Newsletter about the City Council meeting of December 21, 2010 - Addendum to Decommission and Permanently Secure Ivey and Ridgeview Pools

Approval , George Ivey and Ridgeview to Alleviate Existing Safety Concerns and Liability Issues - Upon a recommendation from the Parks and Recreation Commission, City Council recently decided that the City should pursue alternative avenues of aquatic activities. Staff now recommends that the City take the appropriate action to remedy the existing safety concerns and liability issues associated with these two vacated pools by decommissioning and permanently securing them. Parks and Recreation staff and Public Services staff have worked together to develop a plan to permanently remedy all safety concerns and liability issues associated with these pools. This work will include the removal of pool infrastructure and filling in the ensuing void. All work will be performed inhouse, with each pool taking approximately one week for completion.

Mayor Pro Tempore Alderman Brad Lail lays the ground rules for Public Address of Council and City Manager Mick Berry gives the reasons for decommissioning the pools. Karen Hoyle addresses Council about City officials dividing the city.



Walter Witherspoon - I'm sick of it! The people need to work on solutions and not put trust and faith in the council. The council is not listening. Why have the surveys and charrettes, if you aren't going to follow through? What about the rule of law. This was not one of the six options. This is a new agenda.



Jimmy Davis - A summary of how we got to where we are now. The pools weren't maintained and the council is going against their own words and actions.



Larry Pope - The city has not lived up to it's commitments. If you won't listen to the taxpayers, then you need to resign. There are a lot of conflicts of interest on this council. Larry raises cain at the 4:19 mark. Sam Hunt gets sentimental about what the Ridgeview pool means to him. Thom Shell (Me) The race to the bottom. We aren't striving for excellence. When people show pride we take it away from them! We need to work together as a city.



Final Comments: Billy Sudderth about the cancellation and later movement of Kwanzaa from the Ridgeview Community Center. We are powerless. This should not have taken place. A Ms. McNeur (sp?) - Council member stated that she wasn't very smart if she threw her lot in with Ridgeview. Ridgeview and west Hickory are the two largest neighborhoods in Hickory and are the two poorest socio-economically. Patricia Wilson Johnson spoke about how the city has taken things away and not replaced it with anything. How can we be great, if our community isn't great. We want to bring people into the community, but first we need to take care of those here.

The Council voted Unanimously to approve the motion to Decommission and Permanently Secure Both Pools. Several people stormed out of council chambers shouting No Justice No Peace.






The Hound hopes that this is the wake-up call and education that people need to understand how our local government is working (or isn't). It is hard for me to believe that the good people of this community and the vast majority of those within local government can support this type of governance. I guess it is all about the paycheck. Will the regular people in this community ever have a say in how the city is governed, instead of this Boss Hogg crapfest!

My heart just cannot believe what my brain has taken in over the last several years. How can you run a government this way. I have been told by members of the Ridgeview community that no one contacted them to let them know that this issue was being worked on, much less decided upon. There is no way that this item should have ever been placed on the consent agenda. It shows that members in the Whitener building have a total lack of respect for the people in the less well-to-do sections of Hickory, but I am alright with this, because this lays it all out there for everyone to see. They believe the people of this city are their subjects.

Do you remember when the forces aligned on the Lowe's Home Improvement project issue. Alder Fox was vehemently opposed to the construction of that business, as was the Mayor in the beginning, and Alder Patton came to office because of the position that she took on that issue. Those political forces that aligned in that instance created a power struggle, which changed the makeup of the city council to where it is today. I am not pointing to this as a way of chastising anyone. I am pointing to this, because I want you to see that these sorts of forces of action do have consequences.`

People said that John Watts did not listen to the will of the people and he lost in a landslide, because people rallied around how that process formed and was executed. If John Watts had communicated with the public better about that issue, then he is probably still on council today. Many say that he turned a deaf ear towards concerned citizens, especially those from his ward. It does not matter, what we have seen in the subsequent years, and how that project has uplifted the area. In the end John Watts was right about that project and the positive effects it would have on the economic development of that area. What cost John Watts was the fact that he did not communicate well with the people of his ward or the people of the city of Hickory in general.

