Swine Flu Reality Check: Worry Versus Don’t Worry
In the last few days I have become quite the swine flu expert, thanks to the miracle of the Internet. Like everyone, I was curious whether we should all disconnect from the media hype or whether there was cause for legitimate concern. And after days of research I have come to this conclusion: Not sure, but leaning toward the ‘don’t worry’ side. Here, so that you can come to your own state of hesitant calm, is a list of facts arranged in two categories: worry and don’t worry.
Worry
- The H1N1 virus is a new virus created from recent mutations (or recombinations) of existing human, avian, and swine viruses. Thus, our bodies have no immunity and vaccines do not currently exist.
- Like the avian flu outbreak of 2006, this H1N1 virus has killed healthy people ages 8-50. This is bad because normal flu kills more vulnerable young and old people with preexisting health issues. Swine and avian flus kill healthy people by invoking an overly aggressive immune response called a cytokine storm. Basically you drown on foamy fluids after your immune system goes into all out terror mode, ew!
- The Mexican government reported that the death rate for their version of the swine flu virus was only 6-7%. Though they probably meant to alleviate fear, that figure is actually very alarming. The Spanish Flu of 1918 had a death rate of only 2.5%.
Don’t Worry!
- Ah, here’s where statistics are sometimes just annoying: they rely on accuracy. Many analysts and reporters are wondering if the incidence of death in Mexico has been miscalculated by undercounting the total number of affected people. In other words, if one out of every hundred people who got sick died, then the rate of death would be 1%. But what if there were actually 200 more people who were never tested because their symptoms were so mild? Then the actual rate of death would only be 1 out of 300, or 0.3%.
- Other pandemics began with a mild wave, then accelerated seasonly. For this flu, that mild wave gives us the lag time we need to produce vaccines prior to the next wave. Also, there are two anti-viral drugs that are effective against this flu. We have modern medicine on our side, and plenty of advanced notice!
- Regular old seasonal flu kills an average of 36,000 people per year. I had no idea that the number for regular flu was so high. Population-wise, that’s 36,000 out of roughly 300,000,000 for the country. Check out the paltry numbers for swine flu. Worldwide, there are maybe 200 deaths — out of 7 billion!! That’s very, very low.
It seems that worry feeds on poor information, so you can now consider yourself informed and relax. At least until it’s time to panic.
Woohoo! No Way. Paid Gig!
Hi duh pookie readers, my recession news website fizzled when an unresolvable technical glitch caused the site to fall off of google search results completely. But that all worked out since I have now been hired to work as a paid blogger/reporter for Examiner.com. This is the umbrella company for the San Francisco Examiner. The site is a collection of local and national blogger/reporters contributing articles from areas of expertise. My last two articles have made “most read article” for the Bay Area. Yay! You can follow my progress with Examiner.com from my news page.
I will continue to write “new thoughts” at duh pookie, and look forward to hearing from you at either site!
Libertarians, Tea Parties, and Economic Plumbing
I’ve been on a zero-growth economics kick for some time now, but it’s led me down a few other related paths: the role of Libertarians, the co-opting of Tea Parties, and the need for patching all the “leaks” in our economic plumbing.
Libertarians
First, Libertarians. Free-marketeers are anti-regulation because they feel that government’s role in regulation is a disruptive mechanism in what should be a self-correcting system. I understand this and agree, to some extent, for the reason I explained in this post. I could never be a true Libertarian because I’m big on wealth redistribution. To the poor and the weak, no less. The problem I have is that the current system favors the wealthy so that they are protected against risk. All those bank bailouts — instead of homeowner bailouts — are a clear indicator that the Fed favors saving the system from the top of the pyramid. As David Harvey points out in this most acute assessment of the current situation, the government could have worked to establish a corporation to buy troubled mortgages from homeowners:
DAVID HARVEY: I would take a lot of that [bailout] money, and I would put it into some kind of a national reconstruction corporation. And I would say, “Look, your first duty is to take care of the foreclosure crisis and the people who have been foreclosed upon. So go into cities like Cleveland and so on that have been devastated, and go into sort of areas in California and so on and take care of the foreclosure crisis.”
AMY GOODMAN: How would you do that?
DAVID HARVEY: Well, I think one of the ways you could do that is to start to buy out all of those houses that are about to be foreclosed on and put them into some kind of, I don’t know, municipal housing association or some collective form of that kind, and then allow people to remain in those houses, even though they’re no longer necessarily owners. So the ownership rights would shift.
Libertarians hated bailouts and wouldn’t have approved of bailing out anyone. Supposedly near to Libertarians on the political spectrum are right-wing Republicans, which brings me to Tea Parties…
Tea Parties
Sadly, the initial urge to protest against the bailouts was probably the voice of the regular citizens who objected to the government bailing out that top tier, the bankers who are already ridiculously rich. But the media machines (also corporations) realized this was a flaming fear-mongering opportunity to generate the type of noise that brings in viewers. So, they co-opted the tea parties and turned them into anti-Obama hate parties. It’s really a shame because our federal government could use some push-back for siding so blatantly with wealthy elites. We do need a citizen movement to rein in the power of the federal government. and especially, of Wall Street. Another quote from David Harvey:
Finance controls both the creation of housing, the production of housing, and also its consumption. You lend money to the developers. They go in and gentrify a neighborhood. You lend them money to the people who are going to occupy it. And even if they don’t have—you’ve got to find that market for the gentrification once that process goes on. And so, the connection there in this, the financial operators are working on both ends of this game
David Harvey calls himself a Marxist Geographer, which sounds a little nonsensical, but the man makes some good points simply by looking at things from an outsider’s perspective. And now, for my final gripe of the day, economic plumbing.
