Speaker 1: What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to
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smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for
your support. The AP reports Los Angeles wildfire death toll
surges to twenty four now. The twelve people remain missing.
After a weekend spent blocking the explosive growth of fires
that destroyed thousands of homes and killed at least twenty
four people in the Los Angeles area. Firefighters got a
slight break with calmer weather, but the forecast is not good.
Weather forecast not good. They're looking at potentially more high
winds coming in over the next twenty four to four
eight hours, and if that happens, homes that had already burned,
valleys that are just smoldering could flare up again. That
sends more embers up into the air, and then you know,
the wind takes them and blows them around and then
they start new fires where they land. The National Weather
Service issued red flag warnings for severe fire conditions throughout Wednesday,
with sustained winds of fifty miles an hour gusts in
the mountains reaching seventy miles an hour, and so the
most dangerous day they're saying is probably going to be tomorrow.
Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony C. Morone said seventy
additional water trucks arrived to help firefighters fend off flames
spread by renewed gusts. There was also anger being directed
at the guy who ran against Karen Bass for mayor.
Rick Caruso I believe is his name. He owns the
Palisades Mall and it survived. Why because he went out
and hired private firefighters to come in and keep his
property intact and they succeeded. And so people are mad
that he did this because he's looking out for his
own property. Well, you weren't using him, right, Los Angeles
like this. It's not like Los Angeles went and contracted
more firefighters. So would you begrudge anybody for going in
hiring you know, pump trucks and stuff to protect their
own property, like this is a it's a line of
thinking that I don't understand. I do understand. Actually, now
that I say that, I do. It's it's envy, that's
all it is. It's envy, usually rooted in envy of
their money, because people think that's the answer to all
of life's problem. Now, don't get me wrong. Money is
the answer to a lot of problems, particularly the financial ones,
but it's not the answer to all things. Right, The
love of money is the root of evil. It's the
love of money. By the way, it's not just money.
It's the love of money. And when people cannot see others,
just like we had that guy Larry who called in
last week and he was talking about, Oh, it's not
a big deal because all those people are rich, and
they're not all rich. They may be land rich at
this point. They may have bought their home though in
Palisades or one of these other neighborhoods. They bought the
home fifty sixty years ago, and the house now is
worth a lot more money. The property is worth more money,
or it was, But that doesn't mean they're automatically rich
enough to walk away and start all over again. In
some other part. And also they've lost all of their belongings,
all of their memories, everything. And when Larry was unable
or unwilling to see the basic humanity of somebody just
because of what he perceives their bank balance to be, like,
that's a good example of envy. And then of course
he attacked me saying, oh, you've never lost anything, which,
as I mentioned earlier, I have people of all income
levels lose things through no fault of their own. Fires,
burglaries for example, car accidents, loved ones get murdered, that
kind of stuff. Like, people lose stuff all the time.
They lose possessions all the time, and they are victims,
and they are no less a victim because they are
rich versus poor. It doesn't matter. The victimization is the same.
Now that being said, there was a lot more attention
I think being paid to the Los Angeles wildfires than
what happened in what North Carolina. I think it's because
there are a lot of famous people that live in
this area that see, here's the thing. I don't have
to pick one or the other, and neither do you.
Both of those things can be true, right, that there
are some people that are envious, and so they're like, oh,
I don't really care what's happening over there, because they're rich, right,
They judge or they give empathy based on what they
think your bank balance is. And that's envy. And once
you start thinking like that, by the way, and this
is at the root of socialism, it's Marxism in a nutshell.
It's just it's just grievance and envy. That's all it is.
And then they you know, you can put whatever words
you want to over it to try to argue the
merits of this system, but at the root of it,
it always comes down to envy. You have something that
I want or think I should have, or I deserve more,
and so therefore I'm going to construct this entire economics
to take it from you and give it to me.
That's it. But also that the coverage and the attention
is disproportionate to what we saw in western North Carolina.
Both of those things can be true, but it also
indicates that the people who are envious, right, they don't
really care. That's the thing. They're not really empathetic. Because
the amount of coverage we have devoted on this show
to and on WBT in general to Western North Carolina
recovery and the disaster out there as it was occurring.
Like that didn't go very far for Caler Larry last week.
And the people in western North Carolina are not exactly
Hollywood rich and famous, you know, but that didn't matter.
