January 15, 2025 • 16 mins
Chris dives into the recent California wildfire crisis, exposing the flawed priorities and policies that contributed to the disaster. From halted wildfire prevention projects to misplaced environmental efforts like saving a shrub that thrives after fire, he critiques the green movement's inefficiencies and the consequences of government subsidies. He also discusses the broader issues of risk mismanagement, insurance distortions, and the lack of accountability in both environmental and economic policies. www.watchdogonwallstreet.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast explaining the news coming
out of the complex worlds of finance, economics, and politics
and the impact it we'll have on everyday Americans. Author,
investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst, and trader Chris Markowski.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Save the shrub, burn it all down, Let it burn.
I'm thinking of that song from the mid nineteen eighties
that they used to play at the frat parties, and
you know what, these played a lot too. They should
play it at the roller skating rinks and roller skating parties.
Remember that what was at rock Master Scott and the
(00:39):
Dynamic three. You know a song I'm talking about, the
roof is on fire. Well, I'm not being flippant here
by any stretching measure, because it's not funny. It's not funny.
I want to share with you something I did a
little homework here. There was a critical the eco warriors
halted a major wild line wildfire prevention project there at
(01:05):
the Pacific Palisades to protect a shrub shrub and endangered shrub. Yeah,
they went out, they went out there. There's all sorts
of wooden telephone poles that were put in a place
over one hundred years old They wanted to replace him
(01:27):
with steel poles, and they wanted to widen fire access lanes.
This is in a wild fire prone area, so two
million dollar project there was there to bolster fire safety.
It was there was an elevate, it was deemed to
be an elevated fire risk and I want to quote
(01:47):
here this project will help ensure power reliability and safety
while helping reduce wild fire threats. Okay, that got put
to a stop when an eco warrior amateur botanist hiking
through the park noticed that there was a shrub. This
(02:13):
it's called Bronton's milk Vitech m I L K V
E T C H. I don't know Bronton's milk v tech.
It's there's only a few thousand wild specimens, and I
guess some were disturbed during the work. The eco warriors
(02:37):
got together, they raised a ruckus. They probably uh you know,
put out some signs, marched and did some hey hey
ho ho, we have to save this shrub yo yo
or something, you know, some usual dumb ass chant that
the eco warriors do. And they ordered none of they
(02:57):
order the the the project to stop. The California's Coastal
Commission ordered them to stop. They also had to pay
two million dollars in fines because of the shrub. Now
Here we are that entire area that's gone up in smoke,
going up in smoke, taking the shrubs, taking the shrubs
(03:22):
and the homes, twelve thousand homes claiming twenty four lives.
Let me explain the homework that I did. This shrub
this again. Well, the the com the real name is
astrag Gallas bron Tony astro Gallas bron TONI Brownton's Milk Vitech. Yeah,
(03:47):
it's it's rare. You want it's interesting about this shrub? Yeah,
it only it only germinates if there's a fire. Yeah. Man,
I talked about the sequoia tree. It needs the shrub.
(04:10):
The shrub is got it. This wild hour is the
best thing for the shrub. Best thing for the shrub.
It requires fire to grow to propagate. The bean like
seeds require scarification to break down their tough seed coats
before they can germinate. The seeds persist for years in
(04:34):
the soil until fire allows them to sprout. So shrubs
made out of fine so you eco warriors out there,
you may want to take that rap song from the
mid eighties. You know, we don't need no water. Let
the fire burn so we can grow our shrub. You won,
(04:57):
you won. Oh, you don't belie me on this. Do
your own homework. I'm not kidding you. It's gonna be
great for that shrub because of this fire. Again, this
goes to the heart with just the entire stupidity of
the entire green movement. This is climate change crap. We
talked about it yesterday. When it comes to uh, you know,
(05:20):
the nonsense in that area and how you know, somehow unprecedented.
Now it's not unprecedent. No, it's not a black swan again. California,
the entire world. Okay, the sooner, the sooner we can
get rid of all of this climate crap, this COEO
(05:41):
to bullshit, the better off we're going to be. California.
You got all sorts of you know, various different standards there.
