COMMENT: Let’s see, penicillin was discovered in 1928, and first used en mass in 1943. Today, in 2015, antibiotic resistance is really becoming a problem (although it has been a minor problem for years, and will likely become a much larger problem in the future). Nonetheless, an article from the BBC today argues that we are now in the post-antibiotic era, 87 years from the discovery of penicillin, and 72 years from its first widespread use.
REPLY: Yes, disease outbreaks are part of the Economic Confidence Model. Disease organisms mutate and evolve to counteract the drugs that we invent. The abuse of antibiotics is setting the stage for another pandemic.
I myself would not be alive if it were not for such a pandemic in the mid-19th century. My relative Martin’s whole family died and he remarried the woman next door who lost her husband and children. So I am a product of that pandemic that struck Philadelphia. Capitalism began with the Black Death, which killed about 50% of the European population and forced the end of serfdom and the rebirth of wages.
What lies ahead with disease definitely appears to be another pandemic that will thin the herd. We should start to see more aggressive disease appear in 2017 most likely moving into 2020 based on the pandemic cycles.
