 hurricane in Detroit.

 

[cousincletus]

When the floods hit Southern West Virginia in the 1990s you were just SOL if you didn't pay extra for the FEMA insurance. If they do for one group they should do for the other.

 

[GROUCHO MARX]

 

[Al]

quote:

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Originally posted by simple_gifts:
Would anyone change places with them?

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I'm not sure that's the point. I think the idea of the government trying to give everything to everyone by throwing money away is the problem.

In Eloise Tropical Storm in1975...I had a basement wall fall in. That plus the cost of laying a 15 inch corricated line to prevent future problems cost me the equivalant of at least 10K.

I guess if I wasn't so busy trying to take care of the matter myself along with the rest of my neighbors I might have seenn the Uncle Sam's money truck parked in my driveway.

Since when did the government sign on to take responsibility for bad things that happen in life?? I'm plain sick of it. I think took a dangerous turn when the government paid the WTC folks an average of 1.6 million dollars each

 

[rjundi]

That is not an inordinate amount of money if you are a single parent have absolutely nothing except tattered clothes on your back and a few toddlers and a screaming infant.

Who can determine in a relatively fashion quick fashion what is fair under diress? Some suffer under this while others prosper. Hopefully the median can survive ok with this.

Lastly, a good question for all of us behind a cozy keyboard. Would you feel this is too much if you had absolutely nothing except a clothes in a new place trying to make it?

 

[Schmoe]

Whoa dude, you are way out of line. You need to read the very first post. There are numerous of us out in the real world that barely make it check to check. Yeah, I feel sorry for the people in the big easy. It was an unfortunate incident. It's not like no one knew this could happen, they just chose to ignore it. Well, it all came full circle, it happened. So, just because they were living there at that time, now they get all these hand outs for just LIVING there? That's **. I didn't know they were getting that much money. H#ll, that's more than I make and had to scratch and crawl just to get that. It's like how the welfare worked some years ago, they practically paid you to have kids. The more kids you had, the more they gave you. Some of us probably remember seeing welfare families pulling up in new Cadillacs to collect their checks. Nothing physically wrong with them, just lazy and never had a foot put up their arshes and get with the program. So what happens down the road, those kids are now doing the exact same thing their parents did. The working stiffs are getting outnumbered by the lazy ones. In the long run, just who do you think is paying for that? The working class that pay their fair share of taxes. But when something happens like in NO, there are always groups that come out and say the government is not doing enough. Wah Wah Wah....makes me want to just projectile vomit.

 

[wander2039]

Schmoe your not the only one wanting to vomit over this crap. I agree with you 100%. As a college student finances are difficult, but I make it without any hand-outs. Jobs are always available, the only disability that keeps you from having a job is lazyness. Another fact is that these people lived in a soup bowl between three bodys of water with no flood insurance, or any insurance period. Stupid isn't the word for it.

 

[Schmoe]

Amen Eric. It has been no secrete during the past umpteen decades that this could happen. But it was ignored. The old adage...it won't happen to me...kicked in with some people. It will be interesting to see who gets the final blame. Corps of Engineers or politicians.

 

[mechtech]

Al - Im glad you brought up the forgotten atrocity of paying out the 1.6 mil to each of the WTC 'folks'[tax free, of course].
It seems that we can't p-ss away our tax money fast enough, and found a need to surgically open the bladder directly.

 

[Benzadmiral]

I live in NO. In fact I grew up ('struth!) in the French Quarter back before it became a giant tourist trap. Of course I evacuated, to TX, and was lucky that my place here was spared. But --

I got only $300 from the Red Cross, and only one $2300 check from the Federal Experts My **** people. (Plus the initial $2K, of course.) Cutehumor, did your relatives get a higher level of benefits because they had kids or something? And I live in an apartment. Can I get an $80K loan, too?

In some ways I think we're due some of this, for all the taxes we've paid over the years. Note I said "some." Government is supposed to do for its citizens what they cannot do for themselves, i.e., help them over the hump after a major disaster. (Unfortunately these days we seem to interpret this as "what they *won't* do for themselves.")

Quote from Eric Smith:
>> these people [New Orleanians] lived in a soup bowl between three bodys of water with no flood insurance, or any insurance period. Stupid isn't the word for it.
I've been saying that for years, and trying to relocate to someplace drier and cooler. All the morons here can think of is rebuilding in the exact same spots. Apparently the same idiocy is going on along the Gulf Coast. Land you'd think nobody would want on a flippin' bet is going for *more* than before the storms. Jeez.

 

[Al]

quote:

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Originally posted by mechtech:
Al - Im glad you brought up the forgotten atrocity of paying out the 1.6 mil to each of the WTC 'folks'[tax free, of course].

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It makes my blood pressure boil just by thinking about it.