The free market played a crucial role in the destruction of New Orleans and the death of thousands of its residents. Forewarned that a momentous (force 5) hurricane was going to hit that city and surrounding areas, what did officials do? They played the free market.
They announced that everyone should evacuate. Everyone was expected to devise their own way out of the disaster area by private means, just like people do when disaster hits free-market Third World countries.
It is a beautiful thing this free market in which every individual pursues his or her own personal interests and thereby effects an optimal outcome for the entire society. Thus does the invisible hand work its wonders in mysterious ways.
In New Orleans there would be none of the collectivistic regimented evacuation as occurred in Cuba. When an especially powerful hurricane hit that island in 2004, the Castro government, abetted by neighborhood citizen committees and local Communist party cadres, evacuated 1.5 million people, more than 10 percent of the country's population. The Cubans lost 20,000 homes to that hurricane---but not a single life was lost, a heartening feat that went largely unmentioned in the U.S. press.
On Day One of the disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina, it was already clear that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Americans had perished in New Orleans. Many people had "refused" to evacuate, media reporters explained, because they were just plain "stubborn."
It was not until Day Three that the relatively affluent telecasters began to realize that tens of thousands of people had failed to flee because they had nowhere to go and no means of getting there. With hardly any cash at hand or no motor vehicle to call their own, they had to sit tight and hope for the best. In the end, the free market did not work so well for them.
Many of these people were low-income African Americans, along with fewer numbers of poor whites. It should be remembered that most of them had jobs before Katrina's lethal visit. That's what most poor people do in this country: they work, usually quite hard at dismally paying jobs, sometimes more than one job at a time. They are poor not because they're lazy but because they have a hard time surviving on poverty wages while burdened by high prices, high rents, and regressive taxes.
The free market played a role in other ways. Bush's agenda is to cut government services to the bone and make people rely on the private sector for the things they might need. So he ( Bush) sliced $71.2 million from the budget of the New Orleans Corps of Engineers, a 44 percent reduction. Plans to fortify New Orleans levees and upgrade the system of pumping out water had to be shelved.
Army Corps of Engineer personnel had started work to build new levees several years ago but many of them were taken off such projects and sent to Iraq. In addition, the president cut $30 million in flood control appropriations.
Bush took to the airways ("Good Morning America" 1 September 2005) and said "I don't think anyone anticipated that breach of the levees." Just another untruth tumbling from his lips. The catastrophic flooding of New Orleans had been foreseen by storm experts, engineers, Louisiana journalists and state officials, and even some federal agencies. All sorts of people had been predicting disaster for years, pointing to the danger of rising water levels and the need to strengthen the levees and pumps, and fortify the entire coastland.
In their campaign to starve out the public sector, the Bushite reactionaries also allowed developers to drain vast areas of wetlands. Again, that old invisible hand of the free market would take care of things. The developers, pursuing their own private profit, would devise outcomes that would benefit us all.
But wetlands served as a natural absorbent and barrier between New Orleans and the storms riding in from across the sea. And for some years now, the wetlands have been disappearing at a frightening pace on the Gulf' coast. All this was of no concern to the reactionaries in the White House.
As for the rescue operation, the free-marketeers like to say that relief to the more unfortunate among us should be left to private charity. It was a favorite preachment of President Ronald Reagan that "private charity can do the job." And for the first few days that indeed seemed to be the policy with the disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina.
The federal government was nowhere in sight but the Red Cross went into action. Its message: "Don't send food or blankets; send money." The Salvation Army also began to muster up its aging troops. Meanwhile Pat Robertson and the Christian Broadcasting Network---taking a moment off from God's work of pushing John Roberts nomination to the Supreme Court---called for donations and announced "Operation Blessing" which consisted of a highly-publicized but totally inadequate shipment of canned goods and bibles.
By Day Three even the myopic media began to realize the immense failure of the rescue operation. People were dying because relief had not arrived. The authorities seemed more concerned with the looting than with rescuing people, more concerned with "crowd control," which consisted of corralling thousands into barren open lots devoid of decent shelter, and not allowing them to leave.
Questions arose that the free market seem incapable of answering: Who was in charge of the rescue operation? Why so few helicopters and just a scattering of Coast Guard rescuers? Why did it take helicopters five hours to lift six people out of one hospital? When would the rescue operation gather some steam? Where were the feds? The state troopers? The National Guard? Where were the buses and trucks? the shelters and portable toilets? The medical supplies and water?
And where was Homeland Security? What has Homeland Security done with the $33.8 billions allocated to it in fiscal 2005? By Day Four, almost all the major media were reporting that the federal government's response was "a national disgrace." Meanwhile George Bush finally made his photo-op appearance in a few well-chosen disaster areas---before romping off to play golf.
In a moment of delicious (and perhaps mischievous) irony, offers of foreign aid were tendered by France, Germany, Venezuela, and several other nations. Russia offered to send two plane loads of food and other materials for the victims. Cuba--which has a record of sending doctors to dozens of countries, including a thankful Sri Lanka during the tsunami disaster---offered 1,100 doctors. Predictably, all these proposals were sharply declined by the U.S. State Department.
