The Mathematics of Panic and the Mexican Swine Flu Pandemic

No one yet knows for sure, but the evidence is building that the Mexican flu pandemic is real and that it has had a three week gestation period beginning in earnest possibly during for the first week of April 2009. It may have spread out through people travelling away from the breeding wastes of several large swine farms at La Gloria near Mexico City. That is only an hypothesis. The big question is that, given present deaths in Mexico now stand at over 150, how long will it take before similar numbers appear in other communities across the globe. In other words, how long before you or I no matter where we live can expect to see the virus in our community. And, then how fast will the numbers of serious cases climb in Mexico as a potential pandemic gathers speed.

I have to say that the pandemic seems more than potential and that is why the potential for panic is as great as the potential for pandemic.

A rough calculation based on a three weeks gestation period for an area that has been saturated with the flu virus mutating and evolving suggests that not all those that have the swine flu virus will have the virulent strain. In fact, many case of the virus already reported around the world will have strains that have not yet evolved into a killer strain. They may never evolve into a killer strain and indeed may provide a means of protecting people from the killer strain or strains when these eventually arrive.

My very rough calculations of percentages for what they are worth would preliminarily suggest a 5 percent mortality rate out of those that have actually caught the killer strain and get seriously sick. This means that the figure for the total number catching the swine flu virus with all the other less dangerous strains could be a much smaller proportion, say less than 1 percent. This is just a wild speculation for setting out the arguments that a panic response may be more serious than the spread of the killer varus itself, at least initially, and if we are very lucky we may get immune to the killer strain by catching the non killer strain. Being or getting sick from the swine flu does not mean you will die. We do not know what the proportions are or will be. Some people may be already partially protected from less dangerous forms. We do not know what will protect from the killer forms.

As regards alarm, one should realize that those that will catch swine flu may be very large indeed, again I must emphasize may be, since mathematically we have no way yet of telling people more than that. This will lead to panic, and panic is morel Ikey than pandemic of the killer strain. As I read it, a pandemic of the swine flu virus is not the same as a pandemic of the killer strain the swine flu virus. Thus, you will probably survive the pandemic if you are reading this article, however you should be aware than you may still panic, and the panic may be more dangerous than the part of the pandemic of the swine flu virus that is not the killer strain. If you can understand that then you have the gist of my comments.

It is possibly the case that once people in your community have contracted the swine flu virus, you, yourself, will catch the virus in about three weeks even if you try very hard to avoid it. Be aware that many people may have to have the non-killer strain before it has evolved into a killer strain. Averaging everything out, the average person is safe, but there is a good chance lots of people will get very seriously ill around you.

Just keep your cool and do what you think will maximize your chances of surviving the worst. Get food and drink together for the long haul, get anti-viral cleansers, get loads of tissues and bags to dispose these,. Read as much as you can about how to protect your family and your community. Above all, do not panic. Survive by using your wits, and do unto your neighbour as you would they do unto you.

The New Stereotypes and Why They are Damaging

I see the creation of new stereotypes as a social process to give human beings comfort that they are addressing the ills of their world. The real problem is that the new stereos, many of them associated with bankers and banking, do nothing to help our situation other than appease our inclinations towards negative attitudes.

In essence, the main players in the unfolding of the financial crisis were innocent of a knowledge of wrong doing. Most were people being pragmatic within their perceptions of what the rules of the economic games being played out. They did not realize that the senior supervisory managers of the game were ignorant of the ultimate effects of the market game processes or had their heads in the sand. Our stereotype is, however, different in that we have cast them, all banking industry people, as willing participants in games of deception. That these stereotypes do not really apply to the vast majority of people in the financial world is too often forgotten in the rhetoric of politicians and housewives alike.

We have been through many histories of destructive stereotyping that has led to massive amounts of injustice to innocent parties. What we all have to presently endure is that the approaches of economic analysis that are presently in place worldwide are not sufficient to the task of understanding economic processes. The whole science of economics has to improve beyond its own stereotypes.

