Obama To Visit Post-Katrina New Orleans

It was announced by the AP that globe trotting Barack Obama is scheduled to make a domestic spin from the East to West Coast (for a black tie fundraiser in San Francisco, home to the bulk of the Global Socialists within one of the mainstream parties) via New Orleans in order to do a post-Katrina checkup.

As one who has family that was evacuated for both Katrina and Gustav, and a survivor myself of Gustav while there for an extended stay last year due to a family members illness and then subsequent surgery (although my 14 year old car is another story), it would appear that much could also be done to help the struggling Louisiana economy post-Katrina in providing new jobs for some of those displaced and still homeless.

Louisiana, of course, has seen a huge migration of the illegal immigrant population, most of which are being hired by the government contractors for the reconstruction.

Recently, the New Orleans City Council and its state legislators have been busy attempting also to protect them from some of those same government contractors. Some of which apparently have been withholding payment for their work even with those great discounts in taxation they receive for hiring foreigners as opposed to Americans.

With corporate America other than those that determine those salaries, the executives and Boards of Directors, even cheap foreign labor is not cheap enough to max out those profits on the repairs.

Of course, many have also flooded in from Texas and other nearby states in the construction industry. Many of which informed me while I was in Katrina ravaged East New Orleans and the Chalmette area were being paid $300 per day for clearing the debris. After getting all their mandated shots, of course.

The security detail checkpoint that I had to go through in order to get to a nearby hotel I stayed in (whose elevator still had no electricity that visit, almost three years later, nor did the local corner gas station store) was actually there in order to protect the heavy equipment from vandalism or theft.

Not those living or staying in the area at all.

This area, of course, suffered much of the damage due to a nearby levee which broke the day after the storm.

My sister's inlaws returned to their home in Chalmette four weeks later when the power was restored and found the water line at the 10 foot level in their home, which then had to be totally destroyed and rebuilt. They were fortunate. They had flood insurance.

Many did not, and were and still are being given the run around by the insurers even though a great deal of the damage is clearly Katrina related. Many lost their roofs which resulted in total destruction even before the levees broke.

Obama has promised and highlighted his commitment to pump a great deal of money into the area in order to rebuild the infrastructure that was destroyed. But if some of those government contractors are now withholding payment for some of their illegal workforce, I just wonder what other corners they are cutting in the repairs themselves.

Louisiana is notorious, after all, for having some of the worst streets and roads due to the fact that much of the taxes that are collected are pumped also into the tourism industry rather than infrastructure needs.

And the beautiful homes in the French Quarter, America, did survive since they were so well constructed over 200 years ago. And built, of course, on the highest ground available.

However, many of those owners had to end up placing those homes also on the market due to the astronomical increases then in insurance for all those living in or near any of those levees, like within 200 miles from many of the homeowners' reports. The entire state actually is "high risk" due to those two storms within less than five years.

There is also a new edict from recent reports of some of the homeowners that the state has enacted a law that requires that those that owned homes that were affected by the storms MUST rebuild within a certain amount of time, or lose their land to the state.

And, of course, new building standards for flood prone now areas. There are now additional costs of construction that are required so that homes are now, in some case, mandated to be built on concrete pilings 10 feet above the ground.

Except, of course, for those that are being subsized with federal funding, or those that are being built with private non-profit funding for those displaced low income families. Which simply means if another should occur, they or their posterity will again be homeless.

How's that for "property rights?"

Seizing now the land of some of the victims who certainly may not be able to rebuild with the cost now of insurance to rebuild on those tracts of land. Which law, of course, depresses the price those owners can expect even from selling the land, or using it for some other purpose such as merely as security for any other purchased property.

Many of whom were also in the lower income brackets to begin with, and thus have little savings for down payments on new homes in the area, or any other state for that matter. And now without even the wealth they had built up in the land itself to use as a factor in negotiating for a new or replacement home post-Katrina.

Which is why Louisiana does have one of the lowest income levels per capita at this point with the aftershocks of Katrina still reverberating, Brad Pitt's efforts notwithstanding, since even those low cost homes being built still require the banker's due and upfront costs for financing.

Most of those still standing homes in the Quarter which are on the market are being sold and marketed to the British and listed with Sotheby's, not local realtors or real estate companies.

I ran into several while walking through the Garden District last spring. Their money is now at a higher exchange rate, and it does appear that the British are buying up a great deal of America's assets, including its internet and television stations, and now even those stately old Louisiana homes.

It's gotten to the point that as an American, and refugee from Arizona due to the foreign invasion which has occurred there, I do feel like a stranger in a strange land.

My own country.

I hope Mr. Obama isn't just using this visit once again to push his globalism agenda, although will find a more favorable audience now that there are so many foreigners now who have taken the place of the Americans who were forced to flee during Katrina.

His scouters and advisors might have warned him. Maybe he should hold two townhalls at this point. One in English. The other in Spanish.

Just to make sure that all "stakeholders" are well informed and reassured that the "rebuilding" efforts go as planned.

Except that part of his speech that was released also included the fact that part of his mission is to advise those townhall attendees that Washington will soon be easing funds so that residents can become self-sufficient.

Maybe he needs to speak with the insurers about that.

Or create some new jobs by inspecting the government contractors labor force, and travel through the French Quarter and Garden District and speak with the new owners, the British.

Before he heads off on Air Force One for the San Francisco black tie event.