• stevedice@sh.itjust.works
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    12 hours ago

    will pay any amount

    No, he won’t. He will promise any amount and pay half of that to a lawyer to weasel out with some bullshit legalese.

    • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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      4 hours ago

      Obviously in true ancap fashion, he’ll need to put the agreed payment in multisig escrow up front. Only an outlaw would refuse!

  • starman2112@sh.itjust.works
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    14 hours ago

    “Landlords deserve tons of money for no effort because they take on the risks of homeownership”

    Landlords when that risk manifests:

    • Ech@lemm.ee
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      13 hours ago

      Not that it stops this guy from being a pos idiot, but he did say “any amount”. Your critique would fit if he were complaining about local FD “not doing their job” or something.

      • Infynis@midwest.social
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        13 hours ago

        The point of the post is that he claimed he doesn’t pay taxes for services that, if they were more robust, could have prevented this desperate, hilarious tweet.

        • Ech@lemm.ee
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          9 hours ago

          He (incorrectly) thinks he can buy his way out of it when it matters. And I have no sympathy for him, fwiw. If it was just his house burning, I’d bring popcorn.

  • mothar@lemmings.world
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    12 hours ago

    Kinda ironic that the dude is called Wassermann which literally translates to waterman in german.

  • Darkard@lemmy.world
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    17 hours ago

    We laugh, but his follow up will be “see! You all paid taxes and your houses still burned down! Proof that the socialist experiment failed!”

    • NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone
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      10 hours ago

      And they didn’t tax the fossil fuel industry that can shoulder a lot of the responsibility for this. In fact, they heavily subsidised it.

    • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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      4 hours ago

      Even if he’s evading taxes we still have to put out the fire or it’ll spread. Keith is painfully unaware of how externalities work.

  • Gork@lemm.ee
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    17 hours ago

    Any amount, you say?

    Even more than what it would cost in taxes?

  • pelespirit@sh.itjust.worksM
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    15 hours ago

    Lessons learned

    We hired a property management company, but eventually took it in-house. “That was a really big mistake,” Wasserman recounts. “ My wife and I were going up on weekends to rent units. We don’t really speak Spanish so we often relied on Google Translate to speak with potential tenants. We quickly realized that we weren’t the right people to manage those properties so we eventually sold those assets, too.”

    Bakersfield taught them some important lessons:

    https://web.archive.org/web/20250109184023/https://www.geltventurepartners.com/article/bakersfield-to-billions-gelts-keith-wasserman-gets-results

    • Notyou@sopuli.xyz
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      14 hours ago

      That is one of the ways Marcus Crassus got rich in Rome.

      The first ever Roman fire brigade was created by Crassus. Fires were almost a daily occurrence in Rome, and Crassus took advantage of the fact that Rome had no fire department, by creating his own brigade—500 men strong—which rushed to burning buildings at the first cry of alarm. Upon arriving at the scene, however, the firefighters did nothing while Crassus offered to buy the burning building from the distressed property owner, at a miserable price. If the owner agreed to sell the property, his men would put out the fire; if the owner refused, then they would simply let the structure burn to the ground. After buying many properties this way, he rebuilt them, and often leased the properties to their original owners or new tenants.>

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Licinius_Crassus

      • phoneymouse@lemmy.world
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        13 hours ago

        He did pay for his greed. When he failed in his campaign in Parthia, the parthians put him to death by pouring molten gold down his throat.

      • samus12345@lemm.ee
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        12 hours ago

        So get at least a little money but lose the property, or let the property burn down out of spite so nobody gets it. You’d still own the land it’s on, right? Decisions, decisions…

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          11 hours ago

          I guess it depends on if you have enough resources to rebuild or not. I don’t think insurance existed back then.

          The first option is bad but at least some of your stuff is saved. It depends on if anything was irreplaceable, but then you got to pay this ass clown rent.

          The second one is when no one wins, but if you have resources then just rebuild. If you have nothing then sell a plot of land for cheap, but still have nothing from the fire.

