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Requests that Hurricane Irma hold off for a few days while Washington figures out how to pay for Hurricane Harvey have not yet had any effect.
Bloomberg Business News, relying on anonymous staffers in the US Senate and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, reports that FEMA is burning cash at a rate of $9.3 million an hour, and will be broke in about 48 hours (as of Wednesday, September 6). This spending is in response to Hurricane Harvey’s assault on southern Texas, the costs of which are just starting to come in. Just about 72 hours from now Irma, one of the most powerful hurricanes in history, will slam into Miami.
According to Bloomberg’s sources, FEMA had only $2.14 billion on hand last Thursday morning, and by Tuesday morning had spent over half of it. Of the billion dollars left, only half of it was available to spend. Presumably, if this liquidity problem cannot be solved within hours, FEMA will be out of money even sooner than Friday.
The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote today, Wednesday, on an emergency appropriation of $8 billion for FEMA (keep in mind that predicted costs of recovery are in the neighborhood of $120 billion, so this would be a band aid to stop the bleeding until the doctor gets here). If the esteemed legislators can actually bestir themselves sufficiently to do this, and it is far from safe to assume that they can, then whatever they pass, festooned with whatever tinsel and ornaments they put on it, will be sent (presumably by snail mail) to the Senate.
There, plans are afoot to create a Siamese Twin Frankenstein’s Bill — one that would both fund FEMA and raise the national debt limit. This latter thing — a sort of “stop me before I borrow again” appeal from the Congress to itself, a substitute for decision making — could tie the Congress in knots for weeks of “debate.” But if it is not raised, immediately, the government will not be able to borrow the money its needs for FEMA. That’s right. It has to borrow the money it needs for FEMA.
Whatever the Senate decides to do, as it will almost certainly be different from what the House did, and must then go back to the House for reconciliation. If the House agrees with the Senate in every particular — and only then — the legislation can go the the President for signature. By that time Mar-A-Lago may be gone and he may be too distraught to sign anything.
Meanwhile FEMA already — today — has restricted spending in Texas to what it calls “lifesaving, life-sustaining response efforts” as it awaits the arrival of pony express riders from Washington with saddlebags of cash — and the arrival of Irma in Miami.
Sure, Texas helped out in the coup to remove JFK ( oops! Too late to save Marilyn ), but what has it done for the elite lately? It’s ONLY Texas, let ’em drown. Yankee pukes.
This morning my bookie set the over/under on Irma damage at 585 billion. Mistake! I don’t think my book fully understands what Cat 5 can do to a peninsula that is well on its way to lying below sea level for the rest of eternity.
I immediately put 50 on the over. The bet’s a mortal lock, methinks.
I read somewhere that the military has lost 6.7 trillion dollars over ..?… X-amount of time, and can’t find it. I say, send out the greenback/sniffer dogs, because Congress needs an infusion of cash, and what’s better or more useful -in a time of extreme crisis- than found money?
Correction, Cat 5 should read Cat 6, because, let’s face it, that’s what Irma really is.
See, dis whut aw-weez happins – ya ha’ really smart, dedicated guys doin’ dey jobs, tellin’ ya how ‘s-gone BE – an’ ya don’ LIS-SIN! Tam after tam – dey te ye “don’ build dare, iz a “flood plane” – but youse see money, spread it aroun’ ta-ya frenz in hah places – an’ WA-LAH, ye end up payin’ big tam.
‘Fact WE- AWL en’ up payin’ big-tam – FO YO MISTAKES!
And when the rebuilding part begins, if ever, certain areas won’t be on the map any more . . .
You see the Faustian bargain of fossil fuel power beginning to exact it’s toll. The companies that made all the money producing and providing it KNEW this would begin to happen (they funded the science and BELIEVED IT), and yet continued along since the 1970’s – because of this concept of money.
It really makes people do some crazy shit – like set rainforests on fire to make cattle ranches, burn down pristine islands to make palm oil plantations, and poach rhinos and elephants to extinction for their ivory. Human trafficking, organ harvesting, and we’re the ‘smart’ apes, with the big brains . . .
Yeah, humanity – we’re really livin’ up to the hype!
Friggin’ hilarious!!! 🤣 Kudos.
Tom, amen. I’ve pondered those very same things for far too long. Makes me crazy.
I wonder why the first thing I thought of when I saw the photo above was a breast or navel.
Perhaps I’m going mad. Like everyone else today.
What epoch are we living in? The Holocene? The incredibly controversial, Anthropocene? Non’t matter. I like epochs well enough. Epochs are cool, they’re tidy, but still, they don’t quite cut it for me.
I’m old school. Rather than epochs, give me the Ages, like the Age of Faith, for instance, or the Age of Reason, or the Age of Rape of Pillage …which I believe we are currently, just leaving.
Instead, a new age is dawning, overlapping and replacing the used up Rape and P, an age that 97% of tenured scholars are claiming they’re naming, the Age of Insanity.
Wow. We live in The Age of Insanity. Even with the soundest of minds and stoutest of hearts it is near impossible not to absorb significant proportions of residual madness regardless of the vigilant and perpetual guard we daily put up against it.
I know I drink in some unwanted madness every waking hour (which is on clear display in the sentence above). Still, I take comfort in knowing this fathoming of the dangers of the lurking insanity all-about makes me superior to say, the Neolithic (?) inhabitants of the Thunderbird site. I mean, could The People possibly understand the ending of the timeless Lean classic, the Bridge over the River Quai? No, they could not! It would make no sense to them, whereas I really do get it -or at least I think I really do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KU7_G2grxJE
Neolithic. I forced myself to do a cursory search. Hope I got it right.
I was thinking pre-Cambrian for some reason. Who were the pre-Cambrians? I don’t have a phone, so I get mixed up easy. Were they real, or are the Cambrians an island tribe in Game of Thrones, or a planet-mobile alien species in Star Trek 12, and I just threw in a pre for no good reason. I’m not looking it up, either. I don’t want to know.
We are almost planet-mobile, we humans, that’s some good news amidst the horror. Thanks to Elton (John?) and his hyper-efficient, privately owned and highly patented rockets …and Mars delivery systems.
Just dawned on me, is the Musk Project in the possible firing line in Florida? Is that where he blasts off his Mars rockets? Gotta look that up.
Thanks to TV news, I’ve been informed of the exact locations -and relative merits under duress- of Florida’s FIVE nuclear power stations, any which of whom, could soon find themselves under a Cat 5 eye.
Depending on which path Irma takes across the Sunshine State, she might end up taking on three of em. Or four. You never know.
South Texas Power made it thru Harvey. With flying colors. In fact, it was confidently humming along at full nuke power -and bragging about it on Twitter- despite being completely surrounded.
http://www.fukuleaks.org/web/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/UCD_flood_map_aug_29.jpg
The Lone Star State doesn’t dodge bullets, it slaps them away.
Turkey Point Nuclear Power Plant, just south of Miami -essentially in command of the eastern flank of the Everglades Defense System, where the action will soon be the hottest.
http://enformable.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Turkey-Point-Nuclear-Power-Plant.jpg
Like at Alexander the Great, Turkey Point fearlessly leads from the tip of the spear. Mark my words, she will pierce Irma’s defenses and strike a death blow to its core.