> What else are they going to do with the stuff? It would all into the
> trash anyway. I guess a good capitalist morality play requires that
> goods go into the trash rather than be taken by those in need of them.
>
> Doug
I think so. This kind of behavior is widespread (why else would the Israelis dynamite settler's houses before evacuating them from the West Bank?).
There are three important points about New Orleans that I think need to be stressed:
1) New Orleans is destroyed. If it is rebuilt, all the stuff people stole (and I don't consider breaking into a Walgreens for food and medicine "stealing") will have to be written off, anyway, since it will not be salvageable once it's been underwater for the two weeks it will take to pump all that water out of the basin.
2) New Orleans may not be rebuilt at all. It's hard to see how that could happen without multiple tens of billions of dollars of cash inflow, and it's hard to see how that expenditure can be justified given that a Cat 5 hurricane would destroy it all -- again. If it's not rebuilt, New Orleans will be our first Dhalgrenesque post-apocalyptic urban wasteland.
3) Right now, New Orleans is under a total evacuation order. People are going to have to leave the stuff they stole behind when they evacuate; if they eventually can come back to the city, see (1) above about unsalvageability. And if they never come back, or refuse to evacuate, see (2) above about "urban wasteland".
-- John S Costello joxn.costello at gmail.com "No cord or cable can draw so forcibly, or bind so fast, as love can do with a single thread." -- Robert Burton