This is a short note to figure out my thoughts on the wildfires in LA, January 2025.
About the fires, the news will only show the worst/best of what's happening, the reason they're focusing on the small amount of looting happening is because everyone who hears it reacts the way you did, which is understandable, but a few of the "looters" are just people who were detained or arrested for suspected looting but turned out to have lived there, trying to search through the rubble of their lives, and they'll talk about the $17m decrease in the LAFD budget, but not that in the same time the LAPD's budget was increased by >$100m, up to ~$2.2B, which has caused some activities deemed "non-essential" to be stopped by LAFD, such as brush clearing, vehicle repairs, and public awareness campaigns for the prevention of wildfires to name a few.
The looting is being blown way out of proportion tbh, like yeah it's happening on occasion, but the insurance and financial firms that'll use every trick in the book to not give what's owed or buy the land at below market price, the price gouging from landlords as the housing supply shrinks even more, hotels are filling up and increasing prices etc is stealing more from the people in need right now than any amount of looting could.
There's literally an insurance provider that in the last 3 months has removed fire coverage from more than 6500 LA residents, average price of a house in LA is like $970k so if all the now not covered people lost their homes that's essentially $6.25 Billion, arguably stolen from those who need it, and paid for coverage for years and decades.
Please if you've read this understand that I'm not saying the looters aren't vile humans, but focusing the public on an issue in the $100,000-$10m range is easier to digest, and is more "newsworthy" than explaining the legal loopholes being exploited by insurance companies, or exposing the price gouging which is happening, or how environmental policy could be used to reduce the likelihood and severity of wildfires through forest management, controlled burns, ecosystem rehabilitation to get back animals which previously would clear fuel.
I didn't intend a comment this long, but it's just disheartening to see the sensationalized relative non-issues be centerstage over more complicated but useful discussions.