A few days ago I predicted here that Governor Christie of New Jersey would promptly up his $29.4 billion demand for Federal disaster aid for the hurricane as soon as he saw the $40 billion demand of Governor Cuomo of New York.  This is a matter of state pride!

Sure enough, from  this morning's Wall Street Journal:  " Gov. Chris Christie on Wednesday put the total cost of recovery and protection against future storms at $36.8 billion, up from $29.4 billion last week.  The estimate included an additional $7.4 billion in mitigation and disaster-prevention expenditures, the governor said."  "Mitigation and disaster-prevention" means exactly what?  A giant sea wall?  No amount of money is going to make those barrier islands safe.  New Jersey has well over 100 miles of them.  $7 billion won't even make a start.  It's just a game to see how much of the free money you can get.

Nobody yet has the idea of telling people the one thing that makes any sense: if you build on the barrier island, you're on your own.