The death toll now is at twenty four out in
Los Angeles what appeared to be a small to be
small fire. Tornadoes were spotted Friday night. The death toll
could still be higher. They got cadaver dogs that are
doing searches throughout these neighborhoods. They've created centers for people
to call to report the missing. Officials are urging people
to stay away from the neighborhoods. The looters are not listening.
About one hundred and fifty thousand people in Los Angeles
County remained under evacuation orders, with more than seven hundred
taking refuge in nine shelters. Officials said most of the
orders in the Palisades area were unlikely to be lifted
before the red flag warnings expire on Wednesday evening. In all,
four fires consumed more than sixty two square miles that
is larger than San Francisco. Crews from California and nine
other states are part of the ongoing response that includes
fourteen hundred fire engines, now eighty four aircraft, more than
fourteen thousand personnel, including newly arrived firefighters from Mexico. The
fires that began Tuesday just north of downtown Los Angeles,
so almost a week ago, had burned more than twelve
thousand structures. No cause for the largest fires have been determined.
One of the smaller ones, I think it's called the
Kenneth fire, that apparently has been connected to a quote
unquote transient arson. Early estimates suggest this could be the
nation's costliest wildfire ever, with damage estimates estimates to be
around one hundred and fifty billion dollars. They're also using
prisoners did you know this? Along with crews from other
states and Mexico, hundreds of inmates from California's prison system
are helping fight the fires. About nine hundred and fifty
prison firefighters were removing to and brush ahead of the
fires to slow the spread. The practice is controversial as
the inmates are paid very little for dangerous and difficult work.
They get ten dollars and twenty four cents a day,
with more if they do a twenty four hour shift,
according to the California Department of Corrections. Governor Gavin Newsom
issued an executive order on Sunday aimed at fast tracking
rebuilding by suspending some environmental regulations and ensuring that property
tax assessments were not increased. So once again, he says,
we want you to come back, rebuild, and rebuild with
higher quality building standards, more modern standards. So I guess, like,
what build the houses out of those flame retardant mattresses
and pajamas or something. I maybe everything out of stone.
More than twenty four thousand people had registered for federal
assistance made available by a major Disaster declary by the President,
and Governor Newsom ordered state officials to determine why exactly
a one hundred and seventeen million gallon reservoir was out
of service and some hydrants had run dry. We are
going to find out who is responsible for leading this
state one way or the other. The leader of the
state said, here's a great idea. How about making an
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real quick. This is a post from Jim Garrity at
National Review. Quote. US News and World Report ranks each
state on a wide variety of categories. In the most
recent assessment, California ranked dead last in opportunity, dead last
in affordability, seventh in employment, forty seventh in energy infrastructure,
forty sixth in air and water quality, forty fifth in growth,
forty second in public safety, forty second in short term
fiscal stability, thirty seventh in K twelve education. The Tax Foundation,
I wonder if those are related, The tax found The
Tax Foundation ranks California forty eighth in its most recent
State Tax Competitiveness Index. For five straight years, California has
ranked highest in people moving out of the state that
according to U haul Bank Rate found California was the
forty seventh best state for retirement. In other words, like
among the worst, California ranks fifth worst in roads and
third worst in drivers, second highest in accident rate, second
worst in drunk driving. And he asks, why do California
Democrats love this guy, Gavin Newsom, These are the results
of your policy preferences. Real Gavinism has never been tried.
I guess, right, will that be the excuse Newsom would
have been would have been fine. All of this stuff
would have worked, All of these priorities and policies of
the California Democratic controlled legislature, All of these things would
have worked out. They just it's just this war and
that SLB. Johnson right to quote the forced Gump villain. Seriously,
these are the results of your decisions. Two months before
the fires, Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley warned city
officials this was back in November that heard dearartment had
about half as many firefighters as it needs when deadly
wildfires struck the city. Two months later, Mayor Karen Bass
pulled Crowley's memo from its website. Well, the hurt the
mayor's administration, So I don't think the mayor was in
there doing, you know, document burying. I think it was
somebody in the administration. That memo has been taken down
from their website. Crowley wrote to the city's Fire Commissioners,
a five person board appointed by Karen Bass. She wrote
the fire chief wrote this on November eighteenth, and asked
them to transmit the message to the mayor and the
city council. The fire department's size had not increased in
decades despite significant population growth. It's one of those things
nobody wants to pay for the services, and then they
will demand those services. This happens all over the place
at every level. Once again, to analogize the HOA. People
want dues to be nothing, and they want all of
the richest amenities. They don't want to be tagged for
weeds growing in their yard, but they want their neighbor
to be tagged for weeds growing in their yard. Let
me go over and get ray On. Hello, Ray, Welcome
to the show.