What comes around goes around. The people on the Council still have not learned that lesson. They refuse to listen to the people. It is a shame that the person who benefited most from that lesson seems to have no clue about this or has she forgotten? It is not only that the council refuses to listen to the people, because sometimes that is a necessity with leadership. The problem is that they have refused to communicate with the people over this issue. Who formed the charrettes and the surveys? Who directed city funds, and those supposedly sacred tax dollars, towards the implementation of these directives?

If I am the shareholder of a company that has wasted this sort of money on, and this much time on, a charade, then I would want everyone involved in this fiasco fired; no compromises, no ifs, no ands, no buts.... It is time that people express their loss of confidence in the leadership of this community's leaders, because there is none. They think the city's government is their toy to use and abuse as they see fit. This is not high school. This is not some kind of popularity contest. This is a results oriented business, and we have not seen any results for a long, long time.

What we're seeing is the race to the bottom with a City Manager, Mayor, and City Council with their foot to the floor board. They are always talking about "Quality of Life." Just whose quality of life are they referring to?

As I have shown you on this blog. We are ranked in the bottom 10% by just about every analytical survey done by national entities. The Gallup-Healthway survey that was released a couple of months ago ranked the Hickory Metro area with the lowest well being in the United States in most categories, that they studied. This study included 185 metropolitan areas throughout the nation. The Milken Institute ranked Hickory as the 197th best place to do business in the United States and Forbes magazine ranks the area as the 179th best place for business and careers. What does this say about what has been going on around here. Where is the sense of urgency?

It is not the average person who should be facing the consequences of this ineptitude. It is shameful to see the level of hubris related to our local governance and leadership (or lack there of). The people who should be facing the consequences are the people who have made the decisions that led us to this point. Yet, it is the poor people who keep getting less and less. We're told that the city is doing what it is supposed to do. The garbage is getting picked up, fires are being put out, and police are responding to calls. With this race to the bottom, how long will it be until our city leaders look to justify not providing city services to the South side of the tracks.

You say that is impossible. What if we got into a time machine and went back to 1995 and told the people of Ridgeview that by 2009 there would be no pool. This would have occurred after assurances several times in the early 90s that there would be an upgrade to the pool and/or a new pool was on the way. Would they not have thought this current situation was impossible then? I wouldn't put anything past what I have seen from this crew!

It is really getting old, and it is obvious that people just don't get it. We're always applying for some superfluous award like All-American city, Tennis Town USA, or something else that doesn't amount to a hill of beans. I don't care about plaques or trophies or photo ops. When we will know that the city is turning around is when one of these national surveys show us climbing the ladder and making real progress. These surveys lay a road map for what we need to do and number one on that list is to invest in your community's people.

The latest embarrassment of surveys was provided by Portfolio.com (Yeah, I knew about that one too). It ranks us as the 193rd out of 200 brainyist cities- Here is the PDF Link. Another notch in the belt. And the people at the top continue tinkling, because they won't admit that we need to invest in the people in our area in order to get out of this predicament, because that costs money. That is the Audacity of Ignorance. Cheap begets Cheap!

Let these pools serve as a reminder and a metaphor of the Old South style of culture that has brought us to this point, "As long as my clubs open, screw you. (Snap, Snap)Hey Johnny go fetch me another sweet tea."

Our city leaders don't want to work with anybody, unless it serves their personal interests. The people that used the pools and the kids, who would've had the opportunity to use those pools, will go by them every day and the story will be told, and the story will be spread. We all know that this is not over. This could have shown how a city can come together and do what is in the best interest for everyone from all walks of life. Instead this issue will continue to divide this community and those railroad tracks that run through the center of our city will continue to show the extreme disparity between the haves and have-nots in our community.

I really feel sorry to think of the legacy of the people who originally built Hickory. What was once a thriving and prosperous community will continue to head towards nothing unless we turn the corner very soon and it might already be too late. People who don't get it never will get it! No Justice, No Peace!

Stop the Demolitions of Our Pools - The Citizens for Equity in Government is sponsoring a Demonstration and Picketing at the City of Hickory’s Government Center 76 North Center Street, on Tuesday December 28,2010 from 7:30 – 9:30am. Please support our efforts.

