Hurricane Katrina "Victims" Still Trying To Sponge Off The Gov't
This is getting pretty ridiculous. Those people have squandered away money like it was coming out of a faucet. This includes the "victims" and the Louisiana / New Orleans government. How much money to they need to rebuild rat-infested shanties?
Hurricane Katrina's victims have put a price tag on their suffering and it is staggering — including one plaintiff seeking the unlikely sum of $3 quadrillion.
A whopping $3,014,170,389,176,410 is the dollar figure so far sought from some of the largest claims filed against the federal government over damage from the failure of levees and flood walls following the Aug. 29, 2005, hurricane.
Of roughly 489,000 total claims, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it has received 247 for at least $1 billion apiece, including the one for $3 quadrillion.
"That's the mother of all high numbers," said Loren Scott, a Baton Rouge-based economist.
For the sake of perspective: A mere $1 quadrillion would dwarf the U.S. gross domestic product, which Scott said was $13.2 trillion in 2007. A stack of one quadrillion pennies would reach Saturn.
[...]
The corps released zip codes, but no names, for the 247 claims of at least $1 billion. The list includes a $77 billion claim by the city of New Orleans. Fourteen involve a wrongful death claim. Fifteen were filed by businesses, including several insurance companies.
Little is known about the person who claimed $3 quadrillion. It was filed in Baker, 93 miles northwest of New Orleans. Baker is far from the epicenter of Katrina's destruction, but the city has a trailer park where hundreds of evacuees have lived since the storm.
I wonder why nobody has asked "why hasn't Mississippi had the same problems?" After all; they took a direct hit. Everything was flattened. Could it be the competence of the governments? Mississippi had a Republican governor, Louisiana had a Democrat governor. I guess it could be said that once again, a Democrats solution to a problem is throw money at it.
h/t: AOSHQ