Economic Regulation: Patch the Leaks, Stop the Siphoning
Zero-growth economics has no current working model other than communism. Communism is unrealistic, often really ugly. Huge problem with sharing and our competitive nature or something, eh? But we’ve reached the point where we need to stop consuming, so… can we have growth without consumption? Can we have a .05% growth rate and still have a working system? Is a no-growth system possible with a burgeoning global population? Hmmm, lots of questions regarding viability.
In the meantime it would be great to at least improve our current form of mixed capitalism to ensure stability. If you’d like to see our system support jobs, keep our savings safe, and support homeownership again, we need to close up the places in our economy where investors, traders, and hedge-fund managers live: shadow banking, short-selling, currency trading, credit-default swaps, etc. I do not have deep knowledge of how these things work, but I think I understand that these areas of finance and investment are forms of creating wealth where none actually exists. This creation of false wealth devalues the real wealth of labor and goods, in essence, sucking the health out of our system. The trouble with too much financial liberty, ala Libertarians and strict free market capitalism, is that some jerk always figures out how to game the system and screws it up for the rest of us. Sometimes, like, say since Glass-Steagle was repealed, it’s a whole industry of jerks.
Hence the need for industry regulation. Adam Smith’s invisible hand is just too simple a metaphor. What we need is an even more ridiculous metaphor. Plumbing! Money travels through pipes, yeah. And the pipes leak, see? And then the leak grows into a big puddle and fails to… uh… trickle down. And then a bunch of parasites start to live in the puddle. I could go on and on! But hey, you get the idea. Clean pipes, clear channels with observable paths, a fixed, closed system that’s extensible, and begins at the source: real, actual goods and services. True capital.
Happy Earth Day! Electric Cars, Solar-Power, and Toys!
Hey there, Happy Earth Day!! Now I know how much you love a good political debate about waterboarding or other various and exciting torture techniques, or discussing the Fox News rally-cry of the ever-lovable Glenn Beck, but today we’re leaving all that behind. We’re looking to the future: clean, green machines to help us live lighter on the planet.
To start, here are a few noteworthy clean energy vehicles, all electric, all the time:
Thanks to a friend on Facebook, I learned about the wee lil Peapod today, made by none other than… Chrysler! Whoa, weird. But seriously cute! The Peapod is an NEV (Neighborhood Electric Vehicle) which means it’s made for zipping about in residential areas. Four seats and a top speed of about 25mph. Will carry groceries or kids, not too far or too fast, but it does make you realize how often an SUV is just massive overkill. Cost? About $12,000. Which made me wonder if golf carts aren’t cheaper, but this one can use your iPod as the key…
Next up, Myers Motors NmG, that’s short for No More Gas! This freaky, groovy three-wheeled car thing comes in a variety of exciting colors, which you would be wise to opt for. Kind of like bugs that come in noxious colors to avoid being eaten, you would need those bright colors to turn the head of that Escalade driver you’d be battling. Big new, though, this car travels at highway speeds and is currently eligible for a 10% rebate off the $30,000 price. Stimulus funds. Gotta love ‘em!
A quick mention of a car that gets big props since all it’s body panels are recyclable! The Norwegian Th!nk City is also highway enabled, but, alas, will probably never be available in the US. Listen up US automakers, this is the kind of innovation we need. I’d love to know my car could be recycled.
Moving on to the primo radicus of electric vehicles with the Tesla roadster. Oh yeah, this baby rocks — if you’ve got the cash. About $110,000. With performance specs to make a racecar driver drool (0-60mph in 3.8 seconds, yowza!) this is the proverbial sh*t. Tesla is also considering the common man, working to develop the S-model four-door sedan with a price tag of $50,000. It seats 7, so that’s only about $7,000 per person! What a deal!
Any environmentally-aware consumer knows that all this electricity does not come free, and that’s where Solar City comes in. These guys are creating a new business model that offers a super alternative for homeowners: lease your solar system and rooftop panels for roughly the same cost per month as you’re already paying PG&E. Reasonable prices for solar? How cool is that?
And lastly, a groovy toy called the easyglider tows you on rollerblades or your child on a skateboard. Finally a reason to love cement!
Happy Earth Day everyone. :)
Obama’s Test on Torture: Was Closing Gitmo a PR Stunt?
From the SCOTUS Blog:
The Obama Administration, taking its first position in a federal court on claims of torture of Guantanamo Bay detainees, urged the D.C. Circuit Court on Thursday to reject a lawsuit by four Britons formerly held there. In addition, the new filing argued that a recent appeals court ruling makes clear that “aliens held at Guantanamo do not have due process rights.”