Contact : Billy Sudderth (828-308-4669)


Why We Must Act! - Citizens for Equity in Government
Newsletter about the City Council meeting of November 16, 2010 - Addendum on the Hickory City PoolsCity Pools issue displays Local Officials' Myopic Views
REBUILDING & EMPOWERING FROM THE BOTTOM UP -- Citizens for Equity in Government
Citizens Of Ridgeview address the City Council about the City Pools Issue
Newsletter about the City Council meeting of July 20, 2010 - Addendum on the Hickory City PoolsMore than Pools
Hickory City Pools -- Told You So 8)
Continuing the Rant - The City of Hickory's Budget
Newsletter about the City Council meeting of June 15, 2010
Newsletter about the City Council meeting of May 4, 2010
HDR Editorial - Hickory council needs a member with vision
The City Council Candidate Forum Last Night - 10/29/2009 - (Audio Available)
From the Hickory Daily Record - Election issues discussed at forum

Who Rules America?

(Prologue) - The following information shows the disparity in income between the wealthiest sector of the U.S. Economy versus those in the bottom 80%. You need to understand how the Power structure works in this country. That is what has led to the growing disparity of income and subsequent loss of status of the regular citizens of this nation. This is the reason why no one follows the will of the American people. The bottom 80% have no influence over the direction of the country. Money Talks!

George William (Bill) Domhoff (Wikipedia) - (born August 6, 1936) is a research professor in psychology and sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His first book, Who Rules America?, was a controversial 1960s bestseller which argued that the United States is dominated by an elite ownership class both politically and economically.

He was born in Youngstown, Ohio, the son of George William and Helen S. (Cornet) Domhoff. He received a B.A. in Psychology at Duke University, a MA in psychology at Kent State University, and a Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Miami.

In the early 1960s, Domhoff served as an assistant professor of psychology at Los Angeles State College. In 1965, he became an assistant professor at the University of California, Cowell College, Santa Cruz, where he is now professor of psychology and sociology.

Domhoff is the author of Who Rules America? (1st ed. 1967, most recent edition 2009) and many other well-known books in sociology and power structure research, as well as Finding Meaning in Dreams (1996) and The Scientific Study of Dreams (2003)

The Wealth Distribution - Wealth, Income, and Power - Updated in December 2010 - (Link to William Domhoff's website)



In the United States, wealth is highly concentrated in a relatively few hands. As of 2007, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 34.6% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 50.5%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 85%, leaving only 15% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers). In terms of financial wealth (total net worth minus the value of one's home), the top 1% of households had an even greater share: 42.7%. Table 1 and Figure 1 present further details drawn from the careful work of economist Edward N. Wolff at New York University (2010).

Table 1: Distribution of net worth and financial wealth in the United States, 1983-2007

	Total Net Worth
	Top 1 percent	- Next 19 percent	- Bottom 80 percent
1983	33.8%	47.5%	18.7%
1989	37.4%	46.2%	16.5%
1992	37.2%	46.6%	16.2%
1995	38.5%	45.4%	16.1%
1998	38.1%	45.3%	16.6%
2001	33.4%	51.0%	15.6%
2004	34.3%	50.3%	15.3%
2007	34.6%	50.5%	15.0%
	Financial Wealth
	Top 1 percent	- Next 19 percent	- Bottom 80 percent
1983	42.9%	48.4%	8.7%
1989	46.9%	46.5%	6.6%
1992	45.6%	46.7%	7.7%
1995	47.2%	45.9%	7.0%
1998	47.3%	43.6%	9.1%
2001	39.7%	51.5%	8.7%
2004	42.2%	50.3%	7.5%
2007	42.7%	50.3%	7.0%

Total assets are defined as the sum of: (1) the gross value of owner-occupied housing; (2) other real estate owned by the household; (3) cash and demand deposits; (4) time and savings deposits, certificates of deposit, and money market accounts; (5) government bonds, corporate bonds, foreign bonds, and other financial securities; (6) the cash surrender value of life insurance plans; (7) the cash surrender value of pension plans, including IRAs, Keogh, and 401(k) plans; (8) corporate stock and mutual funds; (9) net equity in unincorporated businesses; and (10) equity in trust funds.

Total liabilities are the sum of: (1) mortgage debt; (2) consumer debt, including auto loans; and (3) other debt. From Wolff (2004, 2007, & 2010).

December Rant - I can't believe I'm Channeling Donald Trump!

Hey Burr, Hey Hagan get off your @55e$ and make something happen. You say you want to create jobs. What are you going to do to bring jobs back to America? Who do you represent the Chinese and Wall Street or the people of North Carolina?