When it comes to CO two in cutting emissions, they
have no effect. All. Everything that California is doing is
(06:04):
for nought. It does nothing to reduce global admissions. Let
me let me put a tea this way, put a
perfect example. I got an idea. All right, you got
a pool, got a pool and you are on one
side of the pool. You're on one side in the pool,
(06:25):
but there's somebody on the other side of the pool,
and that person on the other side the pool pisses
in the pool. Now by you deciding not to piss
in the pool doesn't do anything about that guy down
there pissing in the pool. And the CO two is
going to CO two, the pe in this case is
(06:45):
going to disperse around the pool. Green energy subsidies. Everything
that we're doing, every inflation reduction, everything that has been
done has been for or not. You understand the type
of money we have flushed down the toilet. It doesn't
(07:08):
reduce emissions. Oh, I know you lives in California. You
think the thing You ain't doing shit? Okay, you ain't
doing shit. For crying out loud. The Democrats knew this.
The Democratic Party itself that determined this wasn't when Obama
(07:31):
was in office, that and that CO two or do
it the way that they're doing now with these subsidies
was stupid. The only way that it might work is
if they had some sort of carbon tax. That's it.
That's it. But again, Obama's president. He didn't want to
tax anybody I mean, if there was a Republican in charge,
(07:52):
they would have pushed for taxes and demanded but they
didn't want to get caught raising taxes on carbon. No way, no,
how not to mention the fact if you want, what
did Obama do? What did Obama do to save the
auto industry? Right, We're gonna benefit everybody. Remember cash for clunkers?
What did everybody do? Everybody traded in their old car
(08:16):
that worked just fine more often than not, and went
out and bought themselves or an suv to save the
auto industry. What a joke. This is from Homan Jenkins
Wall Street Journal, twenty nineteen. University of Oregon study reveal
(08:39):
the empirical truth green energy doesn't replace fossil fuels, it
enables more energy consumption overall. Okay, green energy doesn't replace
fossil fuels, it enables more energy can assumption overall. The
(09:02):
EPA that very same year calculated the potential emission savings
from subsidizing electric vehicles had been offset five times over
by the pickup truck and suv boom team Obama facilitated
to assure the success of their auto bailout ninety six percent.
(09:25):
This is from the Science journal Premiere Journal Science. Ninety
six percent of policy supported worldwide as reducing emissions failed
to do so, consisting mostly of handouts to green energy interests.
Listen again, this fire, it's awful. It's going to be
all sorts of conversation. Now, how are you going to
(09:47):
go about the numbers are getting thrown around that the
billions of dollars to rebuild in that area. You live
in an area that is prone to why fires, prone
to wildfires? And again I'm equal opportunity when it comes
(10:07):
to this long time listeners know there's risk that's involved
with living in that area, just as much as there
is risk living in an area where you might get
hit with hurricanes. The taxpayer of the United States should
not subsidize any form of insurance out there. You want
(10:33):
to live in an area that is prone to have fires,
or you want to live in an area that's prone
to have hurricanes, well you have first forms. Insurance needs
to be priced based upon market principles. Let them charge
whatever the hell they want to charge, but only rich
(10:55):
people be able to afford. I don't care, I don't
care nobody. You do not have some sort of right
to build and live right there in a fire prone area.
I know, it's a beautiful view Pacific Palisades, with your
fellow taxpayer subsidizing the fact that you can't buy the
entire house and insure it yourself. Self ensure it's your risk.
(11:23):
You decide, people, I'm sorry, Okay, this is the reality
all of these areas in California, that they've always been
prone to wildfires. More people live there, obviously there's going
to be more destruction. Again. I'm going back in time
(11:46):
to you know, this past September and October. I mean
the area where the island, the island where my mother lives.
My mother lives in a condominium that's up high overlooking
the water. She lost her car, she lost what was
in her garage. Her kinda was fine. Yeah, did they
(12:09):
deal with some issues with Ian because of the winds.
Was the war here? Yeah, you're going down there, that
entire island, you know, go on YouTube, Okay, look up
Mannesota Key and look at the destruction that took place.
Looks like a war zone. Okay, different type of war
zone than what you're seeing in California. But I knew
it was gonna happen. I knew it was gonna happen.
