The Recession vs. Swine Flu

I think its safe to say that we're all pretty bored with terrorism, the environment, school violence (unless you actually face school violence every day, but the middle classes concern for it has gone wayside), which is usually from the media's savvy ability to make us totally sick of an issue by bombarding us with it, and then moving on to something else that will reak misery into our lives.

Yeah, people still care, but there are scarier things out there. RECESSION! SWINE FLU!

But which one can win our fears over?

How it affects us:


Recessions wins this one. They say almost everyone knows somebody that has lost their job or had their hours/wages cut back. Everybody is cutting back "just in case" whether that means not buying that new luxery sedan, or skipping a few meals a week in order to afford rent at the end of the month. Swine flu, unless you are Mexican, has only affected a handful of people in any country. Odds are you don't know them.

Relative level of deadliness:


Swine flu wins this one. It can KILL YOU! If you are healthy and not too young and not too old, you probably aren't going to die. But people are dying, and more people are probably going to die, and nobody wants to be those people. The recession isn't likely to kill you. Some people might commit suicide if things get bad enough, but most people are pretty good at avoiding suicide. You might have to borrow and beg for cash in order to afford kraft dinner, but unless we are talking about long term health effects of eating poorly and stress (and really, who in North America other than health nuts are worried about long term health effects) the recession isn't going to kill you.

Perceived inability to avoid:


Recession wins. The whole problem is that people feel powerless and the only thing anybody can do is cut back spending and pray for their jobs to still be there tomorrow. Job losses are growing every month with no end in sight, so everyone is either afraid of unemployment, or already unemployed. People can try working longer and harder for less pay, but that is what everyone is doing. Swine flu, people are pretty sure they can just keep washing their hands and not making out with people travelling from Mexico to avoid it.

Newness:


Swine flu wins this one big. People are sick of the recession and sick of hearing another story about job losses and stocks plummeting. Yeah, the economy is bad, no shit. But the swine flu is new, and continuing to ramp up. The news just told me now that swine flu is approaching phase 5 of being and epidemic. Whatever the hell that means, it sounds scary. What it means to the average viewer is that things are getting worse. Fears should ramp up accordingly.

So, 2 points for recession and 2 points for swine flu.

Going to the tie breaker: Amount of time Obama spends talking about it to reporters


This value can, of course, change day to day. So depending on the day our fears should reflect Obama's remarks accordingly.