Swine Flu ... What's Your Take?

[Runum]

Ft. Worth ISD just closed all campuses until May 8.

 

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[Russ H]

BTW I hold Journalists just above lawyers and senators and just below dog poo in case anyone wondered.

Ya learn something new every day.

Bilge, I had no idea you fancied doggie poo that much.

-Russ H.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Media Pandemic: By the time you're finished reading this, more people would have been killed in bicycle accidents than by Swine Flu ...

 

[rocksolid]

Let me go out on a limb…..Has anybody thought terrorism?? Think about the state of the country right now. The economy is messed up. People are out of work. Businesses are closing down and we finally might be back on the path to getting better. What better way to mess things up then by causing a new issue to drag us down further. Many countries have stated they have cases of the flu but I have not heard any countries that we consider friends to terrorists’ stating they have any cases. Mexico would be a pretty easy country to get into and unleash something like this knowing many people from that country cross our boarders every day. Maybe I need to stop watching cloak and dagger movies….just food for thought.

 

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[Russ H]

Rocksolid-

Terrorism is a very real part of living in today's world.

But for the past, oh, 10,000 years or so, pandemics and plagues have regularly wiped out chunks of the world's population-- on a fairly regular basis.

Back in the Middle Ages, they attributed these plagues to evil spirits, or bad juju. Or witches.

'Cause they just didn't know.

Substitute "terrorist" for witches. Is that what you're doing?

Not trying to beat you up (or make an examplle, or call you out) here, Rocksolid-- just asking you to dig a little deeper, to the root of why you might feel this way?

-Russ H.

 

[rocksolid]

Some things can be explained and other things can't. Not all things that occur in nature are natural. The question was " Swine Flu ... What's Your Take? " I was just offering food for thought thats all. My explanation is just as good as any offered. Do you think there is no way it could be an attempt at a terror attack? Chemical and bio warfare are very real. If we had a conversation 10 yrs ago about the twin towers and what happened there you would say I was nuts, even crazy. I think we all need to keep our minds open.
evil spirits, or bad juju. Or witches don't exist, but terror as well all know is real and that might be the difference.

 

[Russ H]

This is going off topic, but if you and I had a discussion about bringing very tall buildings down by flying jumbo jets into them, the science is very valid. 9/11 proved that.

So is bio-terrorsim-- but you need to either get hold of the bio-hazardous material from a lab, or be smart enough to make it (not easy).

Synthesizing a new kind of avian/human/swine flu virus?

Again, perhaps this is doable-- but not in your garage.

I'm not saying it's impossible. Just that we've been getting various, sometimes deadly, flu strains for millenia-- it's a natural part of our world.

Dirty bombs and mustard gas are not. They are synthesized to cause damage and wreak havoc.

Not sure if I'm making sense, but if not, happy to return to the original topic. fftopic:

-Russ H.

 

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[rocksolid]

We are on topic Russ. All I was saying with 9/11 is nobody could ever have imagined that it could happen, but it did so why not have an open mind to consider the possibilities that this could be an attempt at an attack? Korea and Iran both have the technology to build nuclear facilities so while many groups might be working out of their garages, you don’t know who they could be working with. Dirty bombs and mustard gas are synthesized to cause damage and wreak havoc, just like germ and bio warfare are. I’m not looking to get into a pissing match. I was simply giving a different spin to a question that was asked. It could be terror, it could be nature or it could be something that nobody has even thought of yet.

 

[SH_Design]

I did business down the street in CHINA where SARS broke out.. Dude.. if you get swine flu stop sucking pig dick! Unless you work for Fox news and have affiliates working in the biochem field its all a big stupid stunt to take peoples minds off the economy.. thats my take..

Sorry if it offends.. the FLU is the FLU is the FLU... even the experts are saying the same thing a Dr. would tell you!! WASH YOUR F*ckING HANDS AND DONT COUGH ON PEOPLE...


How gullible is this country???? Id even wager the flight over NYC and swine flu are perped by the Obama Admin to take people minds off losing their homes... whats the cure for a nation panicked about ineffective government.. panic them about NATURE

 

[biophase]

Edge-

We're very focused on our "One Trick Pony", which-- for better or worse-- is developing lodging properties.

I totally get what you're saying-- knowing what we do, we could short the airline and hospitality stocks.

But we're not doing stocks--we're doing brick and mortar RE development.
-Russ H.

