They’re Buying WHAT???!!!

[traelin0]

For those without the problem of normalcy bias, you may find interesting both the numbers being spent and the speculation as to why it's being spent in the first place. For those with the problem of normalcy bias, nothing to see here, move along.

Before we get into the short-term outlook for markets (can you say ‘tepid’?) the very first thing we ought to be thinking about is why is the federal government floating a request for information about buy “prepackaged commercial meals” for deployment in the New Madrid Earthquake Zone. See the highlight for the big damn question with alarm bells going off in my head….

Read more here.

[fairlycrazy23]

This is probably nothing more than the government over compensating. One of the best things they can probably do is remove anti-gouging laws.

[billisonboard]

It is a request for information. Should they wait until there is an earthquake and then send at a request for information on who is in a position to provide meals for people?

[Mad Dawg Wiccan]

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.


I don't see any case for normalcy bias here. The New Madrid Fault Line spawned one of the worst earthquakes in US history back in the early 1800s, and is ripe to do so again.

[traelin0]

maddawg, hang around for awhile. You'll see what I mean by normalcy bias in a short period of time. P&M in particular excels in optimism opium and the philosophy that economic law stops at the shores of Amerika.

(As for New Madrid, it was a biggin, but it was in DEC 1811 - FEB 1812 if memory serves me, with thousands of aftershocks. It was in sparsely populated frontier land and if there were no normalcy bias in humans, they wouldn't have built Memphis.)

[traelin0]

Jan 24, 2011 21:34:10 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

It is a request for information. Should they wait until there is an earthquake and then send at a request for information on who is in a position to provide meals for people?

LOL, bills. They are planning to spend half a billion dollars (est.) to support "disaster relief efforts...for a survivor population of 7M."

That is not a run-of-the-mill RFI, and I've seen my fair share of procurements.

You should see some of the interesting exercises and simulations they've done on 7.7M and 7.0M earthquakes in the New Madrid Seismic Zone. Pretty in-depth.

www.ideals.illinois.edu/handle/2142/8971

[traelin0]

Defense Logistica Agency - Energy (DLA-E) intends to issue a solicitation in support of Department of Homeland Security (DHS)/Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) requirements for delivery of diesel fuel and gasoline on a regional/statewide basis to support disaster mobilization, emergency response and recovery efforts. Vendor support is needed to provide mobile refueling in the event of a disaster to and within a 300 mile radius of mobilization areas, staging areas and other points of distribution within the states of NC, SC, GA, FL, AL, MS, TX, and LA. During a disaster the estimated daily quantity required for each state is 135,000 U.S. Gallons for diesel fuel and 24,000 U.S. Gallons for gasoline.

www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=ed2fb661961ec48159a24635774679bc&tab=core&_cview=0

[safeharbor37]

"Normalcy bias" offsets the "Chicken Little effect." It's the reason I go out my front door without checking through the window, peep hole or security camera ~ even though I'm aware that there might be an evil person waiting to rob and abuse me ~ and I feel this way simply because, no matter how hard I looked, I've never found any insurmountable dangers waiting for me there and therefore assume that there won't be the next time I leave the house. When the bad guys [things] get me, you can say, "I told you so!"
Chill. Like Hank Williams said so artfully, "I'll never get out of this world alive."