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Strategies & Market Trends : Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: CalculatedRisk who wrote (38965)	10/11/2005 4:40:19 PM
From: Elroy Jetson	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 116555

Marc Siegel repeats a number of myths in his article about Bird Flu. 1.) The myth that the below-average number of pandemics we have seen is somehow related to reductions in squalor or other advances in public health. Former WHO Director of Plague Control, Carlo Cipolla, demonstrated that the incidence of plague is not related to these man made factors. 2.) The myth that ignoring a potential epidemic is the best way to prepare for it. This is particularly unwise since the Bush administration maintained this same view for too long, leaving not enough time remaining to stockpile sufficient antivirals and vaccine, in the event of a H5N1 pandemic. 3.) The myth that "the current H5N1 avian influenza virus has not mutated into a form that can easily infect humans." The re-sequencing of the 1918 flu virus has revealed that: the H5N1 virus is both very similar to the 1918 virus; and needs only minor changes to facilitate high transmissibility from person to person. The 1918 bird virus was so very deadly precisely because it was not very similar to flu virus more commonly seen in humans. Viral reproduction is very sloppy, essentially buying millions of new lottery tickets every day. It seems highly plausible that a winning virus will be found within the next couple of years, at the outside. If H5N1 becomes a pandemic Marc Siegel will write a new-improved article claiming that the millions of deaths which resulted from an insufficient supply of vaccine and anti-viral drugs was unfortunate but "unforeseeable" -- well at least unforeseeable by some. It is now clear that the 1918 virus was seeded through out the world during the five or more years which preceded the pandemic. Two years before the pandemic, a small number of people around the world died of "extreme poor health" or "pneumonia". A number of these deaths have now been confirmed as early 1918 flu deaths, based on sequencing preserved pathology samples. After these early deaths, the pattern of death suggest that the virus mutated into a highly transmissible form -- in several different locations around the world, within a short period of time. The history of H5N1 since the first human case in 1997 has, not surprisingly, followed this same pattern. I assume the chance of a Bird Flu pandemic is higher than 5%. Based on this I found it wise to purchase Tamiflu, the only influenza anti-viral currently in short-supply. If Relenza, Amantadine or other anti-virals begin to experience supply problems, I will purchase those as well. .

To: CalculatedRisk who wrote (38965)	10/11/2005 5:14:32 PM
From: mishedlo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116555

Slowdown of housing sales spreads across nation NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE October 9, 2005 A real estate slowdown that began in a handful of cities this summer has spread to almost every hot housing market in the country, including New York. More sellers are putting their homes on the market, houses are selling less quickly and prices are no longer increasing as rapidly as they were in the spring, according to data and interviews with brokers. In Manhattan, the average sales price fell almost 13 percent in the third quarter, according to a widely followed report recently released by Miller Samuel, an appraisal firm, and Prudential Douglas Elliman, a real estate firm. The amount of time it took to sell a home was also up nearly 24 percent over the previous year. In Fairfax County, Va., outside Washington, D.C., the number of homes on the market rose nearly 50 percent from August, 2004, to August of this year. In the Boston suburb of Brookline, Mass., where typical three-bedroom houses cost about $1 million, the inventory of homes for sale has increased in just the last few weeks, said Chobee Hoy, a broker there. For-sale listings have also swelled throughout California, according to the California Association of Realtors. In just the San Francisco area, they have increased 16 percent in the last year, according to Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage. "We are seeing a market in transition," Leslie Appleton-Young, the association's chief economist, said. Brokers said that some houses seem to be sitting on the market longer because sellers have priced them too high, assuming that their value was still rising sharply. In other cases, people who otherwise would have waited a year or two before putting their houses on the market – like empty-nesters ready to downsize – have listed their property now out of fear that prices will soon fall. In another sign that the housing market might have peaked, executives at large home builders, whose shares have soared in recent months, have sold almost $1 billion worth of company stock this year. The question remains whether all of this represents a momentary cooling off of some overheated housing markets, or whether it presages a more pronounced downturn that would end a decade-long housing boom. Some economists and media outlets have been predicting the bursting of a real estate bubble for years, and previous slowdowns have turned out to be brief pauses before prices started accelerating again. But with mortgage rates now rising, the cost of gas hovering near $3 a gallon and house prices in some areas out of reach for many families, brokers and analysts said they thought this slowdown could be the real thing. signonsandiego.com