Sunday, July 24, 2011

Normalcy Bias

If you hear the term normalcy bias in the next year or two, remember what you read here. Normalcy bias is the mindset 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 downplay a serious event and have difficulties reacting to something they have not experienced before. People also tend to interpret warnings in the most optimistic way possible, seizing on ambiguities to infer a less serious situation. In other words, folks blow off warnings of something bad is about to happen, and say "that won't happen here, or it's not that bad". Thousands of people refused to evacuate in New Orleans ahead of Katrina. We now see the fate of that choice in hindsight. 
Ok, you're saying "why this now, tonight?" 
A financial disaster is heading our way.  Countries that historically use the US dollar for guaranteeing debt, and monetary exchange, are dropping the dollar from their currency reserves.  Example: country A holds printed US currency in their mattress at home when we borrow their money to produce our goods here in the US.  The US dollar is so weak in value that countries like country A are sending back their mattress held US currency and asking for their money back.  The US dollar being weak, isn't equaling the trade value back to country A whose currency is worth more than a US dollar bill.
That's what's known as US foreign debt.  The US foreign debt is more than our country can afford to pay in interest alone, notwithstanding our dollar not being worth enough to buy even a pack of gum.  
That only means that inflation will hit here like nothing ever seen.  How do you like $6/gallon gas, $5/loaf bread, and on.  
Why you ask will those kinds of prices happen?  Because your dear Uncle in Washington will print more and more dollars to stimulate the economy. We print more because our neighbors in Europe and Asia don't want our worthless money.
When more dollars are put in peoples' pockets, there's more to spend, when there's more to spend, more and more products, goods, and services are purchased.  And of course you pay taxes on purchases, so the more dollars in the stream with which to buy stuff, more tax revenue makes it up to Washington.
When more and more is purchased, the entrepreneurs, shop owners, gas station owners, grocery stores, clothing stores, will see the increase in purchases/demand and begin to raise prices; call it greed or opportunistic profit seeking.
This will drive down supply levels, less bread on the shelves, less gasoline in the ground tanks at the pump, less toilet paper on the shelves; all of this means the guy in the boss' chair will raise his prices because there is more of you out there with more of that printed money.  That's what inflation is.  High demand, less supply, big profits for the boss (at the store and in Washington).
It's not the store owner/gas station guy/bread bakers' collective fault.  It's our dear Uncle Sam's fault, he just prints more and more money, and that gives more and more people the opportunity to beat a path to the store shelf/gas pump etc.. etc…
One big thing these days: cell phones.  Why do you think the prices of cell phones haven't come down that much?  There's more money in the stream with which to buy a new cell phone.  Even on ebay, a used 10 year old piece of hardware/cell phone, will bid up to nearly $100 because people have the money to spend. More money has been printed, it's out there.  The technology of a 10 year old cell phone isn't worth the plastic holding it together, but, a pack of dudes with enough money will bid-war that phone up to what you can go to the retail corner cell phone store and buy a 2010 model.  A new cell phone without a contract: $400 at the store.  Why?  Cause people have the money, it has been printed and ready to spend.  Market pressure will send that $400 phone up to $500 'cause there's more printed money in the stream.  Folks will pay it because the money was printed.  Where did they get that new printed money?  From their new boss at their new job, 'cause their boss can borrow that new printed money to open a new business and hire folks to pay a wage to sell that high priced/inflated thing that he sells.  You never saw so many shoe stores, dress shops, baby stores, burger joints, restaurants, car lots, gadget stores and on and on.  

The wheels on the bus go round and round; and folks on the bus are poppin' bubbles, chompin' burger meals, suckin' down them sodas and shakes, and textin' and talkin' on them cell phones!  Ah life is good as so many of you post in fb so much!!

The bus is headed for the cliff, but, that's ok, life is good, good times, kid's got toys in his burger meal, text messages firing a million a minute, everybody is strapped in their bus seat rockin' along!  We're havin' too good a time to notice the road runs right off the cliff!….. oh yeah, who's drivin' anyway? 

