Long before swine flu hit, Timothy Geithner testified to Congress about the danger of a strange new epidemic. “Contagion spreads,” he warned in 2008, “transmitting waves of distress to other markets.” The contagion was loan defaults, and Bear Stearns was patient zero. The Fed’s bailout of Bear, he hoped, would slow or stop the spread of defaults across the financial . . .
New study tries to predict sources of future pandemics. (Earlier) “The Subprime Primer”: a mortgage crisis in illustration. What’s the worst company in America? Cast your vote. The white lies of Consumer Reports‘s undercover shoppers.
Play Warcraft, study pandemics. (Related.) “Bueller? Bueller? Retirement?” (HT: Consumerist.) Cell phones & driving not so dangerous after all? (HT: MR.) In Denver, feeding the meter feeds the homeless. (Related.)
AIDS in Africa is one of the gravest problems facing the world. Emily Oster has some of the most interesting ideas about AIDS in Africa. You can see and hear these ideas online, courtesy of the wonderful folks at the TED Conference.
I’ve long felt like a flu epidemic is one of the biggest external threats to the U.S. right now when measured in expected lives lost over the next ten years. Reading John Barry’s book “The Great Influenza” is very sobering, but worthwhile. It sounds crazy, but on the long list of things I’d like to do that I never get . . .