I can't believe I am in the position of supporting Donald Trump! Are we running Mexico or this country. Our country is not the force it used to be. It is no longer respected the way it used to be. Wilmington, Ohio; Newton, Iowa; Hickory, North Carolina and many, many more. Cities that used to thrive with manufacturing and entrepreneurship and you politicians have left the citizens hanging. You have brought this country to its knees.

I know that Senator Hagan is in the pockets of the banksters and Senator Burr has been bought by the Insurance industry. They both voted to reappoint the Goldman Sachs toady Ben Bernanke to Chairmanship of the Federal Reserve. These two have shown me no understanding of Common Sense Economics. I know they understand politics, but what about business and what is in the economic interests of the State of North Carolina.

Job Creation is the issue of the day. The problems are clear as the day is long. We need tariffs on these Third World Imports. We need to stop supporting these companies that have taken our jobs overseas.

I don't care if Nike is paying the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and its coaches millions of dollars to be marketing prostitutes for their product. No State supported Universities should be outfitting their teams with goods made from Chinese Slave Labor or for that matter made in the Maquiladoras of Latin America. They should be wearing clothing made in the United States. Heck! North Carolina State University should be designing and manufacturing their own athletic equipment!

I want to ask you. Who do you think is going to provide you a better product. An employee that you take care of and invest in or someone with a metaphorical or virtual gun pointed at their head? What incentive do these people in the third world have to create a top notch product. It seems like workers are considered expendable these days. They don't even enter into the equation. That is wrong! We can't build communities like this.

Your eyes do not deceive you. Only the Wizards of Wall Street and their marketing guru, mind programmers have you convinced to the contrary. You buy an electronic gadget from China and it doesn't work. Shuck it in the garbage and we will send you a new one. Oh, that toy has lead paint, here's your money back. Now come buy some more. That lot of furniture you imported is shoddy. Burn it and we'll send some more. Oh, the dog food killed your dog -- Oops.

The multi-national companies doing all of this are treated as though they are above the law. They aren't held accountable to the extent American based small companies are. This has had a dire effect on our economy. I know that they will pull the Smoot-Hawley card out of the playbook. Folks, we were already in the depression in 1930 when this Tariff Act passed and at that time we were net exporters. All we have been asking for for the last 20 years is a level playing field!

We don't have free trade. We are getting ripped off for the interests of a few people on Wall Street and the oligarchs of other nations. We have wasted so much money over the last few years through so called stimulus plans that sent our money to foreign nations, because we don't produce anything. How was anyone expecting these stimulus plans to have any impact on our economy?

This has been criminal. It is fraud. Forget Julian Assange who is not even a U.S. citizen. He is a diversion. Are our foreign trade problems and diplomacy issues created from incompetence or is this treason? Probably a little of both.

I'm not saying that Donald Trump is the right man for the Presidency, but I will say that I am onboard with pushing this agenda forward. And if you aren't with us, then I need to hear some tangible reasons why.

You say you want to create jobs. HOW?
You say you want to rebuild the entrepreneurial spirit. What are we going to sell?
You say you want to help small business. Where's the proof? What does the past show?
Look at NAFTA, the WTO, GATT... Why are we creating incentives for businesses to leave our country?

You are either for us or against us!
THIS IS THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!!

Coming to America - Austerity

The reports below are the result of the economic squeeze put on citizens from Greece and Italy. Unemployment there is worse than here and the citizens are having guaranteed benefits cut, loss of unemployment benefits, and increases in already burdensome taxes. The governments are also cutting payrolls.

Does this not sound familiar? Do you really believe that the U.S. Government might not cut off Social Security payments? Do you really believe that the U.S. government won't cut off retired military pensions? Cutting off unemployment benefits for those who truly can't find work? Do you not think our government is capable of raising taxes drastically? If not, why not? The government has shown a drastic willingness to protect the interests of the bureaucracy over those of the people.

The images are dramatic and breathtaking, but you need to see this, because this is reality. Are you seeing this on America's nightly news? Why?



Violent protests as Greeks strike over austerity cuts

Bullish on Corruption - Bearish on the American People

In America Crime pays, while the American people turn their heads away from issues of importance and towards mindless pop culture. I will help those who are humble, but don't come trying to steal from me when it hits the fan. Remember how you laughed at those of us who warned you about this path. When we asked you to rise up, you told us to sit down!

