Apple Inc (AAPL)

[langostino]

OT: Right on, tomm

The Federal Flood Insurance program is among the most moronic public policies on our books, not to mention a sickeningly regressive tax and boondoggle.

It is assinine to build on barrier islands, and on rapidly eroding beachfronts. I won't even get into the wetlands issues you mentioned - they're a disaster all their own.

Since 1980, the North Carolina coast has eroded by more than 600 feet in the Cape Hatteras locale. We have lighthouses that were built 100 yards inland of the coast during the brief history of our country, that are now more than a quarter mile out at sea.

Yet we permit people to build in areas that we know with 100% certainty WILL BE GONE in a relatively short period of time, historically speaking, and we tell the owners that we'll build them roads, provide them utilities, provide them emergency services, and we'll even pay them for property losses by heavily subsidizing insurance policies for them (which amounts to nothing more than paying for their houses to fall into the sea, but on an installment basis).

And the worst thing about it, is the regressivity of the burden. Poor and middle class people aren't the ones building million dollar beachfront homes.