It is no longer sufficient to use the mathematics of economics to solve economic problems. There needs to be much more empirical and information gathering in economic analysis of forms that take into account the real complexities of economic and social structures. We are far down the ladder of solutions and need to climb into realism. Our shortcuts of analysis are damaging our people and communities.

The Continuing World Economic Crisis as Mistaken Identity

The problem with understanding economic problems is that there are many ways to analyse an economic situation. The leaders of the G20 have resolved that a multi-pronged approach aiming to end the liquidity crunch while amending the rules under which banks operate should do the trick. Do their efforts represent a real solution or are we seeing the playing out of another drama of ignorance about economic processes?

A feature of the G20 proposal is that it partly addresses the demands of Gordon Brown for stimulus while partly addressing the demands of European leaders for reformation of the banking system. It is wonderful rhetoric, but does the rhetoric contain the solution, or might one ask in all sincerity whether there is at this point a solution. In my view, this rather depends on your point of view and how you see the economic processes playing out over time relative to what you consider your ideal.

Its obvious that the main target of community leaders should be to minimize inflation while maximizing real growth in new directions such as to resolve other crises that humanity faces. The measures proposed in the G20 statement of intent will go some of the way towards resolving the different crises, but what will play out will be huge differences in emphasis in different countries because of their respective competitive situations and whether they are the initiators of the crisis or the unfortunate recipients.

One has to ask the question why the credit crunch. If one gets the right answers then it is possible that solutions may be found. However, if one asks the wrong questions or looks at the economic processes incorrectly, one can easily foresee a continuation of 'issues' rather than their resolution. In my view the wrong people are reviewing the financial processes and probably getting it wrong. This is not because they are not brilliant in the field of economics or finance as presently defined, but because the whole science of most economic analysis is built on mistaken identity based on stereotypes that no longer apply. Partly, we are all to blame because we believe or have faith in mathematical analysis as the end of the story rather than thorough examination of the details through time.

Mathematically, we can examine the economic problem from a macro or micro economic perspective. In conventional macro economics, it is not obvious that there was rampant and destructive inflation. What was overlooked was the disjoint between short term financing and long term need. The gap between the two was bridged by a false and failing macro economic approach. What was needed was a measure of processes of inflation that are socially divisive.

This was definitely overlooked by the IMF whose role it was to have such an indicator. Do you think they will advise on the correct measure of inflation the second time round. I don't, and that is a real problem for the world! Their macro economics approach is presently insufficient to the task. They need to get a better measure of inflation and act accordingly.

Another aspect of the G20 communication is that there needs to be changes in the rules of banking. This we would all agree. The problems we have identified are associated with leveraging, hedging, borrowing short and lending long (in all environments of immediate, short and long term financial markets), debt burden creation by not limiting loans to weaker segments of borrowing, arm chair banking at it very worse, disregard for prudent loan management. All these are, however, to misidentify the real problems, which I believe will be allowed to continue unless they are understood for what they are.

Economists are prone to forget the very close connections between stock market activity and money market activity. When both markets are structured in such ways as to produce instability from their very nature, this does not augur well for the economic system as a whole. I believe that the structural problems of the financial system have not been identified or are being ignored while the focus is on the effects of bad structure not the elements of bad structure that need to be address.

Yes, my dears, mis-identification is the order of the day, and habit persistence of bad habits will govern the greater mess me will be forced to endure.

The Case For Christ - A Review of Lee Strobel's Book

Lee Strobel is a well known and highly respected reporter, who has written many books about why Christians should continue to believe in Jesus Christ as their saviour and as authentic.

In my view, his case for Christ book has to rank among the best on the subject of the authenticity of Christ. His book outlines the failings of much serious research work over two recent decades to get a clearer picture of Christ beyond what was known thirty years after his death and carefully vested for inclusion in the New Testament over the century afterward.

The reader will find that Strobel's book is extremely well written and its conclusion very clear, namely that Jesus Christ lived and rose from the dead in a way that we would today regard as supernatural. The Christian story is of a miracle, a series of supernatural events that cannot be explained away by recent research. On the contrary, much of current work on the historicity of Christ that seeks to present an alternative view to that presented in the early days of Christianity fails on almost every count.