I believe that about 1% of the people in our area care about what is going on. In the City of Hickory that would equate to 400 people. In Catawba County about 1,300. That is what I see from the numbers that I run. What will it take for people to wake up? It's going to be too late when they do!



Donald Trump - Taxes Should Remain as Low as Possible - Tax China - China is laughing at us!

Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve -- Cranking it out

Ben, you want to express to us just how bad of shape the economy is really in. I thought we were in a recovery? How does a recovery equal the economy being in such bad shape? This does not compute!

We understand how bad the economy is. It is you who does not. I guess you want to express to us how fragile the economy is for the Haves, because the Have Nots completely understand Common Sense Economics.

Unemployment is not going down, because you and your bankster buddies have sent our jobs to the Third World. You say it will take years to get the unemployment rate back down to normal levels -- I'm sure that you are talking about U-3 and not U-6. As Scott Pelley states, "We have lost 8 million jobs from the peak."

This is a structural problem that is caused by imbalances in Economic and Trade agreements, which were created by bad policies that only reward the people at the top of the economic food chain. I think you understand this, but you are ingratiated to the elitists who put you in your puppet position at the Federal Reserve. So let's carry on with the interview and more charades.

Bernanke says at the rate we are going that it could take 4 or 5 years before we get back to a more normal rate of 5% or 6% (U-3). I almost think that he hopes that the Old School Manufacturing people would disappear, because it is clear that he has no solution to getting these people back into the labor force.

Pelley then goes into the situation with the Financial Institutions who are making billions, yet keeping a lid on lending. Lending to small businesses declined in the third quarter. Bernanke laughably blames this on the small businesses, 'They aren't seeking the credit.'

Pelley hits it on the head. "Is this a case of banks who took risks that ruined the economy being unwilling to take risks to support the recovery?" Look at the Moral Hazard associated with the banks. They are enjoying fruit from the mess they created, while many are forced to endure the rot and decay left in the wake of this economic collapse that the tool Bernanke won't even admit to.

Then we get to the crux of the matter where the Fed wants to sell the public on the idea of Quantitative Easing 2 (QE2). Chairman Bernanke is in the midst of monetizing $600 billion in debt by directing the Federal Reserve to purchase treasuries. No ifs, ands, or buts; this devalues the dollar and lets the inflation genie out of the bottle.

Don Quixote Bernanke is fighting the battle of the 1930s economic collapse. He believes that inflation is low and we are getting to the point of deflation. Honestly, does this man have any common sense? Is he in touch with reality? Yeah wages are going to fall, because of trade policy that has the American worker competing against Chinese slave labor! Not because there are too few dollars chasing too many goods. There is plenty of money in the system. There isn't enough breadth. People without jobs or worried about losing their jobs or not getting raises to keep up with rising prices cannot afford to spend freely. This is the reason why the economy has tightened. Many people have come back to reality and practicality. A few Billionaires on Wall Street can't sustain a legitimate economy.

Bernanke says that the Fed is not printing money, the amount of money in circulation is not changing, and that the Money Supply is not changing. Below is a graph of the Money Supply. Tell me, are they printing money?


It is obvious to see that the Federal Reserve has been involved in the process of printing (digitizing) money. Look at the parabolic "hockey stick" curve. Look at how the recovery coincided with the jump in the money supply. The growth that we have seen has been from inflation.

Retail sales were up .8% from October and up 7.8% from a year ago for the three-month period through November (Shopping Spree Fuels Surge - Wall Street Journal - 12/15/2010). That would be great news on its face until one looks at the Producer Price Index, which a separate report showed increased more than expected last month. The 0.8% gain was pushed higher by rising energy and food costs, but the Labor Department data indicated underlying wholesale inflation remained tame (Retail Sales, Producer Prices Increase - Wall Street Journal - 12/14/2010).

Retail Prices matching Producer Prices means that we have inflation. The retailers are pushing the prices through to the consumer and the consumer has no choice, but to pay. Food and fuel are necessities and that is where we are seeing real inflation.

The Fed is buying treasuries, which are dollars. Have you ever seen a treasury note? It looks like a big dollar bond:

The Federal Reserve is lending money to the Treasury and in return they receive these notes that they are paid interest on. The U.S. government in turn creates digits of currency on their computers (printing money). The Treasury then issues the money to the public through the banks. The problem is that the Federal Reserve is the Banks. In essence the Banks are lending themselves money and they aren't issuing the credit to the people. They are keeping it themselves and investing to create and consolidate wealth for themselves. They are not fulfilling their role to perform the "Public Good." This is the fatal flaw in the Federal Reserve Central Banking System. The Foxes have complete control of the Hen House and they are devouring everything including the house itself.

