Hurricanes, Tornadoes, Earthquakes, Disasters

[SeriousMoney]

Post-Katrina Recontruction Costs Will Top Roosevelt's New Deal and World War II Marshall Plan... <Larry Edelson, Editor, Energy Options Alert, 9/12/05>

Katrina’s destruction in the Gulf States covers 90,000 square miles, an area the size of Great Britain.

So it should be no surprise that the clean up and rebuilding will be the largest public works project in the history of the United States. Indeed ...

The most up-to-date data now coming in put the cost at upwards of $200 billion.

That’s more than FDR’s entire “New Deal” from 1935 to 1943. Even in today’s dollars, the grand total of all New Deal expenditures during that 8-year period came to “only” $153 billion.

Plus, it’s more than double the entire cost of the hugely ambitious Marshall Plan to rebuild all of Western Europe after World War II. In today’s dollars, the Marshall Plan cost the U.S. “only” $100 billion.

The post-Katrina reconstruction costs will be more than the total expenditures for Iraq and Afghanistan ... far more than all the budget cuts of the past two years ... and greater than any public works project in the history of our country.

In the 14 days since Katrina hit, Washington has already committed over $62 billion in federal aid, largely through a “no bid” process -- meaning that companies with the most connections to Washington are getting the business.