S4 E02 - Los Angeles Wildfires, Cause and Effect

The Los Angeles wildfires are receiving non-stop news coverage.  And why not?  They are causing a record amount of damage.  Let’s look beyond the surface, look past the finger pointing, and let’s find real reasons this disaster took place.  Why it happened, and why it’s so bad.

Sadly, the answer again is Democrat liberal and woke politics.

From the mundane factors like building codes and public water supply, to controversial topics like DEI and Climate Change, the Democrat's positions have created and exacerbated the disaster.

Commentary on trending issues brought to you with a moderate perspective.

Transcript

[00:00:12] Thousands of homes have burned in Los Angeles, the finger pointing is well underway, but the people need answers. How liberal policies and politics led to a mass increase in homelessness. Today. On the 10th man. 

[00:00:35] You're probably tired of hearing about the Los Angeles wildfires on the news. Compassion fatigue is setting in. We keep hearing the same things over and over, but with that in mind, here's something new on the topic. 

[00:00:49] There's a lot of blaming and scapegoating going on about the fires blaming climate, the insurance companies. The politicians, including the mayor and the fire chief. And of course, governor Gavin Newsome. 

[00:01:05] There has been a lot of government mismanagement. And the first area we'll talk about is zoning. The burned area covers about 36 square miles. If you're outside north America and only know the metric system, that's about a hundred square kilometers. Now, this is an area about three times the area of Tuvalu, the famous south Pacific island nation, which is supposedly disappearing. Due to climate change. 

[00:01:37] Now we might say only 100 square kilometers because it's really not that large, an area. 

[00:01:45] While this fire or series of fires has covered an area about the size of Manhattan island, the wildfires in Canada last year, burned 37 million acres. Or an area about the size of Ireland. 

[00:02:04] The point is that they lost 37 million acres without having two dozen deaths and thousands of houses destroyed. Because those fires didn't happen where people live. 

[00:02:20] Or more accurately people didn't live where those fires took place. 

[00:02:28] Los Angeles is one of our most populated cities. Yet it's actually one of the least densely populated. 

[00:02:36] There's a statistic known as the wild land, urban interface, or W U I, I'm not sure if initializing it makes it any shorter. But Los Angeles has more homes in the WUI than any other city in the country. And that number of homes is growing. Well, it's shrinking momentarily, but it's on a growing trend. And that interface includes large swaths of mixed forest and grasslands actually inside inside the Los Angeles city limits. 

[00:03:18] And even though Los Angeles has more homeless people than any other city in the country. Uh, not the thousands of new homeless just created, but the traditional type, the mentally ill, that drug addicted and other victims of their own poor choices for whatever reason. 

[00:03:37] And with the number of homeless in LA, and its supposedly caused by a lack of affordable housing, one might think that the city's zoning ordinances would favor multifamily housing. But it does not. Zoning laws have therefore forced more homes to be built in the lands, which border the wilderness. And so when the brush catches fire, So do the houses. That's a failure of government. 

[00:04:08] The next problem we have is DEI or in other words, Racism. The offices of the mayor. The fire chief. And the department of power and water. Are all headed by women, including, uh, lesbian women. It's sad to some people. And inevitable too that many people will automatically wonder whether these people are competent. Just based on the fact that they're women or that they are DEI hires. But when you can watch television ads that explain or boast really that someone was hired specifically because. She's a minority female lesbian than. What do you expect? That speculation is inevitable. 

[00:05:01] You've probably heard that the large Santa Ynez reservoir was empty. It contained no water for almost a year. But you may not have heard that the fire chief said not only that she did not know it was empty. But that it's really no one's job to even let her know that it's empty. 

[00:05:21] Now around here. The power company has to tell you when they're going to be trimming trees in your area. So it's hard to believe that she was not supposed to know that she had no water. In the reservoir, serving the Pacific Palisades community. 

[00:05:41] By now you've probably heard that 15% of her mobile firefighting apparatus, the firetrucks, the fire engines. We're all down for maintenance simultaneously. 

[00:05:54] Supposedly. The city could not hire enough mechanics to get the work done. 

[00:06:00] Isn't that surprising that in a sanctuary city with tens of thousands of illegal immigrants. Who they say. Are the backbone of industry here. That they're vital to the economy and they have more of them than anybody else. Well, there should be fire engine mechanics everywhere. 

[00:06:23] So this fire chief. She was incompetent and she failed. 

[00:06:29] But let's be clear. No one's saying she failed because she's a female lesbian minority. 

[00:06:38] We're saying she was hired because she was a female lesbian minority. She failed. Because she's incompetent. DEI. Put the city at risk. 

[00:06:54] Then there's the mayor. Another minority, female. 

[00:06:59] As the fires were breaking out, she was on a junket. A trip to Ghana. For the inauguration of their president. 

