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It is said that the current crisis has changed the way New Orleans does things. It is said that the business leaders identified with the old-line Carnival krewes have lost much of their influence. The two businessmen most often mentioned as leading efforts for tax reform and systematic economic development, Patrick Taylor and Jim Bob Moffett, are both oilmen who grew up in Texas. Moffett talks a lot about the need for structuring. Unlike Gorbachev, he doesn't talk about restructuring -- presumably on the assumption that New Orleans wasn't exactly structured in the first place. Some of New Orleans' natural endowment has been diminished, he says, but he remains optimistic: "We have to change our ways. The tooth fairy is dead. But New Orleans will pull through. Americans are at their best when their backs are to the wall. And we're Americans."