What Swine Flu And Recessions Have In Common

OMG Swine Flu hysteria is like totally sweeping the nation! We should be glued to CenileNN and Faux News all day for the late breaking coverage of this potentially deadly epidemic that may kill us all! Actually, of course Swine Flu is no big deal. You’re smarter than that. But television and print media aren’t Here are two headlines I came across while researching this post on Monday, April 26.

“US Stocks Decline In Early Trading On Concern Over Swine Flu”
“Oil falls 5% on worries swine flu may halt economic recovery”

So even though more people were diagnosed with HIV/AIDs in the time I wrote this post than all reported cases of Swine Flu so far, we’re treating Swine Flu as if it is a potential problem. Since it is the buzz word of the week, I wanted to bring you four examples of what Swine Flu and recessions have in common.

Media Coverage: Boy the media loves it when they can talk about something you might be scared of that you can’t control. You can’t do squat about the recession and it might get ya good. You can’t stop the Swine Flu from happening, it’s like a zombie attack. Once it happens, there’s no going back! This is why tornadoes, terrorism, school shootings, and plane crashes all get loads of media coverage even though you’re more likely to drown in the pool in your back yard.

Public Reaction: Appropriately in each case, the public responds with terror. Everything from your daily tasks to public policy is influenced by these events. For this global recession it is perhaps appropriate (even though most of us haven’t personally felt the pains of the recession). For Swine Flu, certain pundits and politicians called for closing the borders with Mexico; yeah we’ll keep the doors open for immigrants and drugs, but not a strain of flu. Of note, illegal immigrants are responsible for more deaths in this country than Swine Flu.

They Start Localized: Our current recession started in three regions of the country, Wall Street, Sunny California, and Sunny Florida. However it did spread like a virus almost into every nook and cranny of the country. Swine Flu has so far been reported in just a select states and only on a few people. Perhaps it could spread, but probably not

Happens All The Time: Recessions are only media worthy when it affects the entire country. The truth is we experience them all the time on a regional level. I don’t feel like finding examples, but recessions can happen in a neighborhood, town, state, geographic region, or country. It’s only sexy when it impacts the country. Like recessions, Swine Flu occurs all the time. Cases are reported every year. By staring at a bell curve, you’re bound to see a bit more cases at least once in a while. Ironically, Swine Flu cases have been reported in New-York and California; it must be something about wealth that attracts disease.

So there are four commonalities between recessions and Swine Flu. I’ll conclude with one thing they don’t have in common.

Media Coverage: Yeah I already said media coverage once. Swine Flu is likely to be a buzz word for a few days, maybe a few weeks if an American dies. The media knows they have to milk this fat cow fast before it’s sent to the slaughter house. Though the black death lasted longer than any recession, diseases aren’t sexy enough for us to care about for long periods of time. Swine Flu will come and go, the recession gets documentaries, books, and movies, Swine Flu will be yesterday’s news tomorrow.

To be honest I’m glad this outbreak of Swine Flu has occurred. Otherwise we’d just get twice the coverage of Obama’s first 100 days report card.