Do the Right Thing

While we expect and demand that our elected officials make decisions with health and human safety in mind, they don't. It's become clear they make decisions like Actuaries.

The night before the fires started, my neighbor, Yoni, sent me this New York Times article titled Los Angeles Braces for ‘Life-Threatening and Destructive’ Winds. The fact that many intelligent Angelenos opt to read the New York Times for information about their city as opposed to the LAT is a conversation for another time. Regardless, I read this NYT article at 7:43 pm in the after glow of hitting multiple parlays on the Lions-Vikings game.

Despite the euphoria that hitting a parlay brings, I was snapped back into reality when I read these two paragraphs:

These winds aren’t unusual, and the strongest Santa Ana winds typically happen this time of the year. But by January, Los Angeles has usually had enough rain that the fire threat is mitigated because the vegetation is greener and there is more moisture in the ground. This year, that hasn’t been the case, said Rich Thompson, a meteorologist with the Weather Service in Los Angeles.

Because the vegetation is extremely dry, if a fire starts, these winds will help it spread rapidly — just as they did with the Mountain fire in November across Ventura County and with the Franklin fire in Malibu in December. “Any spark, any ignition source, could lead to something very, very dramatic, very, very quickly,” Mr. Thompson said.

I am not a meteorologist or an elected official, but I used to play fantasy football with an actuary, who changed my perspective on pretty much every thing.

Most of us are brought up to do the right thing. My Dad did a lot of not-right things, but even he would constantly tell me “be a giver, not a taker” and “make the choice you can sleep with at night”. For most of my life, I expected leaders and elected officials to make decisions they could sleep with and do the right thing.

But after watching America’s moves post-9/11, the choice to bail out banks in ‘09, the handling of Covid, and now the Wildfires, I think it’s safe to say that elected officials don’t make decisions with sleep in mind. They make bone headed mistakes and read what sound like AI-generated speeches probably because they can’t sleep at night. Morality has no place in the frontal lobe of their cerebral cortex. No, they do it almost exclusively based on the financial costs of risk and uncertainty, which is what an actuary does.

I didn’t know actuaries existed until I met this guy, but actuaries use math, statistics, and financial theory to assess the likelihood and monetary costs of potential events. As you could imagine, this skill set translates very well to sports gambling.

The friend I played fantasy sports with had complicated charts he used when drafting players and placing bets. He took all the risks into account, all the emotion out of the game, and I learned more from playing fantasy sports with this guy than most courses in college. He was never enamored with someone’s athletic ability, he didn’t look at height, weight, 40-time, or the “eye test”. He simply looked at the numbers and determined if certain players were good business and worth the financial risk.

He played fantasy football for fun, but Monday through Friday he evaluated risks for insurance companies because that’s what you’re doing when you buy or sell insurance: gambling.

But insurance companies have access to significantly more information, entire departments dedicated to calculating risk, and then they offer you a deal that is guaranteed to make them money. They also have lobbyists and politicians on payroll so you’re literally betting against the 1919 Black Sox.

And you know what almost took them down? CALIFORNIA WILDFIRES.

Most homes in the Palisades, Malibu, and adjacent neighborhoods were uninsurable and companies started dropping insurance policies two months before this cataclysmic event BECAUSE THEY KNEW IT WAS COMING.

It was a sure thing.

Any of these elected officials that act like they were caught completely off guard or that this was a force majeure is lying through their teeth.

Sure, you could look at this event and in the aftermath quantify it as a force majeure which in legalese is an extraordinary event that prevents one or both parties from performing their negotiated for consideration because it is in so many words an “Act of God”.

But these fires were not an Act of God. There were fires in November AND December and the winds forecast to come last week were EVEN STRONGER. An Act of God is something like the locust plague that God allegedly inflicted on the Egyptians: a once in a lifetime cataclysmic event that literally feels God-sent.

These fires happen over and over and over, yet, we are never prepared because the intricate web of business does not incentivize our city to be prepared and protect its citizens.

In California’s (I’m referring to California as a business entity here) calculation, it is better business to do the minimum required in non-crisis situations, wait to make sure the crisis does happen, then call the President, call Canada’s firefighters, suit up the inmates in California State Prison, and ask them to fight the fires for us. With all the mouths to feed in California’s “Business”, it doesn’t make financial sense to divert more funds to the prevention of wildfire or to prepare its citizens until its too late.

Why would our city, county, and state divert funds to protect us when the insurance companies had already decided there was no more meat left on the bone?

