Ohio State Highway Patrol Sgt. Bret Henderson looks over a helicopter that crashed on Route 224 in Berlin Center, Ohio, on Sunday, May, 28, 2006. The pilot, Howard Wiggs, 65, of Berlin Center was killed in the crash. Wiggs had been flying over the town's annual Memorial Day parade when the helicopter clipped a wire about 50 feet from the area, the patrol said. Associated Press photo by William D Lewis

You may have noticed a story today in the papers about the WHO's admission that there was a human to human transmission of bird flu in Indonesia. Being the resident tin foil hat wearer of Lowbar I thought I'd chime in on what this means to you and me. First, this isn't the first H2H transmission of bird flu but this is the first H2H2H documented, meaning that someone got it from some source (they don't know where yet), gave it to a caregiver who then gave it to other close family members (eight have gotten infected). Although limited H2H clustering has been going on for some time now, the WHO's admission in this case is novel, although they are keeping the pandemic level at a 3 out of 5. What is also significant about the recent cluster is that it possibly from a mammilian strain of H5N1 that is circulating in Asia, meaning that this strain his better suited to latch onto the respiratory system of mammals instead of birds (different temperatures being the hurdle). There is no confirmation that this may be the mammilian friendy strain, just speculation. It's interesting to see the media latch onto this story. It tells me that the decisionmakers are taking this case seriously. If in the days ahead we have further spread in this cluster or other clusters popping up in the area it may be time to worry a tad.

According to this article in the London Times, the conditions in the market right now (new Fed chairman, waning housing prices, fear of inflation, weak dollar, etc.) are eirily similar to what they were when the market crashed in 1987. I concur, not because I knew what the conditions looked like then, but in looking at what the market is doing now, I see it headed down sharply and not recovering any time soon.

Now here's a wierd thing, there is some speculation that the crash of '87 occured because investors saw the same conditions that were present in '29 and they got spooked. There are many similarities between the two crashes in how thier seven-year-long bull market charts looked. The 2003-2006 bull market doesn't look exactly like those other two crashes but there are similarities, enough for me to not be surprised if we see a day in the not too distant future when the market tanks heavily in a one or two day period.

As I go around spreading my message of doom I invariably get asked what people should do with their money. If I had any I would place my money in short-term Treasury Bills (notes not bonds). Interest there is healthy and you don't pay state taxes on the gains. I wouldn't put it into any commodities like gold or oil. They'll probably keep running up but I don't know those markets at all and the risk seems greater than the reward.

Let's recap what happened in 1987:

Well now that the trend of the market has changed I don't think the Dow is going to reach its high of 11,750+ ever. Now would be a good time to sell if you've got any stock in anything, for the market is headin' South for the summer.

Boy was I wrong on my Dow prediction. Oh well, this week we may see the Dow go above 11,750.24, which would be a record all time high (intraday). We're only 150 points away so it could easily happen. My bet is that it won't happen until the latter half of this coming week or early next week, but it will happen. I expect a bit of a correction from Monday-Wednesday from Fridays run up. The Dow is currently in an upward channel and it is reaching for a wall on the high side, right around where the record is. The low side is around 11,300, so after the record is hit I expect it to go back down there and either start a climb back up or slide out of this channel and start a channel heading down. Seems strange that Dow is going to break a record doesn't it? What's everyone so cheery about? a: S-P-E-C-U-L-A-T-I-O-N.

For fun let's count the bubbles that are going to burst some day...
Let's see: housing, credit, gold, copper, silver, oil, US dollar, what else?