Tamiflu III

First, the Credit Crunch, now swine flu. The CDC is calling it as a Category 5 pandemic on the Pandemic Severity Index, which places it with Spanish flu (the PSI is different from the WHO Pandemic Influenza Phases - we are now in Phase 5) . The 1957-8 Asian flu and 1968-9 Hong Kong flu events are both listed as Category 2 pandemics. If this really is the case (and the mortality rates among non-Mexican patients would suggest that the severity is more like that of the 1957-8 and 1968-9 outbreaks, although, of course, medical care has, all things considered, improved significantly over the last fifty years, so perhaps the reduced mortality is a result of that improvement and we will see the mortality rate increase sharply as health systems become increasingly overloaded). If swine flu is a Category 5 event, we are going to witness a Level 8 Black Swan - 10-100 million deaths or the economic equivalent. An interesting question is what level of Black Swan the Credit Crunch is. At an economic equivalence of 1M$, if the Credit Crunch is a trillion dollar event, then that corresponds to a Level 7 Black Swan, which feels about right - a Spanish flu-type is definitely a more significant event than the Credit Crunch. The 1918 pandemic, of course, was overshadowed by the Level 9 event than was World War One.  

Comments

[Celestial M Weasel]

I see that the two of you are currently posting on different Razors.
You can laugh at my funeral but I call utter bullshit on the flu hype. The media are bored with the credit crunch and even with this, although Britain remains as utterly f****d as ever, I fail to see the carnage in the high street that many people claiming to be in the know were assuring us was going to happen after Christmas.
I have been quite shocked at the degree to which people have taken leave of their senses about the flu, 'amazonfail' and various other things recently. Is there something in the water?

[PMC]

I have to admit that I was a bit disconcerted by the discovery that the CDC currently has swine flu as a Category 5 pandemic. Even if it gets reduced down to a Category 2 one that is still significant event.

As for the economy, I was in Preston a couple of weeks ago and it was carnage on the high street with lots of empty shops on the main shopping drag. Probably more significant is that in the solicitor/accountant quarter (Winckley Square), every building had a "To Let" sign on it. I assume this because of are Manchester- and London-based shutting down their Preston office as it can no longer be justified by the property bubble froth. I suspect that Preston is a better bellwether of the real economy than London-Oxford-Abingdon-rural Oxfordshire.

[Daveon]

Yeah PMC what gives? We have a domain and everything now!

[Celestial M Weasel]

Yeah, there is clearly more to the CDC category than I have picked up from media soundbites...
Your point about the economy is irrelevant to my point, my point is that people claiming to be in the know said that X was going to happen, it didn't; the fact that Y happened is from this perspective neither here nor there.
Abingdon, as it happens, is pretty f*****d shop wise, and has had office To Let signs up for years. I suspect that the office that W & A used to work in before it was closed and moved up to Bicester (which must be 3 or more years ago ???) has never been re-let. Clearly there is a big office-space overhang at the moment, though I wonder if there are demographic trends at work... presumably at some level the number of people working from home-offices reduces the need for small office lets, and the large amount of internet shopping reduces the need for, er, shops.

[PMC]

I think there is always an overhang in office-space. I remember Woking in the late 1990s being full of "To Let" and there have been a number of derelict office buildings along Brentyford High Street since I moved there in 2003. And yet new office continued (and continues) apace. What gives? It was noteworthy that the number of "To Let" signs in Winckley Square seemed far higher the ambient and I don't recall as many empty shops on Fishergate before. It certainly feels as though something has happened.

As for what has happened not being what people said would happen, has unemployment not gone up sharply? I hear that in places like Birmingham the number of unemployment claimants has something like double-tripled in the last twelve months.

[Celestial M Weasel]

It was carnage in the High Street that people were predicting, specifically that lots of big chains were going to go bust on 26th / 27th December / 1st / 2nd January.

I am not disputing that Something (TM) has Happened (TM).