Speaker 2: Hello Peate, how are you hey?
Speaker 1: I'm well what's up?
Speaker 2: As as just an average citizen that once in a
while poses as a snowman on the street, Reporter nah
I had something to say about California. These people are
not stupid. The different levels of government. I think they
kind of let these things go because they know it'll
cause hardship on the people and cause them to move out.
And you know they the insurance companies moving out of
California was not an overnight surprise to them. Am I
right back to you. Pete well, no, So.
Speaker 1: The insurance companies have been they've been not renewing various policies,
and different insurance carriers are making different decisions all over
the country. Some states they're pulling out, they're not writing
any more auto insurance. Some states aren't writing anymore homeowners.
So it's just you know, different policies, different companies and carriers.
So right, So I so I'm I usually default to incompetence.
I default, Yeah, I'd rather than evil intention because I
try not to ascribe motive to people when I don't
know what their motives are. So I try not to
just assume that they're doing things for evil intentions, because
I would prefer people not do that, you know, to me. So,
but I mean, if there's evidence, then I'm open to
be persuaded, obviously. But I think what is usually the case,
because it happens all the time in government and happens
very often in the private sector as well, is that
that the organizations become bigger and bigger and bigger, and
they end up with mission creep. You know, they start
doing all of these other things that are not their
first order priorities, and then they lose sight of doing
those first order priorities, well, they don't do them well.
And then because of the you know, if your first
order is to provide fire and police protection, that then
is reflected in you know, more violent crime, higher crime
rates and such, and uncontrollable wildfires. That's how that manifests itself.
So I look at this as this is the natural
outgrowth of government agencies and officials that are getting distracted
by things that they should not be getting involved in
in the first place.
Speaker 2: Right, it's just to me, it's just kind of kind
of mind blowing that somebody with their intelligence could be
incompetent not to see the insurance companies pulling out coming.
Speaker 1: But well yeah they did. I mean because the insurance
companies told them, they said, look, we need we got
to raise our rates because we cannot we can't pay
out all of the claims that might arise in some
sort of catastrophic wildfire. And the State of California was like, no,
you can't raise rates. And why would they say that.
They would say that because they don't want their constituents
yelling and screaming at them because their insurance rates went up.
That's it, Like, that's what it is. And that's that
is the same in every kind of example like this,
from the HOA to the city to the federal government.
Nobody wants to pay the taxes, but then they demand
all of the services that the taxes pay for, you know,
and then when they lose sight of their first order priorities,
then they want to blame somebody else because they went
and redirected all of the tax money to something else,
like DEI ray, I appreciate the call, sir, great report.
All right, I hope you had a happy holiday season.
But tell me if something like this happened at your house.
Your family and friends are gathered around, maybe y'all are
in the living room, You're laughing, swapping stories, reminiscing, and
then somebody says, hey, Dad, remember those old VHS tapes?
Did you ever get them transferred? And then the room
gets all quiet. All eyes are on Dad, who says, oh,
you know, well, I've been meaning too, but I just
having gotten around to it. Look, don't let those priceless
memories sit in a box for another year, all right.
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Speaker 1: This from at Patriot Girl. How is it legal to
have a mortgage with no homeowners insurance? Well, if you
have the mortgage, then the bank requires you to have
it right, so to have the insurance. So don't have
the mortgage. I don't know what to tell you, Like
that's the answer to that question, right, because the bank
wants it's it's investment protected, so they that's why they
require the insurance. But you can get minimal insurance. You
don't have to go above and beyond, you know, And
then once you pay off the house, you can get
rid of all the insurance that you want, and then
it's your right. Once you own the house, then you
don't have to pay any insurance for anything. So I
did have a message here. If someone had a state
farm flood policy, this is from Scott. If someone had
a state farm flood policy that was recently not renewed
and then that person suffered losses from the Helene flooding,
could that person now sue the State of North Carolina
for the damages that they suffered. Could they at least
sue for the listed policy amount that was canceled because
the State of North Carolina was ultimately responsible for the
cancelation of that commercial property. Just wondering aloud, Yeah, good
luck suing any government. I understand the logic of it.
