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Notes -
I know two families who lost their houses. One is a composer for Disney and the other is an investment banker. It's still a tragedy, and I think of all those Oscars melted to slag...but as Taibbi noted, it's like the inverse of Hurricane Katrina which washed out the lowest wealth citizens of New Orleans.
What I'm wondering about is the effect this will have on insurance companies. I heard--offhandedly--that Allstate had removed fire coverage for the area. Still...I'd guess most people have some kind of fire protection in their insurance portfolio and these are for multi-million dollar buildings.
It's kind of difficult to imagine how this area gets rebuilt too. Will people even want to go back? Also how much of south LA worked in north-west LA? Will unemployment become a big issue? I haven't heard anything from FEMA...maybe that's appropriate?
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