          • samus12345@lemm.ee
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            11 hours ago

            Yeah, saving your stuff from the building is a pretty big motivator since he’s only buying the property, not everything in it. I’m sure he got a lot of takers.

    • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
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      17 hours ago

      I’ve never heard of them in the modern day, but I know that’s how fire brigades started in the UK

      • Denjin@lemmings.world
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        16 hours ago

        Correct, it’s also the birth of insurance. People would pay a subscription style fee to the fire brigade so their house would be protected in case of a fire.

        It’s something satirised in The Colour of Magic, the first Discworld novel.

        • ThePyroPython@lemmy.world
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          14 hours ago

          Precisely.

          There’d be fire markers on the outer walls to indicate which fire protection company covered that building and whichever firefighter turned up would bill that fire protection company who’d then bill the customer/customer’s insurance company.

          Edit: typo, damn these supposedly opposable thumbs!

    • ChicoSuave@lemmy.world
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      14 hours ago

      There was a Roman who was rich because of private fire fighters, Crassus. Being the richest person in Rome’s history, it will no doubt come as a shock when history shows he was instrumental in turning the Republic into the Roman Empire.

      The cycle continues. Democracy will die because the rich hoard the power and money speaks loudest when it is accepted speech.

    • Xanthrax@lemmy.world
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      16 hours ago

      I’ve never seen one in the US, and upon further research, they don’t really exist.

      All that being said, if you’re rich, you’re more likely to have a firebreak created for you by landscapers. The city also creates firebreaks surrounding neighborhoods like the palisades.

      • Hildegarde@lemmy.world
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        15 hours ago

        There are private fire departments. They are owned by companies that own industrial facilities with high fire risk, that need immediate response, such as oil refineries, chemical plants, and and factories.

        But you’re right that there aren’t private fire companies to serve anyone on demand. There are no manned fire trucks in LA waiting for a high enough bidder to respond to the fire.

        • Xanthrax@lemmy.world
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          12 hours ago

          That’s fire insurance, but yeah, pretty much the same thing. I have my cert in personal lines. We provided that everywhere but where it was needed. FEMA would step in. We have a risk pool. If the number of claims/ emergencies outweighs the risk pool, there’s nothing we can do. There’s no money, no resources, and no people.

          My family owns a ranch in SoCal. Don’t even start man lmao

      • Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works
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        15 hours ago

        There are private firefighting companies, and in this fire any efforts they could add would have been welcomed, since the strong winds prevented nighttime air assault. But unless they had water-tank vehicles they would have been subject to the same problem of hydrants running dry from insufficient supply. Their best bet would be to pump from swimming pools. The multiple real Fire Departments would have been fine with being able to send their personnel elsewhere. I say “would have” because I just don’t know if any were working there. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were, though.

    • taladar@sh.itjust.works
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      15 hours ago

      I suppose oil well firefighters like Red Adair and similar specialized companies could be counted as private firefighters.

    • WhiteOakBayou@lemmy.world
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      16 hours ago

      They are. The ones I know mostly contract with states or federal governments to do wildland fire fighting but I’ve read about private firefighters operating in neighborhoods in California a few years ago.

      Montana’s new senator (Sheehy) made his money with a private aerial firefighting company.

    • OceanSoap@lemmy.ml
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      14 hours ago

      Private emergency services are always a thing, which is why defunding emergency services is always a bad idea -yes, even cops - because the people in charge can usually pay for their own. They don’t GAF when you’re no longer safe, because they can be.

  • BigDiction@lemmy.world
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    11 hours ago

    9:36pm on Tuesday. Depending on where the house was there are some problems that can’t be solved with money.

    That fire tore through Pacific Palisades. Aftermath looked like Lahaina. Literally no stopping it.

  • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
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    17 hours ago

    You see, the trick to not having leopards eat your face is in fact to intentionally starve them, and then brag about it publically!

  • TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com
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    15 hours ago

    Just wait until it is about a total war economy, and that their kids and grandkids have to go fight drones.

    It will be too scary to repost at, for sure.