America the Beautiful and Powerful, America the Supreme Rescuer and World Leader, America the Purveyor of Global Prosperity could not accept foreign aid from others. That would be a most deflating and insulting role reversal. Were the French looking for another punch in the nose? Were the Cubans up to their old subversive tricks?
Besides, to have accepted foreign aid would have been to admit the truth---that the Bushite reactionaries had neither the desire nor the decency to provide for ordinary citizens, not even those in the most extreme straits.
I recently heard someone complain, "Bush is trying to save the world when he can't even take care of his own people here at home." Not quite true. He certainly does take very good care of his own people, that tiny fraction of one percent, the superrich. It's just that the working people of New Orleans do not number among them.
Michael Parenti's recent books include Superpatriotism (City Lights) and The Assassination of Julius Caesar (New Press), both available in paperback. His forthcoming The Culture Struggle (Seven Stories Press) will be published in the fall. For more information visit: http://www.michaelparenti.org/.
The rotary engine was a common type of internal combustion aircraft engine in the early years of the 20th century. It was also used in a few motorcycles and cars.
In concept, a rotary engine is simple. It is a standard Otto cycle engine, but instead of having an orthodox fixed cylinder block with rotating crankshaft, the crankshaft remains stationary and the entire cylinder block rotates around it. In the most common form, the crankshaft was fixed solidly to an aircraft frame, and the propeller simply bolted onto the front of the cylinder block.
The effect of rotating such a large mass was an inherent large gyroscopic flywheel effect, smoothing out the power and reducing vibration. Vibration had been such a serious problem on other piston engine designs that a separate piece of metal had to be added as a flywheel, so the rotaries had a somewhat better power-to-weight ratio than other designs.
Most rotary engines were arranged with the cylinders pointed outwards from a single crankshaft, in the same general form as a radial, but there were also rotary boxer engines and even one cylinder rotaries.
History in aircraft
The first effective rotaries were built by Stephen Balzer, who was interested in the design for two main reasons:
In order to generate 100 hp (75 kW) at the low RPM at which the engines of the day ran, the pulsation resulting from each combustion stroke was quite large. In order to damp out these pulses, engines needed to mount a large flywheel, which added weight. In the rotary design the engine itself doubled as its flywheel, thus rotaries were lighter than similarly sized engines of regular design.
The cylinders had good airflow over them even when sitting still, which was an important concern given the alloys they had to work with at the time. Balzer's early engines did not even use cooling-fins, a feature of every other air-cooled design, and one that is complex and expensive to manufacture.
Another advantage, not realized at first, is that the pistons do not actually reciprocate; rather, they travel in a circle around the common center of the connecting rods' "big ends", and only appear to reciprocate from the rotating point of view of the cylinders, which travel in a circle whose center is offset from that of the pistons. This lack of reciprocating mass leads to smoother running.
Balzer's first designs were ready for use in 1899, at which time they were the most advanced in the world. Other aircraft engines would not catch up in performance for a decade. He then became involved in Langley's Aerodrome attempts, which bankrupted him while he tried to make much larger versions.
The next major advance in the design was Lauren Seguin's Gnome series from 1908. Originally a 5 cylinder 50 hp (37 kW) engine, the production versions were scaled up to a 7-cylinder 50 hp (37 kW), which soon reached 80 hp (60 kW), and then 110 hp (80 kW). The engine was at this later standard when WWI started, and the Gnome quickly found itself being used in a large number of aircraft designs. It was so good that it was licensed by a number of companies, include the German Oberursel firm, later purchased by Fokker. It was not at all uncommon for French Gnomes to meet German versions in combat.
The Gnome (and its copies) had a number of features that made them unique, even among the rotaries. Notably, the fuel was mixed and sprayed into the center of the engine through a hollow crankshaft, and then into the cylinders through the piston itself, a single valve on the top of the piston let the mixture in when opened. The valves were counter balanced so than only a small force was needed to open them, and releasing the force closed them without any springs. The center of the engine is normally where the oil would be, and the fuel would wash it away. To fix this, the oil was mixed in liberal quantities with the fuel, and the engine spewed smoke due to the burning oil. Finally, the Gnome had no throttle or carburetor; since the fuel being sprayed into the spinning engine, the motion alone was enough to mix the fuel fairly well. Of course with no throttle, the engine was either on or off, so something as simple as reducing power for landing required the pilot to cut the ignition, "blipping" the engine on and off, giving the characteristic sputtering sound as though the engine was nearly stalling.
Throughout the early period of the war, the power-to-weight ratio of the rotaries remained ahead of that of their competition. They were used almost universally in fighter aircraft, while traditional water cooled designs were used on larger aircraft. The engines had a number of disadvantages, notably very poor fuel consumption because the engine was always "full throttle". In combat the huge "flywheel" the rotary had originally been designed to create turned out to result in tricky handling due to gyroscope effects as well. But they maintained their edge through a series of small upgrades, and many newer designs continued to use them.