I hadn't seen a response to this. But Russ I think you are looking at this totally different than Edge. I don't think he's suggesting that you should sell anything. I think he's saying that you should continue with your current plan but that you may also want to hedge your plan so that if things go the wrong way you don't end up in a world of hurt.

I view it as insurance, perhaps buying a bunch of options on companies in the same field as you.

Just a general example you spend $5,000 a bunch of Nov PUTS on say airlines and hotel chains and cruises. If the industry tanks and your business is doing poorly, hopefully these puts will be able to help offset the decrease in income.

 

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[Russ H]

Bio (and Andviv/ATW/Edge)-

I get it. I really do.

But there are two problems w/this approach (for us):

1. Part of it is "psyche". This is business for us-- but it's also a *passion*-- we could not perform at this level without being committed to it, and better at it, than our competitors. We are driven to succeed (I'm reposting my screen saver, below, it says it better).

I suppose the best example I can think of is an Olympian (or quarterback) who wants to win, but bets against it. How can you be 100% in the game when you bet against yourself?

(the answer, of course, is to never, ever be that committed)

2. The greatest part of the problem is that we are over-committed. As I've shared in other posts, our PLAN and projections never counted on market appreciation. We even projected (and planned) for a 25% annual decline. But 40%? 80% declines in RE within 20 miles?

Like the great number crunchers who got us all into this mess, we never, ever counted on this kind of massive drop in values. It's wiped out probably $2M in equity for us-- and equity is what we draw from to fund things (besides cashflow).

As long as we continue to pay our mortgages, we stay in the game.

And as long as we continue to keep occupancy (and revenue per available room) up, we can service the debt.

But-- and here's the kicker:

We have remodeled/restored/converted 7 of 21 rooms for our latest/last project. We could "hedge our bets", and use our cash on hand to service the debt and ride out the recession-- we could even use some of this money to bet against a recovery. Using this approach, we'd finish the project s-l-o-w-l-y. If the markets didn't recover, or took 3-4 years (and we were operating on reduced cashflow), we'd probably lose things.

Keep in mind, our little investment machine hear needs feeding-- to the tune of over $100K per month!

Hedging would require a substantial commitment to offset any losses.

And if our "hedge" money didn't go exactly the way we wanted it, we'd take even longer-- or lose even more.

(at least that's my read on things-- happy to be wrong about this, and open to your ideas!)

But if we go to the wall-- running at it hard-- we finish this thing, completely, and have a MUCH more valuable piece of RE (think 2.5M going to 6M).

AND-- we now have 14 additional rooms that will provide cashflow. Even at a lower performance level than we're doing w/our current B&B, we're talking about over $700,000 per year in income (before expenses).

So that's what we're doing.

It might not be everyone's choice, but it's the one we've made. And we're cool w/it.

We're gonna ride it-- hard. :banana:

******************

Edge, there's no doubt that covering both ends of a market is a very, very intelligent investing strategy-- esp if you can cover your bets both ways without losing your shirt.

If we get into paper assets (doubtful), we'd use this strategy. It seems like the only reasonable way to do things.

But in RE, how do you bet against yourself? I understand how diversification in RE could help (but also be harder to manage, at a brick/mortar level)-- but investing in other industries that "balance out" our RE? I can see how to do this w/paper assets-- but not w/RE.

We're still learning, though. And asking these questions.

And there is no doubt we could have done it differently (hindsight, ah, what a wonderful learning tool!).

We're certain to not go so "balls out" in future endeavors-- we'll hedge more. Cover out bets w/diversification and hedging.

But for us, this part of our fastlane PLAN is/was taking that risk, to make the big jump.

Going balls out, with this One Trick Pony-- to get the fastest payoff in the shortest reasonable time.

Risky? Yes.

Time will tell if we've done the right thing, or not! :shruggie:

-Russ H.

 

[Russ H]

Back to the original question:

Some pertinent facts I came across today:

-Flu epidemics generally last a few weeks or months in any single community, and can pass around the world in one or two waves over 18 months to two years before fading out.

-Normal seasonal flu kills between 250,000 and 500,000 people around the globe in an average year, including about 36,000 in the United States.

-Russ H.

 

[CMCarlin]

Have you ever read "The Stand" by Stephen King?

"The world does not end with a bang, but with a whimper."

