PBD Podcast and Sam Seder, is he disingenuous?

I ran across this by mistake recently and I love when PBD speaks with folks whom he disagrees with as he is even keel and logical and it makes for great conversations.

I watch a little Sam Seder here and there and on his show I have seen him either lie or repeat propaganda frequently about certain topics.  But the man is smart and he is informed and clearly has put in his own thought work on ideas.

But here in this podcast PBD requests he qualifies his remarks many times.  Seder’s arguments confuse me because here he says that government is more efficient in spending tax payers money (he incorrectly calls it government money) and says with certain programs like Social Security the government is far more efficient than the private sector.  But then he turns around and tells you how other parts of the government throw money away and are malevolent.

This seems like cherry picking to me based on agenda.  Why would anyone expect people who you say don’t care about you and waste your money to take care of you and do a good job?  That seems like massive cognitive dissonance.

Furthermore he uses an example how the private sector is wasteful and negative as it relates to serving the public.  He spoke of how FEMA was privatized by George Bush  (I have zero love for either Bush) and that because of that buses that could have saved people in New Orleans (that were staged for that reason) we not deployed in time to save money.  He says it was a horrific story that stuck with him for years.

Well, I am from New Orleans and I lived through Katrina.  His story is incorrect. Those buses were not deployed in time but it’s because of failings of the city and state to my recollection has zero to do with FEMA.  There was A LOT of failures in planning and execution during that horrible time (and it was horrible) but it was at the city and state level.  Now I will tell you that when sh!t hits the fan, the best laid plans are essentially just guidelines and you do the best you can.  But Blanco (governor at the time who has since passed) and Nagin (mayor of New Orleans) were HORRIBLE.   It was a hard situation but they entirely botched it.  FEMA showed up late because Blanco has to request their assistance, FEMA cannot just roll into a state.  And she did that late.

Here is something most don’t know about Katrina.  It wasn’t Katrina that flooded New Orleans, it was the failure of levees. The worst of Katrina (winds wise)  did not hit Louisiana it hit Mississippi.  Who built and maintains the levees?  Army Corps of Engineers is involved and the local municipalities maintain them.

Flooding New Orleans is a hard thing for that area as much of New Orleans is a literal bowl.  This means the only way mass amounts of water leave it are through huge city run pumps that dump into Lake Pontchartrain. So emergencies that keep you from running pumps means the water stays. And during Katrina about half the pumps were not able to run and between all the rain and then the flooding it was a very bad situation.  Interesting thing is that I have read articles explaining how using those pumps for hundred plus years is causing the city to sink.