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How can the Philippines better protect itself from powerful cyclones? I wish the Philippines or perhaps the world in general could look for something or like invent on something that could weaken storms...like prolly spraying chemicals in the air to weaken storms just before it hits land in order to protect more lives.
Philippines needs to go after the corrupt Foreigners, like the Europeans, Chinese, Koreans, and Americans, that run businesses there and don't pay their taxes.
Also Philippines needs a better system to warn others of the seriousness of on coming typhoons and natural disasters.
In the news the biggest concern is identifying the dead bodies of the typhoon, and there are only 3 people in the nation of the Philippines doing that right now.
Where could the people of that island have gone, to protect themselves? If you have an island with a million people on it, there is nothing you can do to protect the people from a natural disaster. They couldn't have evacuated everyone, even if they had a month's warning.
Here is something interesting. The latest estimate I heard was six billion dollars in cost to repair or replace property damage. A few days later there was a tornado in Illinois, and it was estimated that it caused one billion dollars damage. Think about that. One ordinary tornado in the US caused one-sixth of the damage of what is being called the worst windstorm in the known history of the world. And there is no wringing of hands nor international effort to rescue Washington, Illinois. The value of 6,000 houses in Illinois is equal to the value of all the losses of all the property destroyed in the Philippines.
And then, about the same day, an American bank was ordered to pay a $13-billion fine, twice as much as the damage in the Philippines, which they will pay with a shrug -- it's half of one year's profits. And six billion of that will go to the poor stockholders whose blue-chip portfolios were affected by the bank's misbehavior. Equal to the Philippines damage, 3 months profit for American baners..
The word billion is being thrown around now, and nobody knows what it is or what it's value is. It's like telling somebody a TV will cost $30 or $300 or $3,000, and it doesn't matter which number you tell them, they will buy it. That is what it means to talk about billions of dollars. If the newscaster made a mistake, and said 6-billion today and 60-billion tomorrow, would you even notice that they are different numbers?
(I've also seen the figure $15-billion "economic loss", which I presume also includes cost of distributing emergency services and loss of economic activity and productivity as a result of the storm, in addition to just replacing the homes of the victims.)
Where could the people of that island have gone, to protect themselves? If you have an island with a million people on it, there is nothing you can do to protect the people from a natural disaster. They couldn't have evacuated everyone, even if they had a month's warning.
Here is something interesting. The latest estimate I heard was six billion dollars in cost to repair or replace property damage. A few days later there was a tornado in Illinois, and it was estimated that it caused one billion dollars damage. Think about that. One ordinary tornado in the US caused one-sixth of the damage of what is being called the worst windstorm in the known history of the world. And there is no wringing of hands nor international effort to rescue Washington, Illinois. And then, about the same day, an American bank was ordered to pay a $13-billion fine, twice as much as the damage in the Philippines, which they will pay with a shrug. And six billion of that will go to the poor stockholders whose blue-chip portfolios were affected by the bank's misbehavior. Equal to the Philippines damage.
The word billion is being thrown around now, and nobody knows what it is or what it's value is. It's like telling somebody a TV will cost $30 or $300 or $3,000, and it doesn't matter which number you tell them, they will buy it. That is what it means to talk about billions of dollars. If the newscaster made a mistake, and said 6-billion today and 60-billion tomorrow, would you even notice the mistake?
Guess money doesn't mean what it once did, especially to the Americans and Europeans. Leave it up to the Chinese and Koreans to love it soooo much now.
Guess money doesn't mean what it once did, especially to the Americans and Europeans. Leave it up to the Chinese and Koreans to love it soooo much now.
People love money according to how hard it is to get. Americans are bobbing in a sea of money, but it's all borrowed, and someday someone will turn off the tap and/or pull the plug.
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