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Jasper was devastating for those who lost everything, either homes, business, income or all of the above. We hope they'll recover, knowing the next two years will be difficult and challenging at the best of times.
For everyone else, do we choose to take this opportunity to learn, to reflect on the losses in Jasper and how our families would fair, would you be ready, have a plan?
We discuss risk profiles for natural hazards, industrial sites and the global 4 - economic, political, cultural and ideological threats. Understanding your environment is key, investing in mitigation through insurance is our #1 risk transfer mechanism. 
In the end, this is a time to reflect as to whether you and your family are ready for a total loss of your home and / or your income. If the answer is anything other than an enthusiastic yes, you've got work to do. You owe it to those for whom you're responsible.

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There is a limit, irrespective of the evens occurring, where the state capacity is breached and no assistance is possible. That occurs at a different point for various services, but all have their capacity limit. The state is hesitant to delineate this point, communicate it to the residents and advise them as to when they'll be without services. 

Preparedness is the totality of cognitive efforts and physical activities undertaken in times of peace and calm in order to be capable of successfully navigating exogenous shocks without external assistance. 

In modern democracies, a social contract exists between the government and the population. There are a number of tasks or services that cannot be completed by the individual, hence the collective transfer that responsibility to an elected body, supported by a public service, in exchange for funding - taxation. A simple idea, which over the decades has expanded to cover a number of services that the population could do, but has chosen to transfer that responsibility to the government. 

The social contract does ask for the service to be sufficient. It needs to meet the requirements of the population and its modernization and growth is the responsibility of the government, when necessary supported by additional taxation. This is the basic relationship between the governed and the politician. The reality is that this is executed by a public service, not the politician, but they are in theory the guardians sent to oversee the social contract's successful and amenable execution.

We chat about capacity limits and what happens when they're breached and the population is without government assistance, irrespective of the circumstances.

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Whether you work at the unskilled level near minimum wage, are within the gig economy on endless contracts, or you are skilled an demanding remote work, you are in a position to have negative impacts on your income in the coming year. Whether or note a formal recession is declared, there will be some significant imbalances in the workplace, choices that impact your income and that requires a plan. A preparedness plan for "when you get fired". Not that you expect to, or worry about - but that you understand circumstances beyond you control lead to an immediate and unforeseen loss of your principal income. The challenge is knowing what to do, and one of those is understanding the labour market and the current influences within your sector of work. This is not an option, to be successful, you must learn how to interpret the indicators in the labour market.

The economy often emits mixed signals, information points to a trend, but outcomes mirror something different. At times, significant changes are sectorial and not occurring in the wider system. For all but the most astute followers, it seems to be a bit of a confusing set of unrelated events. What is clear though, is that some turns in the economic system do impact you, they are potentially harmful and need to be understood.

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The fiscal cliff or abyss is not that far off, measured in years to a decade depending on your source, or political lens. Most economists, save those who support modern money theory (MMT), understand that perpetual deficit financing does have a life cycle, an end point where the interest on the debt will exceed the ability of the government to raise additional funds to cover it. We're approaching that in many OECD nations, where debt to revenue models, provide an uncomfortable picture. Debt to GDT ratio measures the output of a nation in total, that remains steady at an average of 121%. What is more concerning is the ratio of debt expenses to revenue. 

Historically, whether enshrined in legislation or by moral code, governments have stepped in when there have been uninsured losses due to situations beyond the control of residents. Flooding, earthquakes, etc, where insurance was unavailable or prohibitively expensive, some relief is offered from governments to cover portions of the loss. Those figures are growing as well, within the context of the fiscal cliff, these are unsustainable. Timelines are up for debate, but a general consensus is within a decade, if governments continue deficit financing at the current rate, there will be a situation where a fiscal calamity is a certainly. The exponential growth in disaster losses will not slow and as available funds for governments to leverage are reduced, there is a point where support cheques to disaster victims becomes impossible. 

A disaster, where no insurance was available, and irrespective of the legislative framework or the wishes of constituents, the government simply will not cover losses. Families and corporations will declare bankruptcy, walk away from everything and begin again. 

In the United States, the uninsured losses in EM will reflect the uninsured losses in the medical system. 

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For decades, 1990-2020, we enjoyed a period of globalism, an opportunity for individuals and nations to pursue whatever strategy best suited the times and the vision of their citizens. In reality, this was the closing period of globalism, a phenomenon made possible by the Cold War and protected by the vast military industrial complex of the US. The dividend to the western allied global community was unfettered access to open shipping, economic possibilities and in the case of China, exceptional expansion opportunity. Globalization was always the anomaly, the outlier condition that could only exist because of a very few number of criteria, and those perished at the end of the Cold War. 