(12:32):
We talked about again this place that I'd go fishing
out of there all time, and I'm like going along
the inner coastal and the mangroves and all of these
old homes at the level of the water. And they
had a good run. They were an air fifty sixty
(12:52):
seventy eighty years and nothing. But eventually, eventually a storm
is gonna come through and do it all along. When
storm comes to these places are gonna get destroyed. And
that's what happened. You know. The reality is this is
the thing that people don't understand about, you know, risk
(13:13):
return on all of these things and calculating risk problem
with the reason why we have a disaster when it
comes to healthcare in this country, same thing Obamacare. You
gotta cover pre existing conditions, and you gotta cover this,
and you gotta cover that. Where's the risk involved in
this thing? It's not really insurance. Okay, it's just a
big bureaucratic mess. Right now, Maybe a better way to
(13:37):
explain it to people out here, Maybe I'll do it
this way. Okay, if you get a bunch of tickets,
speeding tickets, moving violations, what's going to happen to your
car insurance. It's gonna go up, gonna go up. I
(13:57):
remember back in the day, Oh you could to you know,
get points off your you know they call the points
on your license. I don't know if it's still the
case anymore. You take a driving class or whatever, it
may be be better for your insurance, whatever your higher risk.
It has to be priced in to everything, and it's
(14:21):
not something that the taxpayers should be subsidizing. Again, the
things that are happening before our very eyes, unfortunately, the
media narrative, they're not they're not focused on anything. All
of this stuff is man made, man made to man
(14:45):
made disaster in the sense that you know what, maybe
just maybe you know, guess what, you don't subsidize any
sort of insurance in those areas, maybe you'll have less
uh density. The fact that, hey, if you're going to
decide to live in these areas, certain things need to
(15:05):
be taken into account. Removing Russia is a myriad of things.
With that being said again again, wind's blowing up the
hills at one hundred miles an hour, fire is going
to burn. It wasn't a matter of if, it was
just a matter of win and I mentioned this on
(15:30):
the program. Again. There was an episode, it was a
Joe Rogan episode this past summer. He basically said the
exact thing that I said about Florida and the hurricanes
and what was eventually going to happen in California. He
lived there. He had a conversation one of the firefighters
when there a fire got close to his house. After
(15:51):
the fact, they put it out, and firefighter told him
and said, one of these days, they said, is what
the winds are going to go and we're not going
to be able to stop this. And I guess it
was one of the contributing things that had to move
to Austin, Texas. That there is no ultimate safe place
(16:11):
in the entire world. But again, you know, you have
to determine risk in all of these things where you again,
it has to be factored in. And that's quite frannant.
That's a part. That's a part of again, how things
are priced properly. When you subsidize, when you get involved,
(16:32):
you cause all sorts of distortions and they never work.
Watchdog on Wallstreet dot Com
The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast explaining the news coming
out of the complex worlds of finance, economics, and politics
and the impact it we'll have on everyday Americans. Author,
investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst, and trader Chris Markowski.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Save the shrub, burn it all down, Let it burn.
I'm thinking of that song from the mid nineteen eighties
that they used to play at the frat parties, and
you know what, these played a lot too. They should
play it at the roller skating rinks and roller skating parties.
Remember that what was at rock Master Scott and the
(00:39):
Dynamic three. You know a song I'm talking about, the
roof is on fire. Well, I'm not being flippant here
by any stretching measure, because it's not funny. It's not funny.
I want to share with you something I did a
little homework here. There was a critical the eco warriors
halted a major wild line wildfire prevention project there at
(01:05):
the Pacific Palisades to protect a shrub shrub and endangered shrub. Yeah,
they went out, they went out there. There's all sorts
of wooden telephone poles that were put in a place
over one hundred years old They wanted to replace him
(01:27):
with steel poles, and they wanted to widen fire access lanes.
This is in a wild fire prone area, so two
million dollar project there was there to bolster fire safety.
It was there was an elevate, it was deemed to
be an elevated fire risk and I want to quote
(01:47):
here this project will help ensure power reliability and safety
while helping reduce wild fire threats. Okay, that got put
to a stop when an eco warrior amateur botanist hiking
through the park noticed that there was a shrub. This
(02:13):
it's called Bronton's milk Vitech m I L K V
E T C H. I don't know Bronton's milk v tech.
It's there's only a few thousand wild specimens, and I
guess some were disturbed during the work. The eco warriors
(02:37):
got together, they raised a ruckus. They probably uh you know,
put out some signs, marched and did some hey hey
ho ho, we have to save this shrub yo yo
or something, you know, some usual dumb ass chant that
the eco warriors do. And they ordered none of they
(02:57):
order the the the project to stop. The California's Coastal
Commission ordered them to stop. They also had to pay
two million dollars in fines because of the shrub. Now
Here we are that entire area that's gone up in smoke,
going up in smoke, taking the shrubs, taking the shrubs
(03:22):
and the homes, twelve thousand homes claiming twenty four lives.
