Hurricane Season

     As we enter into the 2006 hurricane season, I wish to make a few quick observations. When I woke up this morning, the local news was on and the reporter was interviewing Southern Californians at LAX regarding how their travel plans were affected by Hurricane John.

     I remember one of them in particular because he said, “you can’t change your plans just because you hear something.” This comment was in response to being told that there was a Category 3 Hurricane bearing down on the coastline he is planning to vacation on.

     Now if you are wondering if there can really be people in this country that are that stupid, there is another hurricane that you should remember. I believe that in the spirit of the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina we should make an attempt to learn the mistakes of the past, and use hindsight to improve our foresight.

     I will try and make this as clear as possible because I realize that the people who need to hear this are the least intelligent among us. If there is a hurricane, then get out of the way. The people who were involved in Hurricane Katrina failed in this respect. How many days warning did they have that the hurricane was nearing? How many days before landfall was there a mandatory evacuation order in effect?

     Now let’s apply this simple if-then logic to Hurricane John. If there is a hurricane (TRUE), then get out of the way (Restatement: Do not get in the way).

     There are many of us who are wondering why we should care about people who were stupid enough not to get out of the way of a hurricane that they had fair warning about. Having grown up in Southern California, I know that if I had the wonderful luxury of even having a single day’s warning about an earthquake, you can bet your Cajun cooking I would be out-of-state.

     For a final take on Hurricane John let’s look at some of the actual effects this hurricane may have on the health of America. Firstly, any time we have the dullest tools in our national shed running to where they are sure to get killed (the ‘human shield’ of Iraq or tourists in Mexico during a hurricane) we stand, from a national gene pool point of view, to win.

     Moving away from this point however, let us paint the scenario of Hurricane John causing as much death and destruction in Mexico as Hurricane Katrina caused in Louisiana. Simple supply and demand analysis of the labor market in Mexico tells us that with less workers (more dead) and more work to do (rebuilding) Mexico stands to see an increase in both the quantity of labor demanded and the price of that labor. Translation for us: more higher paying jobs in Mexico means less illegal immigrants crossing our borders. It’s a win-win for America.

-Raphael Hythloday