Summary
President Biden announced the federal government will cover 100% of costs for initial disaster response to the Los Angeles wildfires for 180 days.
The funding includes debris removal, temporary shelters, and first responder salaries.
Biden declared a major disaster, allowing immediate aid access, and directed the Pentagon to assist with firefighting resources.
With 28,000 acres burned, five deaths, and mass evacuations, Biden urged Congress to provide additional aid.
FEMA is coordinating recovery efforts on-site.
Proof that there’s always money from Uncle Sam to help the super rich.
Two co-workers of my other half lost homes, one lost a family member too. They are service workers, I can assure you they are not rich.
Perhaps you prefer everyone gets nothing as long as it prevents the rich from getting anything too? That’s some republican level thinking - y’know, where no poor people get any help because a freeloader or two might get something.
There are plenty of people affected by this fire who are not super rich. Something like 1 in 34 Americans lives in LA County, IIRC, and most of them aren’t super rich. Yes the Palisades area is pretty affluent, but not all of the surrounding areas are. What’s more, the effort to STOP the fire protects everyone.
Besides, most of who we think of as rich in LA is nowhere near the level of the ultra-wealthy whose wealth we should be redistributing. The 400 richest Americans have over $5 trillion in wealth. A-list actors and directors and movie producers are a drop in the bucket in comparison.
The numbers in this are now out of date because it’s from 2021, but it’s still worth looking at.
Yeah! Don’t hate the people who only have enough wealth to not work for the next several generations! There’s even RICHER people out there!
The median home value in the palisades is $3,485,831. That’s more than double the median lifetime earnings of an American.
And all of the money they have is still dwarfed in comparison to only 400 people. I’m not saying their wealth isn’t extravagant but most actors didn’t receive their wealth from exploiting millions of working class people.
Yeah, they only get their wealth at the expense of hundreds of supporting staff who make next to nothing in a predatory industry.
Actors are hella exploited too. Sure, someone who is living in a multi-million dollar home is likely to have “made it” such that they’re able to shield themselves from much of the exploitation that most actors face, but actors aren’t responsible for the industry being predatory. In many cases, they’re the saps that fell for the bait (I say this as someone with a few friends who are actors, who struggle to pay basic bills).
Just to confirm, there’s no plan to subsidize the rebuilding of $40,000,000 mansions, right?
I don’t know about the US, but in the UK, rebuilding would be covered by the homeowner’s buildings insurance.
Although insurance companies would probably try to claim it as an Act Of God to get out of it. Don’t know how that would go legally…
I’m an Atheist. Act of God is nonsense. What does it even mean? It can mean whatever the fucking insurance wants it to mean and it’s horseshit
Read your contracts, the things that fall under this moniker will be listed.
I’m an atheist that understands that an act of god refers to any destructive natural event where the damage to property couldn’t have been reasonably prevented. And insurance companies detail exactly what is and isn’t covered per policy; it’s just that they can get away with denying coverage due to lack of oversight/policing of them.
I Germany we call it “Höhere Gewalt”. While that can refer to something supernatural, it just means “higher force” and I think it does a good job as a term.
It isn’t a good term though. There’s no such thing as the supernatural.
Yeah it’s not supernatural. It’s just that nature itself is a higher force than we are, or can you prevent an earthquake?
Dude, I’m also an atheist and very vocal about it. Don’t be that kind of atheist. Pick your battles and realize that trying to eliminate religious words from non-religious applications is not one you’re going to win. This is really no different from atheists who refuse to do things like exclaim, “Jesus Christ!” when they stub their toe or are super frustrated or whatever as if the words have some sort of power.
As someone who thinks there is no such thing as the supernatural, maybe don’t give words so much power?
