Recently, swine flu was the lead article on all major financial
media across the globe as markets opened in sequence from Asia
to Europe to North America. Invariably, the articles were dire
with presumptions that the disease would at best delay economic
recovery and at worst send economies worldwide into a tailspin.
Along with the lead articles were tangents that pork prices
would collapse and sales of surgical masks would skyrocket. I do
not recommend kissing sick Mexican pigs, but the near hysterical
media sensationalism with unwarranted presumptions deserves some
mention: The disease is not transmitted by eating pork. The
Centers for Disease Control says that viruses are so small that
they flow easily through surgical masks. And, there is no direct
correlation between pandemics (or epidemics), real or
threatened, and stock pricing. Sometimes, stock prices even go
up. For example, during the big one (Spanish flu of 1918
estimated to have killed 50 million people) the Dow gained more
than 15 percent. The pub