The Scamdemic in Insurers, Autos and Swine Flu

The 'Helicopter Economics Investing Guide' is meant to help educate people on how to make profitable investing choices in the current economic environment. In addition to the term helicopter economics, we have also coined the term, helicopternomics, to describe the current monetary and fiscal policies of the U.S. government and to update the old-fashioned term wheelbarrow economics.

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While I have often criticized the U.S. government for sloppy and corrupt economic policy, it is really outdoing itself lately to reach news highs on the stupidity meter. Essentially, federal government policy can be described as reward the incompetent. If a choice must be made between rewarding the extremely incompetent versus the very incompetent, reward the extremely incompetent. Better yet still if maximum unemployment and long-term economic damage can result from a policy choice, which should also costs ten times more in the long run. Unfortunately, as the latest news on swine flu reveals, this problem isn't limited to economic policy, but effects life or death health issues for the American public. If there was a movie analogy for the last two U.S. presidential administrations, it would have to be "Dumb and Dumber".

Today's news included bailouts for the life insurance companies and the simultaneous winding down of the American auto industry. The Treasury department has agreed to provide at least $22 billion in TARP funds to six life insurers, including Hartford Financial, Lincoln National, Allstate Corp., Ameriprise Financial, Principal Financial Group and Prudential. Like all bailouts that have taken place so far, expect more to be paid out in the future. While the insurance companies were being saved from their financial profligacy, the auto companies are being allowed to flounder.

Chrysler announced it was closing a quarter of all of its dealerships and GM is eliminating 1100. GM faces a June 1 deadline for bankruptcy. The Obama administration has done everything possible to push GM over the edge. While the costs of a bailout would be minimal compared to the financial companies, the costs of not bailing out the auto companies will be staggering. These will include paying off CDSs (credit default swaps) for GM bonds, unemployment insurance, health care costs, state and local government bailouts, etc, etc, etc. The administrations attempt to get the bondholders to accept worthless equity in the company sets another bad precedent as well. This will damage the ability of all U.S. manufacturing companies to raise capital in the future (especially from foreign sources). It was long term government policy initiatives to build up the FIRE (finance, insurance, real estate) economy at the expense of manufacturing that led to our current difficulties. Is the government trying to fix this mistake? Not at all, they are trying to compound it.

Some more interesting news on the swine flu debacle #2 (the first debacle was in the mid 1970s) came out in the last 24 hours. A report from Bloomberg News stated the World Health Organization is investigating a claim by an top flu researcher and one of the developers of Tamiflu, Adrian Gibbs, that the swine flu virus currently circling the globe may have been created in a medical lab as a result of human error. Presumably, it was accidentally released. In reaction to the report, a spokesperson for the CDC in Atlanta vehemently denied the possibility of swine flu being man made even though the CDC has yet to review Dr. Gibbs data (hmmm, I wonder who could have operated a lab where this could have taken place). Regardless of what may have happened in the past, there is no need to have doubts about whether or not the CDC's operations will be in competent hands in the future. The Obama administration has just announced that it is appointing New York City Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden to head the CDC. In case you have forgotten, Frieden was the one who stated there were hundreds of undiagnosed cases of swine flu in the city (there weren't) when the flu first appeared. While doing everything possible to unnecessarily spread panic, the NYC health department was busy botching the early testing of potential swine flu cases. The extremely incompetent Frieden will be replacing the merely incompetent Richard Besser.

NEXT: Market Meltup in Mumbai

Daryl Montgomery
Organizer,New York Investing meetup
http://investing.meetup.com/21

This posting is editorial opinion. Like all other postings for this blog, there is no intention to endorse the purchase or sale of any security.

Markets Rise Despite Swine Flu Scamdemic

The 'Helicopter Economics Investing Guide' is meant to help educate people on how to make profitable investing choices in the current economic environment. In addition to the term helicopter economics, we have also coined the term, helicopternomics, to describe the current monetary and fiscal policies of the U.S. government and to update the old-fashioned term wheelbarrow economics.