One is given such wonderfully presented information by Strobel as to conclude that it is worth every one's time to begin reading the Bible, if they have in the past failed to do so, because what Jesus says and does may indeed be supernatural and unique in the history of mankind.

Read Strobel's book and judge for yourself. I think he makes mincemeat of many weaker and falser claims by those wishing to destroy Christian faith.

Why the Present World Financial Crisis is an Opportunity

President Obama and world leaders came through yesterday and presented a wonderful opportunity for the young people to develop a new world order with a soundly based future that properly takes into account the numerous failings of excessive or rampant market growth.

My own research suggests that companies, and the human beings that drive them forward, are by-and-large opportunistic or paranoiac copy cats. Life is a competitive race in which people are likely to neglect the needs of others and they charge forwards to higher and higher levels of pleasure and satisfaction. Fear, as well as, fervour and lust are at the base of aggressive behaviour.

By change from competition towards competitive cooperation or cooperative competition, we can move closer towards more ideal forms of market and social development that recognizes our basic desires, but at the same time curbs our worst appetites. That is what communities and community communications could be designed to achieve. It would be much better for religions and companies to recognize that they cannot be overall winners. Organizations need to come to terms with living in a cooperative but still competitive environment. When governments recognize this, organizations can recognize this and eventually the people within the organizations can recognize this. It means that we need to have a human bill of rights that all governments, all organizations and all human being can be held to task on.

Once we have reached the goal of cooperative competition between human beings, we can expand our bills of rights to include all living creatures. There is room enough for every living creature once we get cooperation as a norm between human beings.

The Evolving World Economy

A consequence of the mistakes made in the financial sectors of New York and London would seem to me to be that their time of dominion is rapidly entering a new phase. If Britain and America engage in meaningful reforms of the financial structures, there might be hope of their lasting well into the future, however, the force of old habits and prior commitments to financing long term goals with short term money does not auger well for their futures.

The winners in our financial crisis should be those that can think into the longer term, not the thieves of our futures. There has to be a way for governments to redirect thinking towards long term views that build in low risk approaches to financing. It would better to have slower growth that is well founded in innovation and good judgment than to have inflationary growth that rushes into the future faster and faster as it heads towards a poor or tragic outcome.

What is Natural?

At a time when we see and hear so much about Charles Darwin and his wonderful life researching and discovering the origin of species, it is quite natural that one should ask what is natural. Well, we could say that what is in the past is natural. How far does that take us? Most would probably think that it does not take us very far. Can one say that what is in the future is natural? As one goes through this process of considering what is natural, one gets closer to the idea that there are some things that go well beyond the natural. Is it fair to add all these new things that we discover in the future to our category of natural. I have my doubts.

My inclination is to reject this notion of natural and think of the world as being supernatural. The category of supernatural for me at least includes what is natural and then adds to it. I don't think all the past was natural. One has only to ask what came before the past and one has no answer. What existed before the big bang and why was there a big bang? Its not satisfactory to me to say that everything after the big bang was/is/will be natural. My view is that all this stuff we see around us includes the natural universe plus a very large supernatural universe. Its not that I have any proof, but I am not going to wait forever thinking that this is all there is, or ever was. That would seem to me to be rather silly.

The Crash Georges

My pet peeve is that two Heads of State named George crash landed their economies, when they could have landed them much more softly and the world would not have to change so much. George Bush crashed his America and George Brown his Britain.

A consequence of George Brown's failure to produce a soft landing will in my view at this moment in time (opinions change) be the loss of the UK Pound Sterling as an independent currency. As the pound weakens because the UK financial is inhibited from crisis creation a benign consequence could be for Britain to join the Euro system.

Had Britain been part of the Euro system, there might have been greater sensitivity to the forms of inflation that are socially divisive, namely the inflation of costs of operating and owning a family residence. As it now stands, George is unrepentant in his mistaken view that his lack of sufficient understanding of evolutionary economics was not the source of the crash landing of the British economy.