Population and GDP?

So as the pop grows we're better off with fewer resources available?

And GDP? Don't even get me started.

You wreck your car and the GDP improves.

GDP is so wrong a measurement scale I'm surprised you even brought it up.

"But, even so, there’s one thing I know, and that I knew even at the end of the day on Monday, August 29th, 2005, when I was one of the small group of people in the country who was aware the coast was buried under water, even as newscasters crowed (premptively as it turned out) that NOLA had dodged the bullet: the Mississippi Gulf Coast is never going to become a Homestead and Naranja Lakes, with grass slowly overtaking empty slabs. The surge and wind hadn’t even finished dying away when people started picking up the pieces, and they haven’t stopped."

http://www.wunderground.com/education/Katrinas_surge_part10.asp

This guy and me were on the same page that day.

I knew what a CAT 5 storm was capable of.

My school, built to withstand Katrina was under 4 floors of water
(28').

Do yourself a favor and read the series this guy put together.
To see how unprepared NOLA now is.

And the Superdome/Convention Center are off limits for
storm shelter.

I wonder how many NO natives are aware of that?

I think an interesting alternative to the GDP as a measure of U.S. economic health is

Infrastructure Quality/National Debt or

Infrastructure Spending/Annual Budget

Low spending and/or large debt, then we're not doing so well, which is the current situation.

In 2005, ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) gave the U.S. infrastructure an average grade of D, and said that we would need to spend at $1.6 trillion dollars, which I'm sure is now too low. Check out the link below. Its not a pretty picture.

National Infrastructure Report Card
http://www.asce.org/reportcard/2005/page.cfm?id=103

I had dinner with a couple of civil engineers recently. They said that we should expect to see more and more bridges falling down.

I concur. Even without peak oil. With peak oil, it's going to be worse.

yikes!!

do they know where?

In a Post-PO world, do we even need bridges...? At least for cars...?

Well without as many cars and trucks on them (esp. trucks) they should last longer...