Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Midwest floods and self reliance

Any ideas on why the people displaced by the midwest floods aren’t rioting and complaining that FEMA is not supplying coffee makers? I think it’s mostly because the flood victims are small business owners. Farmers, small store owners, small auto repair business; that kind of thing.

These people are used to solving problems themselves and making things work. When the floods destroyed their homes and businesses they started figuring out how to make things work again. Since they built it once they know they could build it again. All they really need is a little time and the cash to get started. The people who in New Orleans who rioted were mostly used to having a government agency fix things.

I live where my taxes don’t provide trash pickup. My choices are to pay a private company to pick up my trash or take it to the transfer station myself. I take it to the transfer station once a month and save about $20 a month over the cost of pickup.

This simple example multiplied by the number of things the people in the midwest did for themselves before the floods is why they are just fixing things and not rioting against the government when things go wrong.

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