Katrina Update

It's getting worse. 68 dead. Power outages everywhere. No shelter. Skyrocketing oil prices. 80% of the city underwater. And now it seems that it won't be inhabitable for at least a month. Kevin Drum links to a list of charity aiding victims of the catastrophe. Please donate.

Comments

[Greg Kuperberg]

Ahem. Yes, it's bad. But is it this bad?

[Minipundit]

No. See link to your right. Just because they aren't suffering more than anyone else doesn't mean they don't deserve help.

[Greg Kuperberg]

Can I pro-rate the urgency of this by the number of people involved? Compared to third-world poverty, that is. I'll let you do the math.

[Minipundit]

Yes, you can. But I don't think that donating to hurricane victims is a morally negative, or even neutral, decision. It's admirable, and should be promoted.

[Greg Kuperberg]

I will grant you that it's morally admirable. It's also illogical. The victims of Katrina will get a lot of FEMA money, a lot of insurance money, and a lot of private aid. Besides, southeast Louisiana is an unwise location for residential development. You could even call it an arrogant choice. It's a monstrosity of perverse incentives.

All you have to do to boost the moral value of your donation by a factor of 10,000 is change the recipient.

[Greg Kuperberg]

Well, before I start to sound too Scrooge, I do think that there should be a lot of federal relief for Hurricane Katrina. The federal government correctly acts as the insurer of last resort in many cases, this being one of them. It is not clear whether there will really be enough federal relief. But even if there isn't, the mess is so monumentally expensive that private aid won't make much difference.

If you still feel compelled to give out of compassion, that's okay, but it's a lot better to give to a charity that has international operations, and not to earmark the money. Charities should be free to decide their priorities. (Or, if you don't trust a charity to decide its priorities, you shouldn't give money to it at all.)

[Greg Kuperberg]

A quote from a Times article today:

Before many casino employees are back at work, Mr. Cochrane, the economist, said the region's economy will be feeling flush as insurance checks are cashed and a rebuilding boom occurs. "There is sort of this perverse positive aspect to natural disasters," he said. By mid-September, he estimated, based on past disasters, construction work should be in full swing with workers drawn to the Gulf Coast from other regions.

This is going to be tens of billions of dollars of insurance claims.

It may be obvious to those who have televisions that private charity won't be gilding the lily. It isn't obvious to me.

[Minipundit]

A dollar's a dollar's a dollar. It helps just as much wherever it goes. More dollars are needed in Africa, yes, but they won't help more than they will in New Orleans.

[Minipundit]

You doin't have a TV? Search for some images, then. This borders on the slum situation.

[Greg Kuperberg]

It is just not true that a dollar helps just as much wherever it goes. They are looking at on the order of $25 billion in government money and insurance for about a half-million people. That's $50,000 per person. Private donations are going to make very little difference here. There are other ways to give $50,000 that could save the lives of hundreds of people. (Or, in the case of our main charity, prevent the birth of hundreds of children into poverty.)

What you are seeing on television now is not any real shortage of money. It's disorganization and unsolvable problems. A lot of people and a lot of money are already waiting in the wings, but there is only so much that money and people can do in the short term.

[Minipundit]

Okay, okay, fine. But I think we resolved this in the other thread. Just a question: you know how anti-sweatshop activists refer to workers working for 10 cents a day? Is there some sort of pseudo-exchange rate that accounts for purchasing power in different countries?