=============== Play it quick, if at all; Tommy Thompson noted only about 5o kids have died; and note he said that only 50 kids have died, its caught by kids playing in chicken excrement he said. Apparenty the concern is hogs eating the dead chickens; and then disease morphing into human to human contact/spread, which hasnt even happened yet. Sounds like CYA more than reality. Maybe the gov should put some of that money in ad agency; warning kids/parents against playing in CHICKEN EXCREMENT
well from my 4th year of biochem, I remember our prof telling us a majority of flu's come out of asian and china because of the close proximaty to livestock and chicken. Its not the fear of americans getting it, but of people bringing over the avian flu.
Watching the data build up on the advent of and the mortality is something else. As one who is briefed on this stuff because of our market (Medicare and lealth delivery), it is a serious thing to recon with financially. This is the first pandemic since the invention of air travel and extensive global trade. The bottom line reported today is a 60% mortality rate of those contracting this strain. Pandemic is a good word to describe the situation. The US blew it vis a vis preparation several years ago when the US Rx corps were not required to supply the market. Today's cronyism put a lot of the nails in the coffin. There is about 1.6 trillion in the HITF right now and the 78.20 monthly deduction only covers 25% of ongoing fed costs. The other 75% comes out of general funds. All moneys are rationed through the MMA provisions at 600 bucks a month to the private sector delivery system so the private sector is not going to handle the costs, only straight medicare will. this covers about 41 million folks. For anyone younger than Medicare who contracts the flu , the health delivery system leaves out about 40 million right off. The financial pools for those who are covered, have never seen any impact due to any specific widespread illness at any time in their history. So the money part won't work as conceived at ths point for those people. So there isn't enough money nor are there enough people to pay the money to in the provider networks. Lastly, the training grants for training those who will be the alternatives to the overwhelmed first responders and the existing provider networks, are just being disseminated this week. They are very meagre and depend wholly upon a volunteer network of trainees. Recruiting is going to be tough. Our local CERT people on on their second lap in the field right now on the gulf coast (including the retirees, even). We all know how flu is spread and how to treat it and how long the illness lasts each time you get it. That part is old hat. Global population contractions in the past were in the form of slow moving treminal waves. Survival of the fitest seemed to apply. The last one was concurrent with the end of WWI and it turns out there was not a good global record keeping funtion as the waves spread. This time out we get to see a more compressed wave and "measle"effect when contractions pop up everywhere due to the existing global network. Check your back yard to see if any Japanese knot weed is growing. It spread as a packing material after WWII ended. Railroads spread most of it. Buying a newly minted cell phone or any electronic device or cotton clothing are good examples of possible carriers, I think. I do not believe people to people or fauna to people is required. The stock and commodities markets will be a ball, of course, since making money just depends upon price change. If they are working during the duration.
From article below note , all cases from direct contact with fowl and NO known cases of person to person transmission. > The likelihood of a human flu pandemic is very high, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt warned Monday as he sought Southeast Asian cooperation to combat the spread of bird flu. Leavitt and the director of the World Health Organization are touring Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam to seek their collaboration in preparing for the anticipated public health emergency linked to the H5N1 strain of the disease. That strain has swept through poultry populations in many parts of Asia since 2003 and jumped to humans, killing 65 people, mostly through direct contact with sick fowl. While there have been no known cases of person-to-person transmission, World Health Organization officials and other experts have been warning that the virus could mutate into a form that spreads easily among people. In a worst-case scenario, millions could die.