[00:07:06] Here's a question. How is attending a presidential inauguration in another country? The job of the mayor of a city. 

[00:07:18] These sanctuary cities are very strange about the lanes, the dividing lines they set up.

[00:07:27] As a city. Los Angeles obstructs the enforcement of federal laws, such as immigration laws. Saying it's a federal job, not theirs. Yet. Here she is going to Ghana another country. 

[00:07:44] Her state borders and other country called Mexico a trip there might make sense. 

[00:07:50] Could it be, she's going to Ghana because it's Africa based on her race. Well, just leave it to the mayor of LA to put the African into African-American. 

[00:08:04] Then there's climate change. 

[00:08:07] The phrase climate change has become a convenient dumping ground. A blame sponge. Anytime you need to find a scapegoat for something you did wrong. You can just call it climate change. 

[00:08:20] It's ironic in this case because only small countries like Tuvalu mentioned earlier are supposedly affected by climate change. 

[00:08:29] According to the United nations. 

[00:08:33] And heat. Low humidity and Santa Ana winds are nothing new. 

[00:08:38] Plenty of people still remember the Bel Air fire of 1961, which went much the same way as this one. 

[00:08:46] It's hard to see how the Earth's temperature going up a half degree since 1961. Automatically causes this much devastation. 

[00:08:57] Just remember that every fire. Requires three things. Fuel. Oxygen and a source of ignition. That's called the fire triangle. And it's important to note that heat. Is not one of the three legs of the triangle. If heat were part of the fire triangle, then there would be a fire. Every place that it's hot. Such as nearby death valley. And we're not just being sarcastic. In fact go a few miles to the south and there you'll find the Mexican city of Tijuana. 

[00:09:33] 

[00:09:33] they don't have whole neighborhoods burning down there. Because the houses are made of concrete and they don't have bushes growing next to them. 

[00:09:43] Which brings us to building codes and regulations. We said earlier that building codes forced the construction of single family homes. They have yards trees and garages and were built years ago. Using wood-frame construction. 

[00:10:01] We do know how to build homes that are hardened against fire. Homes that are built properly, minimizing, flammable materials. Our six times as likely to survive wildfire season. 

[00:10:14] But many of the recommended practices are not required by the building codes and some are outright opposed by homeowners associations. Such as eliminating wooden fences between houses that provide a bridge for fire to spread from house to house. 

[00:10:32] And unless you slow the spread. And limit the destruction to only those homes on the edge of the wilderness areas. No amount of repairs to the water supply system can keep up with the simultaneous burning of hundreds of houses. 

[00:10:51] Yeah, another problematic regulations. We all know that prescribed burns or controlled burning. Is necessary to remove fuel from the grasslands before it can build up to dangerous levels. 

[00:11:05] But California, isn't doing this. Did you know? That the clean air act requires you to get a permit to perform a prescribed burn. And those permits, like all permits in California can take years to obtain. 

[00:11:21] And a funny thing. The pollution from prescribed burns counts against your air quality numbers. Which the devastating wildfires themselves. Which are must much worse because they have a burning building materials as well. That pollution does not count. 

[00:11:40] California is of course a liberal state and they favor government regulation. But they're about to find out just what this means when they try to rebuild. This is going to be a spectacle because no one knows exactly what's going to happen, but it's going to be interesting. 

[00:12:00] Celebrity and Congressman Rob Reiner tells us at the time he wanted to put a fence up. And the building permit took seven years to obtain. 

[00:12:10] Building and regulations are one big reason for all the businesses leaving California. 

[00:12:17] The owners of these homes, many of which are 30 and 40 years old. They have no idea what they're in for when they try to rebuild. 

[00:12:28] There are many people in government who want these neighborhoods to become full of high rises. Maybe that's what's going to happen. Developers with lots of money might be able to buy large swaths of land and wait out the permitting process. 

[00:12:44] And what if these displaced people leave these new homeless? California has very progressive tax rates. The top 1% of income or nurse pay more than half of all income tax. Again, the few people. Who earn more than a half million dollars a year. Are paying more than half of the tax bill. 

[00:13:09] What are the coastal commission makes it impossible to rebuild those destroyed mansions in Malibu. Those millionaires can move to Florida. And the tax revenue leaves with them. And we don't mean the property taxes. We mean the income tax. And of course both we'll leave. 

[00:13:29] California already has a problem with people leaving, not just businesses. Even with all the immigrants coming in. Their population is going down. Down enough that they lost a seat in the house of representatives due to the last census. And the people coming in. They don't pay taxes. 

[00:13:51] The result. California has steadily increases tax rates since 2012, while the actual revenues keep going down.

