Well, it's the end of summer and we're out of money.

Even without going to The Fair. I've finally managed to curb my enthusiasm for life sufficiently to stop blowing cash left & right (books, mags, movies and CDs mostly). And since the bank account's down to zip and gas prices are going the other way... Well, my timing could actually be worse. We didn't actually go into debt this summer.

We'd really be in the black if it weren't for all the hookers & booze.

We blew the last of the cash on a trip 230 miles north to The Cabin. Just the gas and a stop at the DQ pretty much cleaned us out.

But enough whining. At least I still have a home and a cabin to go to and I don't have to dip into the (admittedly sterling) credit line to replace what the looters took. Or worse animals.

I've pretty much been staring with mouth agape at the news of the aftermath of Katrina. This is not the kind of behavior I expect from my fellow Americans. Maybe we shouldn't rebuild the worst flooded areas.

I haven't seen all the stories of kindness yet though, just the disaster.

Update: Walter Block, professor of Economics (an Austrian Anarcho-capitalist) at Loyola University in New Orleans, has a more personal stake, and a more logical take, than I do.

Three paragraphs:

I. Private Enterprise

First of all, the levees that were breached by the hurricane were built, owned and operated by government. Specifically, by the Army Corps of Engineers. The levees could have been erected to a greater height. They could have been stronger than they were. The drainage system could have operated more effectively. Here, the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board was at fault. It consists of three main operating systems: sewerage, water, and drainage. See here, here and here. Had they been, a lot of the inconvenience, fright, and even loss of life undergone in this city could have been avoided.

Then, too, these facilities may have fooled many people into thinking they were safer than they actually were. I know this applies to me. Thus, people were in effect subsidized, and encouraged to settle in the Big Easy. Without this particular bit of government mismanagement, New Orleans would likely have been settled less intensively. (On the other hand, at one time this city was the largest in the South; statist negligence of a different kind — graft, corruption, over-regulation— is responsible for it having a smaller population than otherwise.)

I am not appalled with these failures. After all, it is only human to err. Were these levee facilities put under the control of private enterprise, there is no guarantee of zero human suffering in the aftermath of Katrina. No, what enrages me is not any one mistake, or even a litany of them, but rather the fact that there is no automatic feedback mechanism that penalizes failure, and rewards success, the essence of the market system of private enterprise.