Day: October 14, 2008

400 still in Red Cross shelter, Salvation Army serving 15,000 meals per day, and 14,650 still without power – keeping an eye on Ike

Ike’s powerful winds didn’t collapse the market on Wall Street – but with the “bailout” and Presidential election dominating the news, it’s difficult to find out exactly what it was that Ike did do and how things are going now.

SLABBED keeps an eye on Ike with these two recent stories updating damage reports – the first from the Insurance Journal with the latest on the cost.

…The storm is the most expensive in Texas history, with an estimated price tag of $11.4 billion so far. Insurance losses from Ike are expected to be at least $10 billion, said Mark Hanna, a spokesman for the Insurance Council of Texas…

And then there are the 37 found dead so far in Texas and hundreds still unaccounted for one month after Hurricane Ike barreled ashore on Galveston Island, leveling trees onto power lines and temporarily crippling the nation’s fourth-largest city and the center of the U.S. energy industry.

The monster storm – 600 miles wide when it hit land – was felt as far away as Illinois, killing another 35 people on its drive across the country. And the shutdown of Gulf refineries caused gasoline shortages in Atlanta and elsewhere in the Southeast.

Galveston County Judge Jim Yarbrough offered a refrain often repeated by officials when discussing recovery efforts from Ike, which blasted ashore Sept. 13.

“It’s a marathon. It’s not a sprint,” he said. “It’s going to take at least a couple of years before we fully recover. It’s going to be a long haul.”

As time passes, it will be possible to compare data on recovering from Katrina to like data from Ike and see which long haul was longer and why.  Nowadays, however, we can only piece together stories – which brings us to the source of the data in the post headline and today’s Houston Chronicle. Continue reading “400 still in Red Cross shelter, Salvation Army serving 15,000 meals per day, and 14,650 still without power – keeping an eye on Ike”

It's a small world after all – which lion will be King?

It’s a world of hope and it’s a world of fear
There’s so much that we share, that it’s time we’re aware
It’s a small world after all

Bush to announce bank rescue plan – news stories and blog posts with some variation of that headline are all over the web tonight.

President Bush was scheduled to announce the new initiatives early Tuesday after executives of the country’s biggest banks were summoned to a remarkable meeting at the Treasury Department on Monday.

Almost as many seem to have a headline suggesting our approach has been I’m the leader, wait for me – Europe puts more on the line.

Europe put $2.3 trillion on the line Monday to protect the continent’s banks, a figure that dwarfs the Bush administration’s $700 billion rescue program, in its most unified response yet to the global financial crisis…

“The time of each one for itself is fortunately over,” French President Nicolas Sarkozy  said …”United Europe has pledged more than the United States,” added Sarkozy, who has taken a lead in getting the cooperation.

Sarkozy has a point.  However, the point that caught my eye was actually a side comment in a Washington Post story.

Over the weekend, global leaders agreed in meetings in Washington to launch a coordinated program of injecting cash into the world’s banks and guaranteeing their debt. The action by U.S. officials yesterday represented the U.S. version of those broad principles, and it was matched by similar efforts in Europe yesterday.

As part of the effort to flood the financial system with cash, the Federal Reserve made unlimited funds available early yesterday to other major central banks so they could inject money into banks in their countries and ease the shortage of dollars they face. Previously, the Fed’s program of lending dollars to the European Central Bank, Bank of England, Bank of Japan and  others had been capped at a total of $380 billion. (emphasis added) Continue reading “It's a small world after all – which lion will be King?”

It’s a small world after all – which lion will be King?

It’s a world of hope and it’s a world of fear
There’s so much that we share, that it’s time we’re aware
It’s a small world after all

Bush to announce bank rescue plan – news stories and blog posts with some variation of that headline are all over the web tonight.

President Bush was scheduled to announce the new initiatives early Tuesday after executives of the country’s biggest banks were summoned to a remarkable meeting at the Treasury Department on Monday.

Almost as many seem to have a headline suggesting our approach has been I’m the leader, wait for me – Europe puts more on the line.

Europe put $2.3 trillion on the line Monday to protect the continent’s banks, a figure that dwarfs the Bush administration’s $700 billion rescue program, in its most unified response yet to the global financial crisis…

“The time of each one for itself is fortunately over,” French President Nicolas Sarkozy  said …”United Europe has pledged more than the United States,” added Sarkozy, who has taken a lead in getting the cooperation.

Sarkozy has a point.  However, the point that caught my eye was actually a side comment in a Washington Post story.

Over the weekend, global leaders agreed in meetings in Washington to launch a coordinated program of injecting cash into the world’s banks and guaranteeing their debt. The action by U.S. officials yesterday represented the U.S. version of those broad principles, and it was matched by similar efforts in Europe yesterday.

As part of the effort to flood the financial system with cash, the Federal Reserve made unlimited funds available early yesterday to other major central banks so they could inject money into banks in their countries and ease the shortage of dollars they face. Previously, the Fed’s program of lending dollars to the European Central Bank, Bank of England, Bank of Japan and  others had been capped at a total of $380 billion. (emphasis added) Continue reading “It’s a small world after all – which lion will be King?”