Little thoughts by all this, in no way to 'attack' but something to think about.

Why did "Katrina" was so powerfull? Part of it due to coincidence, but also a big part due to the global warming. Hurricanes get more powerfull when ocean water temperature increases. Exactly what happens now. So it's not unreasonable to assume the possibility of a new and even more powerfull 'katrina'. Several scientists say that there is a 15 to 45% chance. Keeping in mind that those same scientists also said months, even years before, that 70% of New Orleans is below sealevel and that the levees could only upstand against a level 3 storm, but a little 2 billion $ had made then resistant to level 5 (katrina was level 4) while the war in Iraq already costed the US 200 billion $.

This is not about local politics and choices, or not about who's the most generous comparing to others. Besides, someone in the above posts compares the amount/head, perhaps it's not a bad idea to look at the wage/head or amount of poor people in the named countries. I'm pretty sure that the average income in Luxembourg or Switserland is a lot higher then the average in the US. Specially when you count the European social security level as a part of the European average incomes. The European wages may be a lot lower, being the money to spend less, but the Europeans get a good social security in turn. So let's not compare apples and oranges. (this being only a sidenote in my reply).

This is about larger political / ideological choices:
- When you see that Katrina and the last hurricanes in Florida are influenced by the global warming, it seems almost not understandable why the US does not want to step in the Kyoto agreement against global warming. One answer? The oil industry?

- Next, if you come to the conclusion that those big ecological choices have such an enormous effect on the Mississippi area, why not spend money to counter that bad effect due to perhaps a reasonable political / economical choice?

- Knowing the above you can seriously ask questions about the sort of democracy the US is. It seems that distributors say what you are going to eat, what you are going to see on television, hear on the radio, buy at the shopping mall (be it weapons to kill your neighbour in order to rape his woman and eat his cat? putting it very black). Is a scenario like 'waterworld' impossible? New Orleans and Katrina have proved it's not.

- Perhaps a good part of the chaos and anarchy is not only due to very bad governance in times of crisis, but also very bad governance in good days. For instance what about the very sharp duality between poor and rich? Where's America's mid-class? And you can ask serious questions by the racial link between poor and rich. I hope I'am not even capable to believe that race or votes had something to do with the slow reaction of the federal US government, if it does, you can not longer consider the US a decent society. You can even wonder if a country with such a level of unequality can be called decent or civilized. We all saw people saying the were ashamed to be American. Not only now but also at 9/11 and during the Iraq war. A proud nation that is willing to destruct itself?

The Texan said we better focus on the rebuild, yes very true, but if you see that the disaster is going to cost several times more than the means needed to prevent it, then such kind of short term thinking is perhaps also part of the reason why this hurricane had such an impact?