We are in the midst of a global recession. All kinds of experts are beavering away writing deep and impenetrable analyses about financial regulation. Government leaders meet, making one pronouncement after another, in an attempt to shore up an ever tightening spiral of decline. Each day almost brings news of some other catastrophe or business failure. Massive amounts of money are being thrown at the stumbling economy. Where, when will it end? We all assume that it will end. That the efforts now being made on our behalf will succeed and that our economic jumbo will pull out of its nosedive and begin climbing again. But what I want to ask is this: where are we trying to get to? Let me explain. Let's jump forward a few years (and it seems unlikely we shall be again in any routine market situation anytime soon) and ask what we want post-recessionary Europe to look like? Is all the current activity directed simply at recreating 2006 - the last year before the financial cracks began to be noticeable? Having skidded off the road, is the extent of our ambition just to get back on tarmac again and to carry on speeding as before? Certainly we shall repair the car, fit better brakes and steering; we shall stand less chance of coming off the road; but is it the intention that by 2012, say, we shall all be rolling along, as before? The container ships brimming once again with Chinese manufactures, shops full, lights on, a new car every three years? Is this the vision?
We are in the midst of a global recession. All kinds of experts are beavering away writing deep and impenetrable analyses about financial regulation. Government leaders meet, making one pronouncement after another, in an attempt to shore up an ever tightening spiral of decline. Each day almost brings news of some other catastrophe or business failure. Massive amounts of money are being thrown at the stumbling economy. Where, when will it end?
We all assume that it will end. That the efforts now being made on our behalf will succeed and that our economic jumbo will pull out of its nosedive and begin climbing again. But what I want to ask is this: where are we trying to get to?
Let me explain. Let's jump forward a few years (and it seems unlikely we shall be again in any routine market situation anytime soon) and ask what we want post-recessionary Europe to look like?
Is all the current activity directed simply at recreating 2006 - the last year before the financial cracks began to be noticeable? Having skidded off the road, is the extent of our ambition just to get back on tarmac again and to carry on speeding as before?
Certainly we shall repair the car, fit better brakes and steering; we shall stand less chance of coming off the road; but is it the intention that by 2012, say, we shall all be rolling along, as before? The container ships brimming once again with Chinese manufactures, shops full, lights on, a new car every three years? Is this the vision?
I have assumed up to now that, despite the evidence that we simply cannot return to the condition of 2006, that is exactly where our politicians are attempting to go and damn the consequences. He needs to grasp them warmly by the throat and scream that we cannot go back to 2006 however hard they try. That ship has sunk. keep to the Fen Causeway
Gloom and Doom doesn't have to be our end or the start of a new round of "same old/same old" but we sane educated folks have to make some serious decisions involving birth control, etc.
I'm actually optimistic for the future. And if things go badly I'll get my head clubbed in and that will end my visit to this delightful little berg. I win either way. In the end, might makes right. Nothing has changed since the caveman.
"There is a real possibility that the virus will mutate and become easily transmissible between humans. If this occurs we could see the start of a new influenza pandemic." The WHO and FAO said that, while it is still relatively difficult for humans to be infected by the H5N1 virus, about 50 percent of those infected die. "The avian influenza virus is also not currently able to spread easily between humans, but influenza viruses are known for their ability to change quickly and can become more adapted to humans with dire consequences," the statement said. On Saturday a woman died from the H5N1 strain of the virus in Vietnam's first avian influenza fatality of the year. An eight-year-old girl, infected in January, has since recovered while a third victim is still in a Hanoi hospital.
The WHO and FAO said that, while it is still relatively difficult for humans to be infected by the H5N1 virus, about 50 percent of those infected die. "The avian influenza virus is also not currently able to spread easily between humans, but influenza viruses are known for their ability to change quickly and can become more adapted to humans with dire consequences," the statement said.
On Saturday a woman died from the H5N1 strain of the virus in Vietnam's first avian influenza fatality of the year. An eight-year-old girl, infected in January, has since recovered while a third victim is still in a Hanoi hospital.
http://www.macaudailytimesnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=23629&Itemi d=32
[asdf's Crystal Ball of Doom™ Technology]
Not that a highly infectious variant with 'only' 10% or 20% mortality wouldn't be a terrible thing.
But the early variants of H5N1 were showing 80% mortality even with world class intensive care. If that's down to 50% after a couple of years, that's almost encouraging.
There seems to be a trade off between infection rates and mortality.