Preparedness is often seen through the lens as what we do to navigate disasters. If you were to assess the phenomenon of preparedness through the lens of public sector resident facing preparedness communications, this would indeed reinforce that concept. We need to be prepared to survive for 72 hours until the situation is fixed by the government and we can return to normalcy. Preparedness is sold as a form of victimhood and dependancy. When we limit the value of ideas to a certain frame, then we hold a definition true. That is preparedness, so grab your kit and flashlight and go be a good astute and responsible victim until rescued.

Preparedness is a lifestyle, grounded in personal responsibility, attitude, relationships and strategic thinking. It begins with a determination not to be a responsible victim, but become someone who is capable of navigating that which the world induces, whether that be a natural hazard being realized - the dreaded phrase, "natural disaster", conflict, economic downturn, political turmoil, cultural differences and ideological campaigns. The current decade is disruptive, for very well understood reasons, and will continue to do so. 

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Recovery is the poor cousin of emergency management, the ignored friend at the party. They own no lights and sirens, begin to speak when the cameras are gone and are provided with little to offer the stricken public. Those dependant on government assistance to navigate significant disruptions will be prescribed a long and painful experience, loaded with bureaucracy and less than expected benefits. I do not wish that on anyone.

We can do better, we choose not to. 

A well constructed family preparedness plan would see the navigation of the recovery process without any notable interaction with the government. They may be of assistance, but not a necessary element of successful recovery from significant loss. 

When calamity strikes, there are several lines of defence, similar to a delaying action in the army, the intent is to have multiple strategies to employ, to counter the effects of your opponent. The affected population needs to be made whole. In negotiation and insurance terminology, that means resorted to pre event status, to reconstruct what was lost, figuratively and physically, to reflect a zero visible impact. That is the goal of recovery, the road to that place is a minefield, not necessarily so, but one nonetheless.

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Jasper is but the latest example of the destruction caused by the intersection of a range of human decisions. We build in nature's backyard when fires are an essential part of the ecosystem. We hack the biodiversity of forests to achieve higher yields of profitable species, defeating nature's defence systems agains disease, rot and regulating healthy ecosystems. We choose not to employ known mitigation measures including significant firebreaks, building code regulations, active fuel management near the wild-urban interface and maintain insufficient resources to protect societal value.

These are all human decisions, concisions ones, often made in isolation but collectively, they create an environment where societies lose exceptional value.

We choose not to act, so we lose everything.

We know that the leadership doesn't exist to make the policy changes necessary to mitigate against human decisions, so why not try something new. 

If we continue with the status quo, the tally of Jaspers will continue to increase. 

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Welcome to election chaos, another day in the interesting and if not amusing world of politics, watching the characters cleverly bend themselves and their message to remain relevant. Whether we're speaking of the change in US Presidential candidates, or the crevices in the European experiment, this week has been very popcorn worthy.
We don't vote for preparedness, so the incentive for politicians to alter the expenditures in government is absent, leaving those responsible in the public sector and in corporations to find strategies that lead to better outcomes. This is a shared reality across the four spheres of society - public, corporate, not for profit and civil society. This requires a shared understanding of the roles each party plays in mitigation and preparedness, To embrace that for each crisis or event, there are four distinct response operations, one for each sector. 

Four responses, no one superior, but each recovering their constituent parts of society. So let's gather together, more than just words and show, to begin the cooperation across society, to build resilience together.

Whole of community.

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The failure of Microsoft Windows IT based systems as a result of a third part software update from Cloudstrike serves as a telling tale of preparedness. Who has been affected, to what degree and how is their recovery planning rolling out?
Preparedness is the set of cognitive decisions and physical actions undertaken in times of peace that facilitate navigating chaos.
We live in a modern, technologically enabled inter-connected society, facilitated by the provision of critical infrastructure. This normally occurs below our radar with scant consideration, until it is no longer available. Your preparedness is correlated with your exposure to and dependancy on the sectors of critical infrastructure. Adapt, learn and strategize. 

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To define a prepper we need a set of measurable variables, ones that should be grounded in evidence, or at the least be attributable to a known theoretical framework. The later is our pathway to the definition. Our research has led us away from personal and subjective announcements to an evolving framework. We begin with the fact that we live in a technologically enabled, interconnected modern society, where over time, at the macro level residents have traded responsibility for the provision of services to an external agency for renumeration. We have decided not to be responsible to build our own houses, we ask a contractor to do so and then we provide payment. In the past, our ancestors all build their own houses and rebuilt them after disasters.

Join us for a great discussion on the importance of definitions, providing criteria for membership and how to codify different elements of society.

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