ShareA number of new films have been produced chronicling the misadventures in America’s residential property markets and financial system.  One such story is American Casino. 
I have yet to see the film.  However, below is a clip from the filmmakers Andrew and Leslie Cockburn on one unforeseen consequence of the recent financial crisis. Abandoned homes [...]

ShareI do think that we have seen a robust response to Swine Flu, sometimes bordering on panic.  Much of this seems like overkill.  However, first analyses of the H1N1 virus suggest this response is entirely warranted:
H1N1 swine flu is spreading fast enough to justify calling it a pandemic, say epidemiologists who’ve analysed the pattern of [...]

ShareThis is a pretty cool video from New Scientist.  This team of modelers has come up with a way to model human mobility using data from dollar bill tracking site Where’s George? The result is a model that tracks smaller human movements, unlike airline traffic data.  These modelers have determined worst case scenarios for the [...]

ShareThis comes from Bloomberg. Unfortunately it is pretty scary stuff:
The World Health Organization said the first pandemic since 1968 is imminent after an outbreak of swine flu spread to eight nations and 11 U.S. states.
The WHO’s Director-General Margaret Chan raised the agency’s six-phase pandemic alert to 5 from 4, the second jump in three [...]

ShareFrom the FT:
The US reported the first death outside Mexico from the swine flu virus on Wednesday as governments around the world stepped up preparations for a possible pandemic.
As Germany became the eighth country to report cases of the infection, a US government official confirmed to Reuters that a 23-month-old child had died in Texas [...]

ShareThe following is the currency outlook released today by the Brown Brothers Harriman Currency Strategy team:
Swine flu and concerns about US banks may be hitting the headlines but, the European banking sector remains a threat for the euro zone. Indeed, ECB President Trichet, speaking in NY yesterday, highlighted the fact that the European banking sector [...]

ShareI showed you a video from CNBC in a previous post detailing how Swine Flu spreads in humans. Here is a second look at what Swine Flu is all about in three videos from the Wall Street Journal.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg says “stay calm.”

ShareAfter a good run-up in the last month, the Mexican Peso is getting crushed in the currency markets today.  How much of the pullback is a result of the news regarding Swine Flu and how much is technical, due to the prior run up, is hard to identify.  Nevertheless, the outbreak will have a negative [...]

ShareHurricane Ike is going to be a difficult storm. It is a massive storm with tropical storm force winds covering the entire Gulf of Mexico. Disruptions in the Gulf of Mexico, in refining capacity and in gasoline distribution, as well as gasoline shortages at the pump will certainly drive up prices.
Let’s just hope [...]