Secret reports on the ability to recover from a catastrophe are suppressed by various world Governments, as the reports have been deemed too sensitive for release. The reports are believed to look at alarming scenarios such as terrorist attacks, disease pandemics and the total breakdown of food production. It is of no wonder that already some Share investment advisors are preparing not just for recession proof stocks but also Disaster proof stocks.

Like we have said at Hardcore Investments over and over, the market is so distorted that it really is only good for day traders, and that’s for years to come! Forget the “Hold & Forget” stocks strategy, because that time is over. Governments are keeping people in the dark because they don’t want to frighten people, thus we now have a 3 tier news propaganda service in most countries aimed at “select” groups. Which level of “reality” would you like?.

More to the point, exactly on what strategy are day traders trading at now, and on how much reality are they running at. Various Governments confirm the existence of these Secret Reports, yet are not available to the public even under Freedom of Information legislation. Maybe we should be keeping an eye on the “select group” of day traders who seem to know stuff that nobody else does, for there is certainly big money being made by some.

Since 9/11 most countries have provided the public with almost no information on how well their respective jurisdictions are prepared for the medical consequences of a terrorist attack, Nor do we have publicly available data on whether our hospitals could provide the necessary surge capacity to deliver critical care to large numbers of people in a catastrophe.

Meanwhile in Australia the government's decision to move to a containment stage recently to deal with swine flu may well become highly disruptive, as schools could be canceled and all large public gatherings.Professor Robert Booy, Head of Clinical Research at the National Centre for Immunisation Research & Surveillance, at the University of Sydney says  about 2,500 Australians die annually from ordinary seasonal flu and swine flu could "double the annual death rate"

But should we really believe that number when we don’t know how far this virus will mutate, to the degree that current antiviral drug Oseltamivir (Trade name Tamiflu) will no longer work, not to mention those lovely Secret Reports on the "real deal" which is being withheld from the public.

Professor Raina MacIntyre, who is Head of the School of Public Health and Community Medicine at the University of NSW, sits on the Scientific Influenza Advisory Group to the Chief Medical Officers of Australia, says up to 40 per cent of the population could become infected during a swine flu pandemic - eight million Australians.

Professor Raina MacIntyre further mentions that once we know that there is sustained community transmission, the focus shifts from keeping the infection out to controlling it as much as possible within the community. Of course there's no mention of the 1918 Spanish Influenza where in the morning nice healthy people were dead by the afternoon, after all the 1918 strain was caused by an unusually virulent and deadly Influenza A virus strain of subtype H1N1, but whats different?…… the Swine Flu is also a new strain of influenza A virus subtype H1N1, which is mutating, and mutating to what?.

It is said that In Australia an estimated 12,000 people died and in the Fiji Islands, 14% of the population died during only two weeks, and in Western Samoa 22%. Yet other sources state the global mortality rate from the 1918/1919 pandemic is not known, but it is estimated that 2.5 to 5% of those who were infected died; with 20% or more of the world population infected.

All eyes are now on Australia's Swine Flu problem, and how the internal Government deals with it.

The Swine flu gives us great insights into the future, its like a Grenade thrown in to test the already unstable world economy. We may escape this time, but it’s now easy to imagine a combination of rational and panic driven responses having devastating consequences. A global lock down, with borders closed and travel stopped, the panic buying of food, fear of interaction with other people leading to the breakdown of supply in food and energy could all happen within days. It is now easy to imagine a devastating, rapid global economic and social crisis erupting with little warning.

There is a need to be connected inside our communities, know our neighbours and increase our real world knowledge. We constantly hear how we’re globally connected yet how many of us know the people in our street, so that if a crisis hits we could help each other out? We need to think about services many of us take for granted, like water, electricity, food and fuel, suddenly ceasing one day. How would we cope without these for a few days, a few weeks, a few months?

There is an old scout motto about being "Prepared" remember it? Sure nothing may happen, but on balance the normal world we had has shifted.

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