[Griff]

Top Management

A fiscal hurricane was brewing in President George W. Bush's speech to the nation in New Orleans. "We will rebuild this great city," he declared. "No matter the cost." Congress readily authorized an appropriation of $62 billion to address the flood-disaster needs.

Politicians are already talking about two hundred billion dollars for the net expenditure. Some say it will go much higher.

Two hundred billion dollars! Does anyone in the federal government realize how close this comes to paving the streets of New Orleans with gold?

The appalling political cynicism of this relief effort is revealed with a simple arithmetic calculation. Just divide two hundred billion dollars in reconstruction money by the one million residents of the city, and you get two hundred thousand dollars for every man, woman, and child in New Orleans!

For a typical suburban family of four, this means an expenditure of eight hundred thousand dollars. You could not only rebuild their home – but raze it and rebuild it, raze it and rebuild it – and then, raze it and rebuild it. And still you would have money left over!

It's easy enough to understand where the floodwaters went, but just where is this flood of money going?

Let's pretend that we've mutated into socialists and our sense of guilt compels us to upgrade everyone's living quarters. But come on – million-dollar homes for welfare mothers with four children? Even the looniest Swedish Social Democrat wouldn't go there!

So will the money be invested instead in the infrastructure of the streets outside the homes?

Well, here's one truly 'golden' way of picturing it.

If you allow that an ounce of gold can cover a square foot of pavement, and that gold is currently costing about four hundred dollars an ounce, then for two hundred thousand dollars per person, you could cover five hundred square feet. This is twenty-five feet of suburban street front. A family of four would be accorded a hundred feet of street front. That would be enough to span the street frontage of a typical suburban home lot.

Thus, by asking for two hundred billion dollars, President Bush is coming within an order of magnitude of literally paving the streets of New Orleans with gold.