At this time the Fed has no interest in the interest rate earned. They are interested in money generation, which devalues the currency, but gives them greater control over the total money supply. They are consolidating the economy in Wall Street's interest, which gives them greater influence over the nation's policy directives.

We won't have a Double Dip Recession, because we are in a Depression. This is not a Deflationary Depression like in the 1930s, when the country basically operated off of a cash and barter system. This is an inflationary depression created from spiraling debt. People in the 1930s were not in deep debt. Today we are in deep debt.

Wall Street Gives Uncle Sam Too Much Credit - (Forbes - Michael Pento - 12/13/2010) - Household debt as a percentage of GDP is 91%. According to the Federal Reserve’s Flow of Funds Report, total non-financial debt reached an all-time high of $35.8 trillion in the third quarter of 2010. In fact, household debt, business debt, and government debt increased at a 4.2% annual rate last quarter.

To put that record level of nominal debt into perspective: in 1980, the total non-financial debt-to-GDP ratio was 144%. In the height of the credit boom, at the end of 2007, that figure was 226%. Today, the figure stands at a mind-blowing 243%! So you can forget about all that deleveraging talk. The US is in fact still leveraging up, both in nominal terms and as a percentage of GDP.

Bernanke states that the Housing market is already weak and it can't get much weaker. In my opinion it can get a lot weaker. I think part of this charade is an artificial facade that has been placed on Real Estate. The Real Estate market is being manipulated and not allowed to find its own equilibrium. I think the government is attempting to inflate nominal prices back to pre-crash levels as a manner of saving face. And yes I do believe that the government has displayed a level of hubris over the last few years to follow through with such a shallow philosophy. I think that the banks believe that they can eventually find an equilibrium between nominal prices of available inventory and the Troubled Asset Shadow Inventory. Then they will slowly attempt to release the shadow inventory back into the market. That means that those who have conservatively taken care of their property won't see a real appreciation in their home value for generations.

Remember that your Congressmen and Senators supported President Bush's decision to first put this man into this position as Chairman of the Federal Reserve and then President Obama's decision to renominate and reappoint him to the same position after the meltdown in 2008. Does Mr. Bernanke instill confidence in you?

Bernanke states that the Federal Reserve needs to be able to make policy without regard to short term political concerns. How can we be so sure that no politics play a role in decision making policies? The Fed definitely picked winners and losers two years ago when allowing Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers to fail, while propping up AIG and Goldman Sachs. Look at the 21,000 transactions that the Fed invested in over the last two years -- $3.3 trillion at low to no interest. Ask Mom and Pop if they could have used that money!

I want people to understand and this is the Gospel. The Fed is the Mega-Banks and the Mega-Banks are the Fed. Bernanke works for the banks. He does not work for us. He is a Keynesian, which means he believes in loose monetary policy. He is not accountable and he answers to no one. The Fed is the fourth branch of Government and with no Checks and Balances. If Ben Bernanke wants to crank up the presses and spend us into oblivion, who is going to stop him?

Normalcy Bias - Are you prepared for unexpected events?

The Normalcy Bias - (Wikipedia) - refers to an extreme mental state people enter when facing a disaster. It causes people to underestimate both the possibility of a disaster occurring and its possible effects. This often results in situations where people fail to adequately prepare for a disaster, and on a larger scale, the failure of the government to include the populace in its disaster preparations. The assumption that is made in the case of the normalcy bias is that since a disaster never has occurred that it never will occur. It also results in the inability of people to cope with a disaster once it occurs. People with a normalcy bias have difficulties reacting to something they have not experienced before. People also tend to interpret warnings in the most optimistic way possible, seizing on any ambiguities to infer a less serious situation.

Possible causes - The normalcy bias may be caused in part by the way the brain processes new data. Research suggests that even when the brain is calm, it takes 8–10 seconds to process new information. Stress slows the process, and when the brain cannot find an acceptable response to a situation, it fixates on a single solution that may or may not be correct. An evolutionary reason for this response could be that paralysis gives an animal a better chance of surviving an attack; predators are less likely to eat prey that isn't struggling.