I think it's probably most obvious with the La wildfire thing,
because I mean, I don't think you have those kinds
of issues with the western North Carolina disaster because it
was a you know, I'm not aware of any state
mandates or anything that affected the dropping of the flood
insurance in western North Carolina prior to the disaster in
food in California. Rather, that is the case, right these
insurance carriers, we're not renewing policies because they could not
afford without a premium increase, and the state said no,
you can't raise rates, and everybody, look, I got a
story right here actually from the North Carolina Treasurer is
saying we're going to have to raise premiums for the
health insurance for state employees, maybe like twenty bucks a month,
and everyone's freaking out. It's the first increase in like
nine years. So everybody's outraged that the premium cost is
going up twenty dollars. Nobody wants to pay more money
for the risks for the services now. And that's not
a defense of a system that the government has completely corrupted.
In short circuits, the market signals. I'm not defending all
insurance companies or the model or the government role in
all of this. I'm not defending that. I'm just pointing
out that people want like they want. It's like healthcare.
It's the healthcare debate all over again. It's like, I
want access to emergency the best emergency medical care. I
want access to the best healthcare, preventative health care, and
I want to pay nothing for it. How do you
think that works? You know, Dean, Welcome to the show, Dean.
Speaker 4: How are you pretty good?
Speaker 2: Pete?
Speaker 4: How about you sound good?
Speaker 1: I'm all right, yeah, doing Okay.
Speaker 4: Hey, you know about the insurance industry and all that.
I understand.
Speaker 2: You know that.
Speaker 4: They're just sort of the bridge between paying the claims
and the funds that they're holding. But I think they've
been complicit with the government. You know, if you offer
everybody everything, why wouldn't you want everything instead of being honest,
And I think they just pushed the can down the road.
And now it's all it's it's it's going to be
an epidemic. It's not just little rates here and changes here.
There's going to be huge adjustments to the insurance industry.
You can just see it coming that North Carolina they're
not ensuring. You know, companies are dropping North Carolina from
their company roles. I just I think people are going
to be in for a big shock, uh when they
start to see what they can ensure and not insure.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're going to have to unpack that because I
did not follow the logic.
Speaker 4: Okay, The logic is that now all of a sudden,
the insurance industry is trying to play catch up. They're
obviously in collusion with the government from the standpoint of
of determining the rates.
Speaker 1: Okay, let me stop all right, hang on, I'm going
to stop you right there. What do you mean by
the companies are in collusion with the government concerning the rates?
Speaker 4: I mean they all they both on both sides. They
know what's going on. I'm not saying they're in collusion
just to steal from us, but they they both know
the situation as each other, and they you know, they're
they're both very big industries.
Speaker 1: What does that mean they both know each other, they
both know what's going What does that mean that they
what do they what do they both know?
Speaker 4: That means that Okay, the government knows what they want
to like you say, want to present, and the insurance
industry is saying, well, this is what we need. So
they sit down and they you know, someone holds sway,
they negotiate and decide. Okay, well they don't know.
Speaker 1: It's not a negotiation. The companies say, we need this
amount of money for our premium increases, and then the
state regulatory agencies say, no, you're gonna you can only
raise it this amount of money. And then and then
when the insurance companies get told that, then they say, okay, well,
now we can't write policies for these types of coverages
because we could not afford to pay out in the
event of catastrophe, so they dropped. And that's why they
stop insuring, because they can't get the premiums to cover
their risk.
Speaker 4: Exactly.
Speaker 1: Yes, right, So that's not so that's not collusion. That's
the government dictating to the private sector what they would like.
If State Farm had it up to them, they would
have just raised everybody's premiums, but they weren't allowed to,
so they dropped the policies. Those were the choices State
Farm had. So I don't see that as collusion.
Speaker 4: When I see and I go out and negotiate a
lot of policies, I see aspects being dropped where you can,
you know, ensure your house, but where you ensured the roof.
Now they pro rate the roof to how old it
is to negotiate against the claim.