The mutation aspect is just a matter of time. Its too bad that the advance people who could deal with this sort of stuff can't get the funding to be on the ball. an example is the UN fund being set up for future natural catastrophies. they are shooting for 100 million for next year. For making money which is the natural way ET types look at these things, it is important to see what is ahead this year in the US for thepandemic and secondary effects. The key one is the connection between health and energy. About 8% of homes are heated with oil but the majority are heated with gas. The AGA and others are pushing for a solution to the current problem. The problem is that the existing allowance of 300 dollars federal subsidy will no longer work for the 1/3 of the US population that will now require it. the heating increase will go from an average of 700 for gas to almost the same as oil at around 1600 to 1800. How to make money off of this? Follow the dominos back to the unregulated part of the energy sequence. The regulated portiions are going to take it in the teeth. the subsidy supplies the money for the increased cost for the poor 1/3. This is 2 billionincreased to 5.1 billion and add in the AGA mambers contribution of 1.7 billion. All gas is presently hedged as we all know so the "refill' of the system is what is on the horizon. since congress will cough up the additional billions that are going to pass through to thestocks we will all be buying, we can just look to see what exactly Congress will do additionally to cut the requirement for the increase in subsidies. Well what else? They will enact legislation to make more gas fields available for drilling. We buy field stocks and drilling stocks. What about the big mother that is stuck under the bridge and busted for a year? Well we buy stocks in those who make equipment to get energy. We go to milwaulkie for two of them and Texas for the drilling rig fabricators. Now look at the best dealsl of all: geological storage and importing LNG. Its not the ships its the post facilities. who gets to fabricate these? Not hard to get that one down? who has the ports and sites? its nott texas. taxas is already under way with 2. about 7 are needed to get the problem solved. Who will build he pipelines to the storage from the ports? Well that is not hard either. Since the regulation goes only to a certain point we just eliminate all those up to that line because they are going to make less money than before. The leverage is with the producers who get the gas and clean it. No money in the compression and movement of gas. the producers are a secondary industry. Who is the primary (s)? See above. You can see that buy and hold only make so much money. So where is the money to be made? the above was just the begining. Now we have to settle down and really make the bucks. The skill labor shortages are presently where? LOL... Well this could get interesting. Finally, you get to how all the quants and PhD's and MBA's miss the boats. read the media and press and see how long it takes them to catch up. the key to all of this making money is not "holding" for the term of the situation. the key is to do what Spydertrader did with a few sectors mentioned above. Pick the high volatility (3 beta) laggers in those sectors and use the leader stocks as indicators of the laggers. The normal 500% a year one would make doing the usual gets amplified by at least a factor of 3 on this play. that is about 1500% a year net. If you can't handle gas right off, do coal. If you can handle gas, then go to the corps who use gas and see what they are scrambling to do. Hint: they are not going to the sourses of shipped LNG, they are going to the countries that have the situation well under control and skilled labor and scientist. Do DuPont as a warm up drill to get a little educated. The corrsponding country is Germany. So people get can't afford energy; they turn down the thermostat and skip prescriptions and some food. (that is the polled survey results of AGA). Then the mutation of the Flu hits when human to human gets rolling. Then the health delivery system gets overpowered. Then we have labor shortages and the normal economy suffers. You just have to have the bucks in the bank to deal with this kind of stuff. Any buddy know why the think tanks got so far behind the curve?? Understaffing is what the feds did recently and just below the congressionally approval level its all filled with NEW cronies. Too bad for the US. Look at the crew of idealists who are on board at the CEA. Thank God Pete Peterson is running a crew of number crunchers along side them.
If the flu does become a reality, Longs: Vaccine Makers Health care PROVIDERS (ie: non HMO managed hospitals, sstaffing companies specialized in nurse outsourcing, etc.) Hospital supply makers: masks, syringes, etc. Delivery services: Netflix, etc. Shorts: Places people gather: Movies, Restaurants, Resorts, Schools, stores, malls, amusement parks, airplanes Gasoline as people won't be going to as many places... ie refiners like Valero Health Insurance Companies
Air conditioned offices and frequent air travel are a new feature since the last pandemic. If the bug does mutate into something transmissible and deadly then it will spread very easily and cause widespread fatalities. The worlds financial districts are likely to be particularly hard hit. So if it mutates into something nasty then just short everything and hope you survive to see the profits.
Take some lessons from the SARS outbreak. It will be wise to begin by shorting those countries hit first, and then short other countries as they begin reporting cases. If the pandemic starts in China or Indonesia, begin by shorting those markets, and then cover & short other markets than are late to the party and/or relatively outperform. When the flu begins, there will be early denial or - 'we can stop it from getting here' - type of arguments. There will also be a lot of debate as to how well the world has prepared, and how lethal/transportable the bug is. Thta will cause markets to sell off like dominoes, not all at once.