Our Video Related to this Blog:

U.S. stock indices were all up over 2% yesterday despite the increasing hysteria about a swine flu pandemic. The market was clearly not buying that story, nor should you (more below). The markets were giddy over comments coming from the Fed meeting yesterday. The Fed said the rate of the economy's decline had slowed considerably. It further stated that it would consider additional funding for its programs if necessary. Expect the printing presses to be running full time well into the future with bail outs needed in the insurance industry, commercial real estate and for state and local governments. And don't forget that we will be bailing out Mexico too, probably sooner than later thinks to the recently totally unjustified brouhaha over swine flu.

Rarely if ever have I seen more irresponsibility on the part of the medical authorities and media than in the handling of the current swine flu outbreak. Coverage seems much worse than during the outbreak in 1976, when 200 people were sick with swine flu and one person supposedly died from it. That swine flu outbreak started at an U.S. army base at Fort Dix, New Jersey. The first person to have been identified with swine flu, was the only recorded fatality (it is not clear from the available information that other causes of death could be ruled out). Four other army recruits had to be hospitalized. However, it turns out that 500 other soldiers at the base tested positive for swine flu, but didn't even become sick. Somehow, the U.S. government used this data to justify spending $135 million on a large-scale immunization program, which had to be halted once it was realized that people were dieing and being horribly crippled - from the vaccine! No swine flu epidemic ever materialized.

The facts of today's swine flu outbreak also tell a very different story than the one you are hearing from the media. The glaring front page headline in a major newspaper yesterday, "Swine Flu, Why You Should Worry" is typical of what the public has seen and heard and which have caused needless panic throughout the world. In reality, NOT ONE PERSON outside of Mexico has died from swine flu (how many have died inside Mexico may also have been grossly exaggerated). But what about the reports of the first American death, even mentioned in this blog yesterday? Well, it turns out the unfortunate toddler who died after two weeks in a Houston hospital came from Mexico. His parents claim he only became sick once they crossed the border and arrived in Brownsville, Texas. The toddler also had other significant health problems, which the medical authorities refuse to reveal. Without knowing what these were, it is impossible to say if he actually died from another medical condition or swine flu.

It needs to be kept in mind that the symptoms of swine flu are identical to other types of flu and similar to many other illnesses as well. Swine flu can only be identified by viral typing, something the Mexicans didn't have the ability to do during the beginning of the outbreak. They had to send samples to the United States. As of April 26th, only 18 cases of swine flu had been confirmed in Mexico by viral typing, yet the media reported 160 people dead from swine flu there (how did they know this?). Not only is it quite possible many of these people actually died from something else, it is the logical conclusion if you consider that there aren't any deaths elsewhere. As for the viral typing that has been done in the United States on suspected cases, a large majority of the tests have come back negative for flu. Of the few that were positive, twice as many indicated already known forms of the disease and not swine flu.

By every measure so far, the current version of swine flu seems to be the mildest form of influenza that has ever existed. No deaths in the U.S. versus 36,000 a year from other flu related illnesses and 7 hospitalizations versus the usual 114,000 annual number (thats 0.006%). Yet, that's not how the medical authorities have reacted. They have done everything possible to fan the flames of panic among a naive and gullible public (and increase their budgets - the federal government has already promised $1.5 billion). The New York City Health Commissioner, Thomas Frieden, stated that there were many hundreds of school children in the city with suspected cases of swine flu (that word suspected got buried in the coverage). Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, warned that the child who died in Houston would not be the first death in the U.S. form swine flu. Perhaps she's planning an airlift of the seriously ill from Mexico? You got to find some way to spend that $1.5 billion.

NEXT: Market at Key Resistance; Scamdemic Update

Daryl Montgomery
Organizer,New York Investing meetup
http://investing.meetup.com/21

This posting is editorial opinion. Like all other postings for this blog, there is no intention to endorse the purchase or sale of any security.