leaky_cauldron
04.09.05, 02:44
na różne sprawy, a w szczególności na te związane z katastrofa w Nowym
Orleanie, to polecam najnowszy numer "The Economist". Piszą tam ciekawie
zarówno o przyczynach katastrofy, jak i o jej przewidywanych skutkach na
dłuższa metę.
Ja od czasu, gdy pobierałam edukację w Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and
Wizzardy, lubie bezemocjonalne, wyważone "podejście do spraw" w brytyjskim stylu.
Ale osobom, u których sprawa NO pobudza raczej uczucia typu "schadenfreude",
lektury materiału z "The Economist" chyba właśnie NIE polecałabym.
Niestety chyba "The Economist" nie jest łatwo dostępny na Webie.
Chyba trzeba płacić, albo być prenumeratorem "papierowej wesji".
Tutaj przytaczam końcówke ze wstępniaka:
What about the wider effect on America's economy? Immediately after the storm,
oil jumped to $70 per barrel, though it fell back after George Bush ordered
the release of oil from the federal petroleum reserves to help refiners
affected by the hurricane. Rumours remain of a plea to ask Americans to
conserve energy to avert panic buying. Meanwhile, an array of economists
talked about Katrina costing America $25 billion.
History suggests that the hurricane will have little effect on the national
economy. Despite all the pictures of sinking hotels and flooded convention
centres, the overall impact of natural disasters is often close to neutral:
lost output (which will be large) is then compensated for by a surge in
reconstruction and public spending (also large). That may be scant comfort to
individual hoteliers, residents and insurers, but on a national level the
economic damage will be real but limited.
The one caveat has to do with oil, or, to be more specific, petrol. The damage
to the energy network of rigs, refineries and pipelines in the Gulf of Mexico
has coincided with a relative shortage of gasoline. Price hikes at the pumps
could spark panic buying—and that could scare America's consumers. As with the
federal rescue effort, this is a test of Mr Bush's leadership. He is welcome
to persuade Americans to conserve energy; but beware any talk from the
president about the disaster somehow underlining his fraudulent campaign to
boost America's energy security. It doesn't. The United States will remain
reliant on foreign sources of energy.
If there are lessons this week to learn from the past, there will also be
lessons from this week to carry forward. New Orleans is hardly the only
example of America's admirable hubris. Many of its greatest man-made miracles
are built on precarious natural foundations. What happened to the Gulf coast
this week, will one day happen—in a different way—to Silicon Valley, Miami,
Los Angeles or any of the other places that triumphantly defy geography in one
way or another. There will always be more disasters; with luck they will not
catch America as unprepared as Katrina did.