 

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[SH_Design]

I hear ya man. And I apologize. It just seems a little too convenient is all. No offense intended. In still a newbir here.

 

[jaytrader43]

The way I see it, people are stupid. 7 people die from swine flu, and everyone is wearing masks and avoiding travel, but millions die from AIDS and nobody wears condoms or avoids sex. Well, thinning of the herd I guess.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

The way I see it, people are stupid. 7 people die from swine flu, and everyone is wearing masks and avoiding travel, but millions die from AIDS and nobody wears condoms or avoids sex. Well, thinning of the herd I guess.

My twitter update a few days ago read "By the time you're done reading this, more people will die from riding bicycles than by swine flu"

It's a media propagated pandemic and it is disturbing how much power the media wields.

 

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[jaytrader43]

My twitter update a few days ago read "By the time you're done reading this, more people will die from riding bicycles than by swine flu"

It's a media propagated pandemic and it is disturbing how much power the media wields.

I agree. SARS and Bird flu were also over hyped by the media. People suck at perspective.

 

[LightHouse]

Been renamed by twitterites to "Hamthrax" Just FYI

 

[hatterasguy]

We should have pulled a Dogbert and rushed a BS book into publication on how to avoid/cure the swine flu!

We just need 200 pages of BS written by some paid off doctors, a flashy cover, and a catchy title. Put it on the self for $29.99 and you make money.

 

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[Russ H]

Hat, by the time you'd get it on the shelves, it would be too late.

Now, if you'd gotten a website going-- that's another story.

www.avoid swine flu.com

www.cure for flu.com

www.Do I have flu.com

(yada yada yada . . .)

-Russ H.

 

[Russ H]

LMAO!

(#1 on google for "do I have swine flu?", I might ad).

Pity they didn't monetize it! :nonod:

-Russ H.

 

[hatterasguy]

Pff their would be plenty of time to write a book if you were the one creating these panic's!

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuhYsbT7Kq4]YouTube - Dilbert - false information[/ame]

Thats how we should do it!

 

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[Russ H]

OK, back to relevant data/statistics.

While many have joked about the fact that more people die blowing their noses than from this particular swine flu strain, remember-- winter has yet to get here. We could get walloped.

I'm not being a fatalist-- I just think that folks don't understand the implications of a pandemic-- or how they propagate.

Here's an article that I found fascinating:

Only a flight away? Swine flu followed route map - Yahoo! News

It documents just how the H1N1 strain spread.

Should be helpful for future pandemics.

-Russ H.

(BTW, the Dogbert video was hilarious-- and so true! )

 

[Bilgefisher]

I'm not concerned about swine flu yet. Apparently many of the deadliest outbreaks started off mild in spring and summer and were absolutely devastating towards winter. From what I am told, that is the scare on this one. The winter time.

 

[Bobo]

The scary part is if it mutates just a tad....

These things do tend to get overhyped because frankly? The best way to slow down a virus is to scare the hell out of everyone. One of these days one of the hemorrhagic fevers is gonna hop a Boeing and disperse itself before detection and that will be quite scary.

The problem with scaring the hell out of everyone? When a reallllly bad one strolls on in nobody is going to believe that it really is a wolf until it takes a bite out of them.

 

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[Russ H]

Bilge, Bobo-- excellent points.

How can we profit from something like this? Have websites dedicated to quarantine info?

And on a more personal scale, how do we prepare for keeping our families safe?

-Russ H.

 

[RealOG]

How about a survivalists' website. Sell guns, bullets, camping gear, dried food. Every time there is a scare, we can link to a different URL and change the keywords:

economicmeltdown.com
housingcrisis.com
nuclearholocaust.com
hyperinflation.com
zombieapocalypse.com

Who's in?

 

[Russ H]

Some striking news about H1N1:

Study: New flu inefficient in attacking people - Yahoo! News

Once it mutates (it will), it will be very deadly.

But it's looking like the vaccines are going to be a good match against it-- which is quite unusual.

Time will tell . . .

-Russ H.

 

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[Cheshire Cat]

They're Controlling Our Minds With Flu Shots
who remembers that Simpsons episode?

 

[Russ H]

Update.

Deaths up to 700-- about doubled in the past few weeks.

Confirmed US cases over 1 million.

Treatment w/Tamiflu or Relenza is effective, but many people recover on their own.

-Russ H.