The Psychology of Sticking Your Head in the Sand. Plus, Ep. 2 of American Emergency.
5/8/202651 min
This week, the S&P 500 hit an all-time high, despite a deepening global energy crisis. On this week’s On the Media, the mismatch between the stock market and reality. Plus, to understand how FEMA became so distrusted, we look at its response to Hurricane Katrina – and how it stained the agency’s reputation forever.
[01:00] Host Brooke Gladstone sits down with Bryan Walsh, senior editorial director at Vox overseeing the Future Perfect and climate teams, about the phenomenon of “economic blindness,” which explains why the stock market hit an all-time high this week despite the oil crisis unspooling across the globe due to Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Plus, how human evolution may play a role in this cognitive dissonance.
[13:38] Host Micah Loewinger presents the second part of our investigation American Emergency: The Movement to Kill FEMA. This week, we look at the event that shaped FEMA’s reputation perhaps more than any other: Hurricane Katrina, one of the costliest disasters in U.S. history. Experts had warned about this kind of storm for years, but when it hit the agency only had one staffer on the ground–a PR guy named Marty Bahamonde. We also hear from Superdome survivor Chavon Allen, who was celebrating her 19th birthday when the hurricane made landfall.
Further reading / watching:
- “We’re missing the economic fallout of the Iran war — just like we did with Covid,” by Bryan Walsh
- Disaster: Hurricane Katrina and the Failure of Homeland Security, by Christopher Cooper and Robert Block
- Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time on Hulu
On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today (https://pledge.wnyc.org/support/otm). Follow our show on Instagram, Bluesky, TikTok and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSpeaker 0· Soundbite0:00
The Nasdaq Composite with a huge gain on- The stock market is hitting all-time highs despite the ongoing economic turbulence caused by the Iran war.
Brooke Gladstone· Host0:10
Cognitive dissonance, anyone?
Brian Walsh· Guest0:12
People are screaming that we are going to be running out of the supply we have. We're seeing airline companies cancel flights en masse. We're seeing energy rationing happening throughout parts of Asia.
Brooke Gladstone· Host0:22
The psychology of sticking your head in the sand. From WNYC in New York, this is On the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.
Micah Loewinger· Host0:28
And I'm Micah Loewinger. Also on this week's show, one disaster did more to erode the reputation of FEMA than any other. But when Hurricane Katrina hit, the agency's only employee in New Orleans was a PR guy.
Marty Bahamonde· Soundbite0:42
And I responded, "Oh my God!" in capital letters with eight exclamation points. "Tell her that I just ate an MRE and [censored] in the hallway of the Superdome, along with 30,000 other close friends."
Brooke Gladstone· Host0:55
It's all coming up after this.
Micah Loewinger· Host0:57
From WNYC in New York, this is On the Media. I'm Micah Loewinger.
Brooke Gladstone· Host1:05
And I'm Brooke Gladstone. It's been over nine weeks since Iran essentially closed off the Strait of Hormuz, the world's most crucial oil choke point. As of earlier this week, just 534 ships are believed to have made it through the strait intact, a piddling few compared to the hundred ships that sailed through daily prior to the war. Some of us are already keenly