Let me explain the homework that I did. This shrub
this again. Well, the the com the real name is
astrag Gallas bron Tony astro Gallas bron TONI Brownton's Milk Vitech. Yeah,
(03:47):
it's it's rare. You want it's interesting about this shrub? Yeah,
it only it only germinates if there's a fire. Yeah. Man,
I talked about the sequoia tree. It needs the shrub.
(04:10):
The shrub is got it. This wild hour is the
best thing for the shrub. Best thing for the shrub.
It requires fire to grow to propagate. The bean like
seeds require scarification to break down their tough seed coats
before they can germinate. The seeds persist for years in
(04:34):
the soil until fire allows them to sprout. So shrubs
made out of fine so you eco warriors out there,
you may want to take that rap song from the
mid eighties. You know, we don't need no water. Let
the fire burn so we can grow our shrub. You won,
(04:57):
you won. Oh, you don't belie me on this. Do
your own homework. I'm not kidding you. It's gonna be
great for that shrub because of this fire. Again, this
goes to the heart with just the entire stupidity of
the entire green movement. This is climate change crap. We
talked about it yesterday. When it comes to uh, you know,
(05:20):
the nonsense in that area and how you know, somehow unprecedented.
Now it's not unprecedent. No, it's not a black swan again. California,
the entire world. Okay, the sooner, the sooner we can
get rid of all of this climate crap, this COEO
(05:41):
to bullshit, the better off we're going to be. California.
You got all sorts of you know, various different standards there.
When it comes to CO two in cutting emissions, they
have no effect. All. Everything that California is doing is
(06:04):
for nought. It does nothing to reduce global admissions. Let
me let me put a tea this way, put a
perfect example. I got an idea. All right, you got
a pool, got a pool and you are on one
side of the pool. You're on one side in the pool,
(06:25):
but there's somebody on the other side of the pool,
and that person on the other side the pool pisses
in the pool. Now by you deciding not to piss
in the pool doesn't do anything about that guy down
there pissing in the pool. And the CO two is
going to CO two, the pe in this case is
(06:45):
going to disperse around the pool. Green energy subsidies. Everything
that we're doing, every inflation reduction, everything that has been
done has been for or not. You understand the type
of money we have flushed down the toilet. It doesn't
(07:08):
reduce emissions. Oh, I know you lives in California. You
think the thing You ain't doing shit? Okay, you ain't
doing shit. For crying out loud. The Democrats knew this.
The Democratic Party itself that determined this wasn't when Obama
(07:31):
was in office, that and that CO two or do
it the way that they're doing now with these subsidies
was stupid. The only way that it might work is
if they had some sort of carbon tax. That's it.
That's it. But again, Obama's president. He didn't want to
tax anybody I mean, if there was a Republican in charge,
(07:52):
they would have pushed for taxes and demanded but they
didn't want to get caught raising taxes on carbon. No way, no,
how not to mention the fact if you want, what
did Obama do? What did Obama do to save the
auto industry? Right, We're gonna benefit everybody. Remember cash for clunkers?
What did everybody do? Everybody traded in their old car
(08:16):
that worked just fine more often than not, and went
out and bought themselves or an suv to save the
auto industry. What a joke. This is from Homan Jenkins
Wall Street Journal, twenty nineteen. University of Oregon study reveal
(08:39):
the empirical truth green energy doesn't replace fossil fuels, it
enables more energy consumption overall. Okay, green energy doesn't replace
fossil fuels, it enables more energy can assumption overall. The
(09:02):
EPA that very same year calculated the potential emission savings
from subsidizing electric vehicles had been offset five times over
by the pickup truck and suv boom team Obama facilitated
to assure the success of their auto bailout ninety six percent.
(09:25):
This is from the Science journal Premiere Journal Science. Ninety
six percent of policy supported worldwide as reducing emissions failed
to do so, consisting mostly of handouts to green energy interests.