In addition to sports betting, I also shoot dice. When you see a mother fucker hit the point twice, you pick up your money. That’s what the insurance companies did last year and it’s what they did AGAIN right before the fires in November and December. They dropped coverage because it didn’t make financial sense to insure anyone, which is reasonable.

Business interests are things that I think constituents can understand, but on the news and through the mouths of our politicians, the insurance companies are described as entities that “insure” us, “protect” us, and have our back like the fucking Allstate logo. They talk up insurance companies because they help elected officials prevent mass hysteria. They profit by creating an environment where people feel sure enough about their choices to purchase homes.

In actuality, we are in an adversarial relationship betting against insurance companies and they are FEASTING on us!

You know what’s worse than United Healthcare? Allstate, which dropped its fire coverage in Southern California beginning in 2022.

I live in 90077. It doesn’t sound as good as it used to say 11217 Stand Up when I lived in Fort Greene and - on top of that - I pay FORTY-TWO RACKS A YEAR for insurance on my crib. The payout if my house crashes out is 2.63Ms and the deductible for wildfire is TEN PERCENT of that to deter me from using my insurance for any damage under 263k.

On top of that, I had to FIGHT for this insurance. I was about to put my insurance agent’s foot in my mouth to take this piece of shit deal and in the end, I gotta lay 42k a year for a payout 38% below the street value of my house, with a 263k deductible which is the 10% VIG in case this shitty house on fire parlay even pays. The best case scenario is that I lose this bet every year and pay 42k praying that my house doesn’t burn down.

You may read this and leave my page because I got a nice house, but when contrasted against the History of Television, I should have a much bigger house considering I wrote a book that spawned a 200+ episode sitcom but I have a gambling problem and am addicted to jawns so you should empathize with my wife and child. I only provide these details because news outlets are not explaining how bad the insurance crisis is in detail through the actual deals people are signing here. I believe this is called vúlñerâbílítÿ.

On the night my Lions-Vikings parlays hit and I read the NYT article, I told my wife, who understandably could not receive the information after breastfeeding our son. I just started to order things on Doordash in case they cut our power and we had to bunker down. My mind hadn’t gone to evacuation yet because no one had told us to evacuate or given a warning. Usually, we would get alerts on our phone right?

Around 12pm the next day, I turned notes around on a pilot that was due and went downstairs to make this spinach dip.

As you can see, this is a premature spinach dip. There is still a lot of moisture, it’s not nearly creamy enough, and no heat has been applied to the top. You shouldn’t trust a spinach dip that looks like this.

BUT, as I let the spinach dip cook, my wife yelled, “BABE THE PALISADES IS ON FIRE.”

Because my mind’s self-defense mechanism is to question trivial issues in times of crisis, I wondered if her subject-verb agreement was correct. The PALISADES - despite having a title that indicates plurality - is in fact one entity. It sounds more better to say Palisades Are on fire, but it is actually correct to say Palisades IS on fire.

I looked at the television and it looked like a Michael Bay film. There was a giant fire engulfing a street with cars that people started to flee. It didn’t look real, but the newscaster immediately explained that there was only one road out of the Palisades and that the massive simultaneous evacuation clogged that street and people had nowhere to go.

Living in Bel Air, we also only have one road to evacuate from: Bellagio onto Sunset. But if we needed to evacuate, someone would have said something right? I figured our elected officials would have the decency to let us know we are in danger and proceeded to put my spinach dip under the broiler.

Then a fire fighter called into the telecast remote. The newscaster asked him what he was seeing and he explained that the evacuation order came too late and he said something I will never forget, “If you see horizontal smoke, GET OUT! Don’t wait for anyone to tell you; it will be too late. Get out!”

I was watching my spinach dip cook and did not have a view of the backyard, but my wife did. “BABE THERE’S HORIZONTAL SMOKE!” I ran back over to the living room and there it was. A huge black panoramic cloud of horizontal smoke touching the edge of our backyard.

The first thing I did was pull out my spinach dip.

Then I tried to pack my wife’s Margiela fertility boots because we want another kid.

As I went to grab them, I saw the look on her face packing our child’s clothing and realized that this would be an inappropriate item to bring so instead, I grabbed my most prized possessions (that’s the bed from our air bnb, i’m not copping to those throw pillows).

And left the house wearing Sean Taylor’s #21.

Then I got my Liquid Deaths.

And my dog.

Then we got to San Diego and I ordered mad bundt cakes.