But you knew all of this from college finance and economics classes didn't you?  Remember those classes you took that told you all of this?  
More people have college degrees in the last 30 years than the last generation as a whole.  BS and Master's degrees are commonplace.  Yet with that many people who took finance and econ classes, you would think that these educated ones, that's you and me, would know this was coming over the horizon.  
So, when these debtor countries demand their currency back from US (us) and send our dollars back home to us, we're left with a bunch of one dollar bills that won't even buy a pack of gum; it'll take probably $3 for a pack of gum and the prices of the rest of our goods will increase as explained above.  
So then what happens?  The US government will "call in" a whole bunch of one dollar bills from the banks, like billions.  Why?  Because the government has created so many bureaucratic services run by/for/and of the government.  Like a spider that mutates in growing hundreds of arms and legs.  

Uncle Sam can't write IOU's to it's employees in all of those bureaucracies, so Uncle Sam comes and gets your money from yours/my savings and checking accounts.  There will literally be less money in your local bank holding your paycheck funds, and then you can't buy as much stuff as you did last month.
Then what you say?  Well with less money for us to spend on stuff, the store shelves will stay full, the gas in ground tanks will stay full, cell phones will stay on the shelves; nobody will be buying anything because Uncle Sam just raided our bank accounts.  How you say?  It's the government's money anyway, says so right there on the front of the $1/$5/$10/$20 and so on.  Federal Reserve Note; not Horn's reserve note, Smith's reserve note, Gonzalez' reserve note, Williams'/Jones/ and on and on.  Uncle Sam has bills to pay too, since it's his anyway, whatcha gonna do when they come for you?
Then what you say?  We skip a recession and go straight to a depression.  Depression: depressed state of value on goods and services to the point of nobody making any profits. (my connotation) 
Then what you say?  Those stores up there, they're gonna close.  Nobody's buying anything cause their money was taken away by Uncle Sam, so the store owners' can't feed their families. We can't get bread and milk for cereal and toast.  We can't buy those new shoes for the kids.  Cell phone broken?  Store's closed.  Pull in to your favorite gas pump: "OUT OF SERVICE".  
Folks will get mad then, there's a whole lot more folks to get mad today than in 1930; and a whole lot more folks own big guns too nowadays.  What then?  Folks will take matters into their own hands; Bubba and Cletus gonna head to the "closed" gas station to get some bread and milk, gonna be carrying their big guns. This little scene will repeat all over the country.
What then you say?  Guess who will be coming for you??  Right, dear old Uncle Sam!!  The government will have us right where they want us.  The government in office today that is.  President Obama will declare martial law.  Your neighbor National Guardsman will go to work riding around in military trucks arresting your other neighbors for, "toting their big guns to the closed gas station for bread and milk."  
Don't think so, why?  You studied all of this in high school and college where other countries had this happen with a dictator in the big chair.  
It's coming here to a soon closed gas station near you.  
You see, President Obama is a Marxist socialist, aka Democrat.  I didn't make it up, he studied these subjects in school.  Said so in his book.  Oh and by the way, the birth certificate records guy in Kenya told someone who told someone, that Barack H. Obama was born in a Kenyan hospital and this records guy certified Obama's birth certificate at work one day after Barack was born.
Back to US (us).  Totalitarian control is what the current government wants for US.  He is hoping you've been distracted enough by China, North Korea, India, Britain, France, Germany, and now Egypt so that you don't hear the economics reports coming out of conservative think tanks, that have exposed the real economic situation of the US.
Sorry to ruin your 2011 start up, but, I didn't do it.  If we see the elections of 2012 without much of the pictures explained above, I will be very surprised.
Better think long about keeping your payday in your mattress instead of down the street, by the end of this year or so.  But hey, what do I know, I'm just a college grad.  You probably have enough normalcy bias to convince yourself it's all gonna be okay anyway!!

                                                                              I'm just sayin'………………….

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