some different vein of bearish stuff i don't particularly adhere to but, risks are risks, and perceived / increased risk expectations matter, or so i am led to believe... http://www.gurufocus.com/news.php?id=1938
The theme of excess production as inherently deflationary has been prominent for the last 3-5 years or so. Some authors think that is 'good deflation' whereby the falling price of goods support stagnant wage levels (the wal mart effect) for the poor & middle classes. [unless what you buy is simply cheap crap, which unfortunately is probably what has happened]. I don't buy the bird flu thing - its more likely that we get some rather nasty and fast moving virus that kills quickly and goes global before anyone has a chance to do anything about it than avian flu. Government and public health authorities as well as poultry producers have had significant time to prepare for this and those measures will likely mitigate spread vectors. Recall that we have better nutrition, public sanitation, and information than back in 1918. In a push comes to shove situation, the US pulls out of iraq, allows it to temporarily devolve into civil war, invades iran, devastates it, and the world community comes to its senses and helps to occupy both countries and prevent untold misery. Yes, geopolitically the world wants the US to fail. However, they are not willing to fail worse to bring us down. The need for the US to beg for help and make whatever concessions would be necessary would be sufficient. Interesting article though.
agree re the avian flu, SARS was not so long ago, little chance of a panic there... iran... best if there is no strike and if the UAE 'model' could gain more ground in the middle-east... that won't solve the shia-sunni 'tensions' but one thing at a time... another, quantified and therefore more interesting risk assessment i find, even if i don't 'agree' with their weightings etc, is the one produced by AON the reinsurance cie and Oxford Analytica - Global Stress Points Matrix: http://www.aon.com/about/publications/issues/political_risk_map.jsp http://www.aon.com/about/publications/pdf/issues/2006_P&E_Risk_Map.pdf (takes ages to load but worth the wait) http://www.oxan.com/