As I ate the bundt cakes, I started to scroll through texts from friends: “Did you leave?”, “Did they tell you to evacuate?”, “We were just told to evacuate!” I looked at instagram and saw friends filming the fire BEHIND their house. I messaged one of them, “LEAVE” at which time he responded, “They haven’t told us to evacuate yet but I’m packing.”

I respect boundaries so I said nothing and prayed that silence was golden or some shit like that. Eventually, he evacuated, but I started to wonder why the evacuation orders were coming so late? Why was every one in the Palisades fleeing last minute? I spoke to people and no one got alerts until it was too late.

Then the Sunset Fire happened and people started to panic, but again, the alerts weren’t coming to evacuate for people in Whitley Heights or the Hills. Roads were jammed, chaos ensued, and I saw what was happening. The alerts weren’t being sent in an effort to protect people, they were being sent to each neighborhood at the last minute to avoid mass hysteria…

Before a blunt, I take out my fronts. Then I start to front, matter fact I be on a manhunt.

But what if our leaders stopped fronting?

What if they just acknowledged the danger, the cost of prevention, the cost of evacuating last minute, the spike in cortisol, and gave people the information like they do with hurricanes in Florida?

YES, that Florida. That ridiculous state where someone once ate the inside of a vacuum cleaner on meth has the decency to warn people a week to two weeks ahead of time that a hurricane is coming. I had time to prepare, pack, evacuate, and I did it every year.

Meteorologists can and do predict these events with a lot of precision and ACTUARIES ARE HELPING INSURANCE COMPANIES TRADE ON THIS INFORMATION.

Insurance companies have a lot more experience and resources than individuals do. Yet, we have to do business with these entities and pay taxes to a state that withholds and distorts this information to place us at a further disadvantage. I’m not completely mad at capitalism or competition, but I am REALLY mad that we’ve never even had the opportunity to compete on any semblance of an equitable arena. We just get fed to big business.

Information should be certified and given to citizens at the same time insurance companies receive it from government entities. We pay taxes and that is OUR information. It should be like court when you do a deposition. Every one gets information at the same time without bias so that they can make decisions for themselves. We shouldn’t be sitting there cracked out on our phones waiting for alerts, waiting for instructions, when there’s a god damn spinach dip in the broiler!

Give me the information so I can make the right choice for my family! Own the situation! We know fires are a year round thing now, but in the Age of Misinformation the government NEEDS to provide facts to citizens when they provide it to other businesses. Perhaps it is out there, but we are always having to dig or download 75 apps to receive the information. Why aren’t our leaders providing critical information? Karen Bass went up on stage last week and said “URL”!!!

The news was not authorized to tell people to evacuate and journalists had their hands tied by city-state politics, it was a fireman that came on the news and told me to “get out”. It shouldn’t come down to that fireman or our Fire Chief, Kristin Crowley, breaking down on the news spilling the beans about what’s been going on behind the scenes in LA County.

There is a lot of talk about Kristin Crowley and her beef with Karen Bass, who wouldn’t even respond to journalists when she returned from Ghana, but, personally, I think it’s really clear that Kristin Crowley had to hold the line politically since November. She fought the last three fires with her hands tied behind her back and then she got called into Karen Bass’ office and was told to shut up.

Fuck that.

I’m a registered Democrated, I got liberal ideas, but I do not care about partisan politics right now. I am watching in real time Democrats scrambling to protect their image and show a united front, after completely failing the citizens of California.

And I’m not saying Rick Caruso is the answer. I don’t think privatizing the city would magically solve the problem, but that dude was OUTSIDE with his own money protecting businesses in the Palisades. He may have huge financial interests in protecting those businesses, but maybe THAT is the answer…

It’s not democrat, republican, Karen Bass, Gavin Newsome, or Rick Caruso. These are just names and labels. The issue is that public service is no longer tied to what incentivizes individuals…

We need to restructure this entire system so that it is in our government’s FINANCIAL interest to protect it’s citizens. That is a sad sentence to write, but it’s how I feel. Forget morality, forget identity, forget cancelling, these levers are not incentivizing people to do the right thing. At this point, I’m happy to pay taxes for the services promised in our Social Contract.

We live in a global capitalist world where nothing moves but the money and we should just acknowledge the hell that we have created.

We made our bed. Now we gotta figure out how we sleep in it.

Who knew Do the Right Thing was a movie about the LA Fires… Ft. Greene Stand Up.