Effects - The normalcy bias often results in unnecessary deaths in disaster situations. The lack of preparation for disasters often leads to inadequate shelter, supplies, and evacuation plans. Even when all these things are in place, individuals with a normalcy bias often refuse to leave their homes. Studies have shown that more than 70% of people check with others before deciding to evacuate.

The normalcy bias also causes people to drastically underestimate the effects of the disaster. Therefore, they think that everything will be all right, while information from the radio, television, or neighbors gives them reason to believe there is a risk. This creates a cognitive dissonance that they then must work to eliminate. Some manage to eliminate it by refusing to believe new warnings coming in and refusing to evacuate (maintaining the normalcy bias), while others eliminate the dissonance by escaping the danger. The possibility that some may refuse to evacuate causes significant problems in disaster planning.

Prevention - The negative effects can be combated through the four stages of disaster response:

* preparation, including publicly acknowledging the possibility of disaster and forming contingency plans
* warning, including issuing clear, unambiguous, and frequent warnings and helping the public to understand and believe them
* impact, the stage at which the contingency plans take effect and emergency services, rescue teams, and disaster relief teams work in tandem
* aftermath, or reestablishing equilibrium after the fact by providing supplies and aid to those in need

The Black Swan Theory or "Theory of Black Swan Events" was developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb to explain:

1. The disproportionate role of high-impact, hard to predict, and rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations in history, science, finance and technology
2. The non-computability of the probability of the consequential rare events using scientific methods (owing to their very nature of small probabilities)
3. The psychological biases that make people individually and collectively blind to uncertainty and unaware of the massive role of the rare event in historical affairs.

The Ostrich Effect or “Normalcy Bias” Part 1 - The Almighty Dollar - Mark Birmingham

Everyone on the Titanic thought the ship was “unsinkable”. In a matter of a few hours, they watched it sink. One man warned of an attack on Pearl Harbor, but most thought that was “unthinkable”, until December 7, 1941. A few perceptive men warned of dangerous investment leveraging practices, before the stock market crash of 1929. 100,000 Jews left Germany before their 450,000 cultured, intelligent, Jewish countrymen were trapped by Nazi insanity. They thought the Nazi movement would pass without real consequence...

The Ostrich Effect or “Normalcy Bias” Part 2 - The Almighty Dollar - Mark Birmingham

If the Dollar is dethroned as the world’s reserve currency, which now seems inevitable to those willing to look for evidence, gasoline prices will double over night, and a series of events that might include a much deeper global recession. With a large spike in oil prices comes more expensive goods, especially food. This may be what survivalists have been preparing for. It’s the “speeding train” referred to in The Ostrich Effect Part 1. Naturally, we can’t imagine such madness occurring in the most powerful and affluent nation on the planet (a little “normalcy bias” perhaps?). But, when 46 state governments face crippling deficits for 2011, and every graph you dare to look at is shaped like a “hockey stick”, blatantly illustrating the over extension of credit, debt, and commensurate rise in commodity prices, it begs the question “how much more evidence do you need?” We, as a nation, are in the grip of a “normalcy bias“, which is an under-estimation of the effects of factual evidence.

The Hound: Has the government or the mainstream media been preparing for harsh economic realities, such as those seen in the immediate aftermath of the stock market crash of October 29, 1929. Why does our government and media continue to push the notion that things are improving. Does this not harm us? Does this not fit right into this idea of the "Normalcy Bias?"

I think that it is very important that we practice Situational Awareness. Situation Awareness (SA) involves being aware of what is happening around you to understand how information, events, and your own actions will impact your goals and objectives, both now and in the near future. Having complete, accurate and up-to-the-minute SA is essential where technological and situational complexity on the human decision-maker are a concern.

Has our government been giving us the information (honest data) that we need to properly operate our personal lives related to the financial crisis we are in? We are told that they don't want people to panic, but better to agitate people early in the process of preparation, than to have people be hysterical at or close to the point of impact during a critical event. We saw this on 9/11/2001 and when Katrina hit New Orleans. The calmer people are; the better their chance to survive a catastrophic event.

All I am getting at is that it is a good time to get prepared, because the dynamics of the economy don't look good. Be prepared to help yourself and your family in a time of crisis and then you will be able to help others. Be a part of the solution, not the problem!