Can't think for yourself? This is econ 101. People will try to drive down the cost by:
1) Buying/building smaller houses that cost less to insure.
2) Building using different materials which are less prone to burn.
3) Moving to areas less prone to fires/hurricanes etc
4) Voting for representatives who take this more seriously and install better infrastructure to fight fires/floods.
These are all good ideas which haven't been put in place already because the government has distorted the insurance market so badly people aren't getting the right price signals.
0) Elect people who claim they can make the voters' existing lifestyle affordable.
I agree that sometimes nothing or not very much is the best thing for the government to do, but a crisis is a very bad time to say that, because the other side will just claim they will fix things.
After all, deflation is not good, but claiming that you will bring down grocery prices does seem effective.
We don't want fast fixes. Things change, building materials could change, fire fighting methods could improve etc. If we can send the right signal via the right price for the risk, people can react accordingly to either reduce or avoid the problem.
Can't think for yourself? This is econ 101. People will try to drive down the cost by:
1) Buying/building smaller houses that cost less to insure. 2) Building using different materials which are less prone to burn. 3) Moving to areas less prone to fires/hurricanes etc 4) Voting for representatives who take this more seriously and install better infrastructure to fight fires/floods.
These are all good ideas which haven't been put in place already because the government has distorted the insurance market so badly people aren't getting the right price signals.
> "The government needs to just stay out of it."
0) Elect people who claim they can make the voters' existing lifestyle affordable.
I agree that sometimes nothing or not very much is the best thing for the government to do, but a crisis is a very bad time to say that, because the other side will just claim they will fix things.
After all, deflation is not good, but claiming that you will bring down grocery prices does seem effective.
Sure - "politics is a tough game" is absolutely true.
People don't build wood houses in an area that gets wild fires
Probably they will, at one point maybe that banks wills stop financing it.
But only when you can't get mortgages, people will begin to stop, and even then some will continue.
It'll take a long time for these changes to trickle out. Especially, when real estate prices in LA are so high.
It might be faster to fix this with zoning. Or if the area is so desirable, find a way to engineer your way out of it.
We don't want fast fixes. Things change, building materials could change, fire fighting methods could improve etc. If we can send the right signal via the right price for the risk, people can react accordingly to either reduce or avoid the problem.