After the fires, the speculators: those who lost everything in Hawaii bombarded with purchase requests
Can there be anything worse than a speculator who wants to take advantage of the misfortune of someone who has lost everything in a great fire? This is apparently happening, on a massive scale, in Hawaii right now. Homeowners, already desperate at losing everything, are bombarded with calls from very greedy people, and I think that says a lot about the current state of our society.
The festival of greed being witnessed is unbelievable and morally disturbing.
Lahaina has been hit harder than anywhere else by the fires, and homeowners are found to be bombarded with requests to buy, with many being forced to sell. A local resident made global headlines after posting a video about the scandal
Recovering in the recent video, the Hawaii resident said, “I am so frustrated that investors and real estate agents are calling families who have lost their homes, offering to buy their land.
'How dare you do that to our community right now. If you are a victim and they are calling you please get their trade name so we can detonate them,” he added.
He claims in the clip that he "personally" knows "multiple families" who have been "offered money by investors and real estate agents."
The Lahaina market was among the richest in the world. In 2020, the average home in Lahaina was worth about $600,000. Before the fire it was worth about a million dollars, so it stands to reason that smart-ass people and corporations want to take advantage.
Hawaiian Governor Josh Green has spoken out against this rush of speculation. The authorities are warning of the danger of giving in to these often fraudulent offers, which do not know the local building codes. “Those who try to steal our land and try to build here are poorly informed,” Green said in a news release Monday.
Many people applauded Green for taking such a stand.
The governor seems to have taken a position to protect residents and their assets, but perhaps he has other, much less transparent goals: Green was caught on video while stating that "he is already thinking about how the state can buy that land"…
Hawaiian Gov. Josh Green has revealed plans for the state to potentially buy property in the beach city of Lahaina, which has been ravaged by the deadliest wildfire in modern US history.
"I'm already thinking about ways the state can acquire that land so we can turn it into workforce housing, put it back into families, or make it open forever as a memorial to people who are lost," Green commented between the ruins.
Even if the governor apparently speaks of positive philanthropy, he is not very different from the speculators who want to take advantage of the misfortune. In the end, he too wants to build a career on the misfortune of others.
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The article After the fires, the speculators: whoever lost everything in Hawaii bombarded by purchase requests comes from Scenari Economics .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/dopo-gli-incendi-gli-speculatori-chi-ha-perso-tutto-alle-hawaii-bombardato-da-richieste-di-acquisto/ on Thu, 17 Aug 2023 08:00:43 +0000.