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.
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The numbers in this are now out of date because it’s from 2021, but it’s still worth looking at.
Oh, I’m not opposed to stopping the fires. the best way way to do that is to tax anyone burning fossil fuels out of existence.
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).