HUGE Fire Sweeps South California

http://www.thestreet.com/story/10448211/1/wildfires-imperil-southern-california.html

This has a lot of implications. Firstly, for people's lives and livelihoods. (fatalities appear to have been kept to a minimum, as the fire didn't spread sslowly but steadily and strongly, giving people time to evacuate) This is really really terrible for them...

Especially if their insurer was AIG.

Oh, they probably will all get their payouts. But I am sure that they are very very worried about the possibility that they might NOT receive their compensation. There is still a small possibility that they won't though. After all, nowadays even bank deposits have some small risk of default. (during the recent bank foreclosures, several dozen billion were paid out, but several hundred million was lost by depositers... a good average, but utterly devastating to those minority who lost several hundred million)

... how about those who didn't have insurance... or have not been keeping up with payments?

As for property prices... how will this affect property prices in South California? Perhaps this might help property prices recover, as those people will eventually need new homes... and some of them are wealthy people, who used to live in mansions.

What does it do to toxic mortages? What are the implications when a bank is contemplating forclosing a policy... and the house burns down?

...

In this environment, is it possible that some people with loose morals, large mortages, and low incomes, will be merrily pouring petrol (which is half the price it used to be!) around their homes? (after removing anything of worth from the premises)

Well... I hope that the US government will accept a helping hand to these victims. After all, this is something that they are supposed to protect their citizens from. They pay tax every year to support the Fire Department, don't they? So, it's only right that the US government compensates those who lost everything. Well, maybe not 100% compensation, but, don't leave them with nothing... right?

This is really Murphy's Law hitting hard. Each hit to the economy and world SEPARATELY would have been a disaster of large proportions on it's own. GM going down would have caused a share market crash even in a strong global economy. Oil Prices at this level would have caused a recession in Malaysia, even without factoring in a drop in global consumer spending. Which is worse, mass unemployment and economic woes, or this credit squeeze and the financial woes? (well the last selection is actually feeding upon each other in a vicious interconnected cycle to some extent) In the end, I think if a few more disasters hit, the whole world is go from deep deep trouble to International Emergency.