Toxic assets

Sorry, but it had to be done.

Swine response #3

"Mad cows, bird 'flu, swine flu... Wouldn't it be better if we all became vegetarians?

At work, we came up with a new conspiracy: it's the vegan mafia who set all this up.

Swine flu responses #2

Yesterday I posted some trivial responses to the epidemic in Mexico, that is worrying many.

Here's how some shares are doing this week:
Ryanair (Friday close 3.41, now 3.15) down 7.6%
Easyjet (was 335.25, now 298.25) down 11.0%
Delta Airlines (was 7.88, now 6.75) down 14.3%
British Airways (was 163.9, now 143.5) down 12.4%
--
TUI (was 271.75, now 247.75) down 8.8%
Thomas Cook (was 282.75, now 257.75) down 8.8%
--
Pfizer (13.17 becomes 13.49) up 2.4%
GlaxoSmithKline (was 1006 now 1080.5) up 7.4%
AstraZeneca (was 2394 now 2466) up 3.0%

So not everybody loses in a pandemic scare.

On pigs

Cartoon in today's Guardian.
Krugman points out flaws in the Republican Party criticism of the stimulus bill

Google trends (tracks the frequency of particular search terms):
Gripe porcina, gripe, influenza, flu, swine. All show dramatic upticks over the past day or two. It is interesting to note that it is not as frequently searched as it was in the bird flu crisis, but is appearing in more news articles. The first two terms are the Spanish words for swine flu and flu and are listed because the crisis is originally Mexican.