Speaker 1: They well, yeah, I understand why they pro rate the roof, right,
because people will go and pick up an insurance policy
for a roof that's like forty years old, and then
they're going to want the roof replaced immediately after they
pick up the policy, after they buy the policy, Yes, right,
And that's so I would submit that's part of the
problem is people are now treating these insurance claims much
like they treat their health insurance, which is not like
you're using like you're using your insurance policy as like
a savings account, and that's not what it is supposed
to be about. This is what got the health industry
and health insurance stuff into the message in People treat
it like it's some sort of an HSA or something,
and it's not. You know, you don't treat your car
insurance like that. The car insurance is for a car
accident where there's a lot of damage done. You don't
use car insurance to pay for your oial changes.
Speaker 4: No, No, But say I lived in my house for
fifteen years and I've paid insurance every year for You've
never had a claim for your root. Now, all of
a sudden, I said, I have a claim, and they're
going to say.
Speaker 1: What is the claim forfen?
Speaker 4: What?
Speaker 1: What is the answerance? No? No, no, no, But what's the claim
for what happened to your roof? Was there a hailstorm? Yeah,
well then they would pay that. They would pay on
the hailstorm. If there's no hailstorm, they're not going to
pay to replace your roof.
Speaker 4: No, but they're going to pro rate the roof and say, Okay,
the roof is damaged and now it used to be
twenty thousand is forty five thousand, and because the roof
is fifteen years old, we're going to pay twenty percent
of what that fifty thousand is to replace the roof.
Speaker 1: Now that might be true, I've never had it. I've
never had that. Like I've had two roofs replaced, and
I've never had them pro rate a roof for me.
But then again, I haven't had a claim on a
roof in probably fifteen years. So but yeah, people if
they treat the roof replacement as like just sort of like, oh,
I need to get a roof replacement, so I'm going
to file a claim, like, no, that's not what that's for.
All right, If you're listening to this show, you know
I try to keep up with all sorts of current events,
and I know you do too, And you've probably heard
me say get your news from multiple sources. Why, Well,
because it's how you detect media bias, which is why
I've been so impressed with ground News. It's an app
and it's a website and it combines news from around
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ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. Look,
I apologize if I don't. I did not understand what
Dean was driving at there. I was up against the break.
I went to traffic way too late anyway, but I
was trying to figure out what it was. But when
people say the word collusion, that means to me that
there is some sort of a conspiracy to enrich both
of the parties, right, they are colluding to their own
mutual benefit. And if one of those parties to the
collusion gets to dictate the terms that the other one
then has to agree to or they have to stop
selling one of their products. Like that, to me, isn't collusion.
One of them has a more powerful position, and it
is the government, the government and the rate setting agency.
Speaker 4: Look.
Speaker 1: North Carolina has this too, with its own insurance commissioner,
and it regulates the insurance markets and it tells insurance companies,
you can't increase your rates by too much of a percent?
And what is that too much? We'll know it when
we see it. You know. They do the same thing
with the utilities. So uh yeah, I don't know what
he was driving at with that. I don't see the
non renewal of the policies as evidence per se stand
alone as a proof that the fix was in. People
wanted the fires, They're trying to take all the land.
These are the same. These are the same conspiracy theories
that I heard after Hurricane Helene as well. Right, And
people think when they throw out the word eminent domain,
that that I'm supposed to be like, oh, okay, eminent domain, Like,
but I know what eminent domain is. They take it's
the taking of people's property, private property for a quote
unquote public good. And that's not what's occurring here. Now,
Why does California and whoever it is that let the
fires burn? Like, why do they want that property? Has
there been? Just because you think an idea doesn't mean
it's true. It could be true, I guess, like when
you're spinning theories, Sure some or all of it could
be true, but that requires proof evidence, and right now,
all the evidence really looks like high winds, bad politicians
with misprioritized interests and no incentive to actually focus on
the boring stuff of municipal governance. That's what it looks like.
And you know, the desire to keep everyone's insurance premiums
low because they don't want to hear from complaining constituents. Again,
it's the same thing that happens at the hoas. It
really is, Like hoas are really a good analogy for
so much that happens at the government level. You know,
it really is.
Speaker 3: All right, that'll do it for this episode.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening. I could not do
the show without your support and the support of the
businesses that advertise on the podcast. So if you'd like
Please support them too and tell them you heard it here.
You can also become a patron at my Patreon page
or go to dpecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so
much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.