[00:14:01] 

[00:14:01] Then there's the homeowner's insurance crisis. This is great news for gen Z. All the people who lost their homes are baby boomers and millennials. That's because as we all know, from the complaints from gen Z. The baby boomers bought all the houses and won't sell them cheaply to gen Z. So nobody in gen Z has a house. Now there are some gen Z people on the, on the news and Tik TOK saying their rental burned and they lost everything. Everything, no more Ikea furniture, no more PlayStation or air fryer. But at least. You don't have to rebuild. 

[00:14:47] But first on the insurance crisis. Anybody's who's insurance policy was canceled. Needed simply to go buy a policy from a different company. Nobody was forced to be uninsured. And we'll talk about that situation in a minute. 

[00:15:05] Second, what is the real problem here? The most important factor in real estate pricing is location, location, location. And if somebody is 1800 square foot house in a prime neighborhood, burned down. All they've lost is the structure, the cost to rebuild it. 

[00:15:26] 

[00:15:26] Some of us know people who bought a house for $85,000 30 years ago. And it's worth a half million today. 

[00:15:34] I don't think the cost per square foot added up the cost to rebuild it is going to be a half million dollars. 

[00:15:43] If they can and do rebuild, they will have a better house when it's complete. Among other things, the new house will be insurable. Unlike the house that burned. 

[00:15:54] 

[00:15:54] Alternatively. They can just take the insurance payout of a half million dollars on their house. It was destroyed. Take the money and run to another state. And buy another house for cheap. 

[00:16:11] Which brings us to the canceled insurance policies. The reason insurance policies were canceled is because of state regulations. Insurance companies don't make money by canceling policies and they are still selling them. Turn on your TV and you'll still see the Geico gecko or the LIMU. Looking for customers. Just not in California. 

[00:16:38] Because in California, the state insurance regulators made it illegal to make money on insurance policies. Through one simple regulation. 

[00:16:50] In California. Insurance rates must be based only on past losses. Not on foreseeable future losses. 

[00:17:00] So in the state where everything is driven by climate change and foreseeable future disasters. You're not allowed to say yes, I agree. The risk is growing. So we have to charge more for homeowners insurance. 

[00:17:18] Making it worse. The head of the California insurance regulatory agency was on television proclaiming that he was not going to allow insurers to cancel policies. 

[00:17:31] In typical California arrogance. He forgets that all the companies have to do. Is pull out of the state entirely. And that's what they are doing. That's freedom. And that's capitalism. 

[00:17:46] Too many people think capitalism is a choice. But it's not a choice. 

[00:17:52] Supply and demand is the gravity of economics. Capitalism just recognizes that fact. And if you don't, you're kidding yourself. And that gets policies canceled. 

[00:18:06] Now if the mayor of LA wants to go in Wu some outside investors, maybe there's an insurance company in Ghana. They're welcome to come to California and try to make the go of it. 

[00:18:19] Meanwhile, just remember that all this time, it has been Californians screwing the insurance companies and not the other way around. 

[00:18:31] Finally, there's the source of ignition. According to the fire triangle, you can have fuel. And you can have oxygen, but you don't have a fire until something lights it off. How did these fires get started? 

[00:18:47] If the first big problem with blaming these fires on climate changes is that they've always had fires. The second big problem is answering the question of how they started. 

[00:18:57] Just as these fires would not be making history, if not for man's intrusion into the fire zones. They also would not even exist without man's intrusion. That's because 85 to 90% of California wildfires are started by people. 

[00:19:14] Most of the wildfires in the LA area are started by the homeless. 

[00:19:20] Citizens. In one neighborhood caught one of these individuals, a homeless, illegal immigrant. How's that for intersectionality. I caught him setting fires and turned them over to the police. Who immediately let him go. 

[00:19:37] Now to be fair, there are some fires started in remote areas that are due to power lines, slapping together in high winds and sparking. This is the same way. The fires in Maui Hawaii started last year. There are ways to stop power lines from slapping together, but it costs money. And apparently it's more cost-effective to let hold neighborhoods burned to the ground. 

[00:20:02] You have to wonder why California considers electrical power to be a cure. For all the climate issues. Outlawing gas powered cars, outlawing natural gas. When no gas line has ever started a wild fire. And when they do not have enough infrastructure to supply the existing demand. And that infrastructure is what starts deadly fires. 

[00:20:31] The LA fires are not that large. They just had houses in their way long with multiple obstacles to public safety that were in the way as well. 

[00:20:42] This tragedy could have been avoided. If not by stopping the industrial revolution 150 years ago. Then by controlling vegetation. Burying power lines. Hardening houses. Or simply not building houses in the brush. 

[00:21:00] These are all preventable government problems. Same as the firefighting issues.

[00:21:07] 

[00:21:07] Mayors and governors have always escaped blame in the past. Maybe this is the disaster where we'll finally hold political office holders accountable. 

[00:21:17] Thank you for