Obama’s halo is crumbling when it comes to standing up for international law and abiding by the Geneva Conventions. The Obama Administration has appealed a federal court’s decision allowing for the right to habeas corpus (right to review of imprisonment) for prisoners at Bagram, an Afghanistani Gitmo. The judge did not object to prisoners who were picked up in Afghanistan, just to prisoners who are arrested in other countries and then transported to the Bagram prison where the judge’s ruling pointed out they were “physically beyond the reach of the Constitution.”
No doubt the Obama administration is facing a huge dilemma: if they continue the illegal detention and torture of prisoners, they are certain to create more hostility against the US, essentially more potential terrorists. But, if they release the detainees, those are bound to be some really pissed off guys, more potential terrorists.
I understand this is a difficult decision. But the US is in peril if we don’t continue to show that we have parted ways with the arrogance of the Bush Administration where treatment of foreign nationals is concerned.
On Thursday, Obama will show his cards in his administration’s stand on torture. Attorney General Eric Holder has agreed after a long internal battle (against John Brennan) to declassify and release memos from the Bush Justice Department detailing specific techniques allowed for use against “high-value” detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Either the memos will provide full disclosure, be partially redacted, or the Obama Administration will refuse to release them all together. If Obama provides full transparency, then we can say that his administration has chosen to forgo secrecy. If they withhold the memos, then we can assume they’ve decided to protect the Bush Administration, and most likely will continue on the path that brought our country so much shame internationally.
Adding fuel to the proverbial fire, Spain is suing Alberto Gonzales, John Yoo, Jay Bybee, David Addington, Doug Feith and William Haynes for their role in the torture of five Spanish citizens at Guantanamo. Why is Spain suing these Justice Department lawyers???
Because the US has not undertaken any investigation into the legality of torture under Bush. Glenn Greewald at Salon tells us why (emphasis mine):
The barriers to these prosecutions are numerous, but one of the principal obstacles is that CIA Director Leon Panetta has been emphatically demanding that there be no investigations of any government officials whose conduct was declared legal by DOJ lawyers (i.e., the very individuals the Spanish are now investigating for war crimes). And it’s not surprising that Panetta has taken this position given that at least two of his top deputies at the CIA are among those implicated, to one degree or another, in the torture regime [...]
…Take Stephen Kappes. At the time of the worst torture sessions outlined in the ICRC report, Kappes served as a senior official in the Directorate of Operations—the operational part of the CIA that oversees paramilitary operations as well as the high-value detention program. (The directorate of operations is now known as the National Clandestine Service.) Panetta has kept Kappes as deputy director of the CIA—the number two official in the agency.
And why is it that Stephen Kappes was made the number 2 officials at the CIA despite his being in a key CIA position during the implementation of America’s torture regime? Because the two most important Senate Democrats on intelligence matters — Jay Rockefeller and Dianne Feinstein — insisted that he be so empowered as a condition for their supporting Panetta’s nomination, after both of them first demanded that Kappes actually be made CIA Director.
Rockefeller and Feinstein? Wow, what too many years in Washington will do to a person, eh?
Obama may feel the need to appease hawkish Democrats and Republicans by continuing this shameful practice of torture in secret prisons. And, these people imprisoned for six or more years without any representation at all (!) may in fact be very bad people. If they are, let them stand trial. That’s the way justice is supposed to work here in the land of the free.
Rabid Republicans Just Don’t Get It
While I fully understand that some people are confused and scared that the recession came on so suddenly and has been so drastic, I am mystified by the bizarre extremes some Fox News Republicans are approaching. The loony Glenn Beck has now made an all out call for “Tea Party” protests where, apparently, barely educated, book-burning idiots meet in bars to protest…. uh… what exactly??? (Video of one meeting here.)
There’s some kind of massive disconnect between Republicans who claim to support a free-market economy and those same Republicans who don’t realize that their worldview supported the investment bankers and hedge fund owners who broke ZERO laws in the latest financial meltdown — because under those same unregulated free trade laws, all that over-leveraging and super greedy profit-raiding isn’t illegal.
So now that evil old Obama is in power, he’s a socialist. Are these same rabid people proposing some solution other than “teabagging”? These people clearly do not understand that the government redistributes wealth for the common good ever since it’s inception.
I am less than comfortable with the bailouts, since I feel that the Federal Reserve and fractional reserve banking could use a serious shakedown. I don’t like the fact that, from my middle-income position, it looks an awful lot like those bailouts are all about political “friends” covering the asses of their banking “friends.” All in the name of free trade. These Fox News fools would rather starve than give undeserved money to poor people or immigrants while giving gobs of cash to bankers is only wrong once the godless Obama started doing it. Bush and Paulsen couldn’t help it. They were forced to do something to help the citizens. But Obama? He’s definitely trying to make the country communist. Obama is practically the anti-Christ.
Yeah, you go on ahead thinking that way. Me? I can’t believe what a good president Obama is. I still wish we had a deeper democracy with less wealth disparity and a smaller federal government, but Obama is just doing so much right.
For more Republican crazy, see John Stewart…
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