Listen again, this fire, it's awful. It's going to be
all sorts of conversation. Now, how are you going to
(09:47):
go about the numbers are getting thrown around that the
billions of dollars to rebuild in that area. You live
in an area that is prone to why fires, prone
to wildfires? And again I'm equal opportunity when it comes
(10:07):
to this long time listeners know there's risk that's involved
with living in that area, just as much as there
is risk living in an area where you might get
hit with hurricanes. The taxpayer of the United States should
not subsidize any form of insurance out there. You want
(10:33):
to live in an area that is prone to have fires,
or you want to live in an area that's prone
to have hurricanes, well you have first forms. Insurance needs
to be priced based upon market principles. Let them charge
whatever the hell they want to charge, but only rich
(10:55):
people be able to afford. I don't care, I don't
care nobody. You do not have some sort of right
to build and live right there in a fire prone area.
I know, it's a beautiful view Pacific Palisades, with your
fellow taxpayer subsidizing the fact that you can't buy the
entire house and insure it yourself. Self ensure it's your risk.
(11:23):
You decide, people, I'm sorry, Okay, this is the reality
all of these areas in California, that they've always been
prone to wildfires. More people live there, obviously there's going
to be more destruction. Again. I'm going back in time
(11:46):
to you know, this past September and October. I mean
the area where the island, the island where my mother lives.
My mother lives in a condominium that's up high overlooking
the water. She lost her car, she lost what was
in her garage. Her kinda was fine. Yeah, did they
(12:09):
deal with some issues with Ian because of the winds.
Was the war here? Yeah, you're going down there, that
entire island, you know, go on YouTube, Okay, look up
Mannesota Key and look at the destruction that took place.
Looks like a war zone. Okay, different type of war
zone than what you're seeing in California. But I knew
it was gonna happen. I knew it was gonna happen.
(12:32):
We talked about again this place that I'd go fishing
out of there all time, and I'm like going along
the inner coastal and the mangroves and all of these
old homes at the level of the water. And they
had a good run. They were an air fifty sixty
(12:52):
seventy eighty years and nothing. But eventually, eventually a storm
is gonna come through and do it all along. When
storm comes to these places are gonna get destroyed. And
that's what happened. You know. The reality is this is
the thing that people don't understand about, you know, risk
(13:13):
return on all of these things and calculating risk problem
with the reason why we have a disaster when it
comes to healthcare in this country, same thing Obamacare. You
gotta cover pre existing conditions, and you gotta cover this,
and you gotta cover that. Where's the risk involved in
this thing? It's not really insurance. Okay, it's just a
big bureaucratic mess. Right now, Maybe a better way to
(13:37):
explain it to people out here, Maybe I'll do it
this way. Okay, if you get a bunch of tickets,
speeding tickets, moving violations, what's going to happen to your
car insurance. It's gonna go up, gonna go up. I
(13:57):
remember back in the day, Oh you could to you know,
get points off your you know they call the points
on your license. I don't know if it's still the
case anymore. You take a driving class or whatever, it
may be be better for your insurance, whatever your higher risk.
It has to be priced in to everything, and it's
(14:21):
not something that the taxpayers should be subsidizing. Again, the
things that are happening before our very eyes, unfortunately, the
media narrative, they're not they're not focused on anything. All
of this stuff is man made, man made to man
(14:45):
made disaster in the sense that you know what, maybe
just maybe you know, guess what, you don't subsidize any
sort of insurance in those areas, maybe you'll have less
uh density. The fact that, hey, if you're going to
decide to live in these areas, certain things need to
(15:05):
be taken into account. Removing Russia is a myriad of things.
With that being said again again, wind's blowing up the
hills at one hundred miles an hour, fire is going
to burn. It wasn't a matter of if, it was
just a matter of win and I mentioned this on
(15:30):
the program. Again. There was an episode, it was a
Joe Rogan episode this past summer. He basically said the
exact thing that I said about Florida and the hurricanes
and what was eventually going to happen in California. He
lived there. He had a conversation one of the firefighters
when there a fire got close to his house. After
(15:51):
the fact, they put it out, and firefighter told him
and said, one of these days, they said, is what
the winds are going to go and we're not going
to be able to stop this. And I guess it
was one of the contributing things that had to move
to Austin, Texas. That there is no ultimate safe place
(16:11):
in the entire world. But again, you know, you have
to determine risk in all of these things where you again,
it has to be factored in. And that's quite frannant.
That's a part. That's a part of again, how things
are priced properly. When you subsidize, when you get involved,
(16:32):
you cause all sorts of distortions and they never work.
Watchdog on Wallstreet dot Com
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