The Romanians have demonstrably got their shit far more together than the Americans. Still, one cabinet minister was pushed to resign at the very beginning of the crisis because of a delay in obtaining pumps. I wonder if we'll see any resignations in America.

One hears a lot about 'poverty' in the USA. The Romanians who have been hit the worst by the flooding have been mostly peasants, as in people who own small fields and work them with hand tools. Yet, somehow, the government has been able to provide them with temporary housing and supplies without their rioting or, as far as I've heard, raping anyone. Also no looting.

The whole thing reminds me of a line from The Power and the Glory, where the doomed priest asks the Communist boss, "If you hate the rich so much, why do you want the poor to be like them?"