1918 saw the introduction of the inline powered Fokker D.VII. Through superb design the D.VII was able to dogfight with the rotaries, and outclimb and outrun them with ease due to its 185 hp (140 kW) engine. Aircraft had evolved so that speed had become the most important aspect of ability, leading to the need for more power. Larger rotaries were attempted, but the gyroscopic effects from the larger and heavier engine were overwhelming and they proved to be largely unworkable. Inline engines were able to increase power through increased RPM, another trick the rotary couldn't match due to increased wind resistance on the cylinder heads as they rotated, an increase of 36% from a then-normal 1200 to 1400 rpm, energy that was not being put into the propeller. As construction methods improved engines running at 2000 rpm became common, and the rotary became a dead-end.
One clever attempt to rescue the design was made by Siemens AG, who spun the propeller one way at 900 rpm and the engine the other at the same speed through gearing, resulting in an engine that ran at 1800 rpm and had little net torque. Used on the superb Siemens-Schuckert D.IV, the Siemens-Halske Sh.III created what is considered by many to be the best aircraft of the war. By the end of the year only a single new rotary was designed, Fokker's own D-VIII, designed solely to provide some use for their Oberursel factory's backlog of now-useless 110hp engines. When the war ended, the rotary disappeared almost instantly, with WWI engines being used for training for a short time until their poor fuel economy drove the users to newer engines.
[edit]
Use in Cars and Motorcycles
Although the rotary engines were mostly used in aircraft, there were also a few cars and motorcycles with rotary engines. The most famous motorcycle (probably because of winning many races) is the Megola motorcycle with a radial rotary engine inside the front wheel. Another motorcycle with a radial rotary engine was the Redrup Radial, which had a rotating 3 cylinder engine in its frame.
In 1904, the Barry engine was built in Wales, a rotating 2 cylinder boxer engine inside a motorcycle frame, weighting 6.5 kg. In the 1940s Cyril Pullin developed the Powerwheel, a wheel with rotating one cylinder engine, clutch and drum brake inside the hub but it never went into serial production.
Cars with rotary engines were built (among others) by American companies Adams-Farwell, Bailey, Balzer and Intrepid.
See also
Radial engine
Monosoupape engine
metre
Re: How the Free Market Killed New Orleans
September 9 2005, 2:43 PM
How the Free Market Killed New Orleans
September 9 2005 at 2:28 PM Daniel Jackson
metre
Expect inanities from one poster and total disregard from other imperialists. After all they have already established, who the killers were in New Orleans and poverty is not one of them. What a right wing lot!
Re: How the Free Market Killed New Orleans
September 9 2005, 2:45 PM
I guess that makes it "on-topic".
Yep - you heared it here first folks! Right wing imperial measures killed lots of people in New Orleans.
You are one sick puppy, Eric.
metre
Re: How the Free Market Killed New Orleans
September 9 2005, 2:45 PM
How the Free Market Killed New Orleans
September 9 2005 at 2:28 PM Daniel Jackson
metre
Boy are they predictable.
Re: How the Free Market Killed New Orleans
September 9 2005, 2:49 PM
Yup:
metre
Expect inanities from one poster and total disregard from other imperialists. After all they have already established, who the killers were in New Orleans and poverty is not one of them. What a right wing lot!
Re: How the Free Market Killed New Orleans
September 9 2005, 2:57 PM
"Expect inanities from one poster and total disregard from other imperialists. After all they have already established, who the killers were in New Orleans and poverty is not one of them. What a right wing lot!"
You are very correct. They do this because in their view the US is the last supporter of imperial, and if the US is damaged and broken, it can't be a strong and powerful supporter of imperial. The best thing to do is to distract attention away from the dirt being swept under the carpet.
Poverty is generated by creating a whole slew of low wage jobs for the working poor and sending high paying metric capable manufacturing jobs to metric countries. But America sweeps this under the carpet and tries to hide its poverty. The disaster of New Orleans blew the carpet away exposing America's hidden poverty.
Most so-called middle class Americans live on the edge of poverty. There is zero savings and heavy credit debt. We are living in a bubble economy ready to burst. But no matter how bad things really are, we are feel better then everyone else because we are the last user of imperial.
Re: How the Free Market Killed New Orleans
September 9 2005, 3:19 PM
He's getting there......
:-D
metre
Re: How the Free Market Killed New Orleans
September 9 2005, 3:25 PM
DJ
Poverty is generated by creating a whole slew of low wage jobs for the working poor and sending high paying metric capable manufacturing jobs to metric countries. But America sweeps this under the carpet and tries to hide its poverty. The disaster of New Orleans blew the carpet away exposing America's hidden poverty.
Most so-called middle class Americans live on the edge of poverty. There is zero savings and heavy credit debt. We are living in a bubble economy ready to burst. But no matter how bad things really are, we are feel better then everyone else because we are the last user of imperial.
metre
You are throwing pearls to sows.
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