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350 Is The Upper Limit
"If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted... CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm." Jim Hansen, NASA

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Biopsy Boy

Image by yewenyi via Flickr

Hey folks,

Wanted to fill you in on the consult I had Friday with the oncologist.
PET Scan shows very positive for cancer in my lungs but
Biopsy returned 3 (three) negative results for cancer.

Shrooms?

What they DID find was a fungal infection which is associated with a common bacteria to which humans are normally immune. This bacteria lives literally everywhere on the planet, and is therefore very common.

For some reason last year(apparently) my immune system suffered some deterioration and the bacteria was able to establish a stronghold in my lungs. It’s this which caused the fungal infection, with symptoms very much like pneumonia. I will be seeing someone who is a specialist in these types of diseases on Monday. I am already taking a specific antibiotic to combat the bacteria.

Biopsy Boy

Other than that there are 3 lymph nodules of interest in/near my upper respiratory tract which also indicated in the PET scan may be cancerous, determined by the high uptake of dyes. At least one of these, if proven to be cancerous, would be considered inoperable. I will be scheduled for another biopsy within the next couple of days.

Since the 1st biopsy returned no cancer cells, it appears that the cancer in my left lung may be surrounded by the fungal growth, which in the end is a great thing as it would mean that most likely this cancer has been detected within only a few months of its presenting.

The survival rate for patients diagnosed with lung cancer at my age is very low, ( less than 3% live 12+months after diagnosis) but that is because most cases in that demographic are diagnosed in a late stage of the condition. If I am right, and the cancer is very young, my chances of survival increase exponentially.

Depending, of course, on the exact form of the cancer, whether small-cell or non small-cell. (Small cell is inoperable at every stage.)

Progress

I think the order it came to be is something like this:

I caught a flu virus, was sick as hell for about a month beginning Nov 07.

Right after that I caught another DIFFERENT flu virus and was sick about another month beginning late Dec 07.

I think I inhaled some foreign substance, possible while cleaning computers ( a common task) while I was getting over that flu.

The substance lodged in my lung and created a mild ‘walking’ pneumonia that kept flaring up every 3-4 weeks until last Aug, when I experienced a partial lung collapse. During this time, I think my immune system became weaker due to constantly fighting this pneumonia.

As the system grew weaker, an avenue was created for the bacteria to gain a foothold in the weakest part – my lung.

I think the reason for the collapsed lung was the fungal growth caused by the bacterial infection.

After that, I drastically reduced my smoking and felt slightly better for a month or so, then in late October last year became seriously ill to the point of being bedridden for a few weeks. I think the cancer was allowed to start right about then, while my immune system was nearly completely dead.

Between the fungal growth and the cancer, I developed a massive amount of infection in my lungs. When I drank all that moonshine in Nov and it made me feel better, I think that perhaps I had just flushed much of that infection out of me. The stuff I coughed up back then was thick, nasty and mostly black. Naturally I would feel better for awhile after that, until the infection built back up and completely closed most of my airways again. Which is what drove me to the doctors this time.

Anyway… you can see that there are still no definitive answer(s) just yet. I was really hoping there would be something a bit more concrete to tell you, but as this thing progresses it appears that more questions are revealed. Bottom line is this: more tests next week and the following week, most likely some surgery and then it’s all smooth groove after that.

I am Jon, walking through the weather, as are we all.

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February 8th, 2009 Posted by Jon | Sundays, UnderTheWeather | 2 comments

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Liquidity Trap

Image by Mac(3) via Flickr

Economic Tightrope

Thought I’d throw a link and a sample of what you’ll find when you click it.

Written by Edward Hugh, it’s a great piece (well-linked and referenced with a few interesting charts) about the perils we face if we don’t walk this economic tightrope just right.

From Fistful Of Euros

Basically the risk of entering a liquidity trap is heightened when interest rates are at or near zero, and domestic demand contracts with sufficient force to produce a substantial and ongoing fall in prices, since the implicit rate of return on simply holding cash is not that different from that obtained by holding short term government bonds, especially when transaction costs are taken into account. (If prices drop at a 2% annual rate, for example, this gives you an implicit rate of return of 2% on bank notes).

Now we need to be careful here, since while monetary policy in one economy after another is gradually coming to rest around the zero bound, by and large price inflation has not (yet) fallen below zero (or not for a sufficient length of time), and while it is evident that a number of countries face the imminent risk of this happening (Germany, Spain, Ireland, the UK, Japan and the United States most notably) we are not there yet, and the central banks are working furiously (well I’m not too sure about the ECB) to unblock the credit crunch before the associated contraction in economic activity produces the sort of price deflation which increases the risk of one country after another getting stuck in some kind of liquidity trap.

[...]

The core of Krugman’s analysis is the idea that the equilibrium real interest rate – that is, the real rate that would match saving and investment – and thus bring output back up towards its capacity level – turns negative in a liquidity trap. Thus we can have an economy which is struggling to find its equilibrium point but which is unable to do so since it effectively cannot generate the rate of interest which would make this possible.

But how can the equilibrium real interest rate be and remain negative? Because, argues Krugman, poor long-run growth prospects (a debt deflationary environment) make investment demand so low that a negative short-term real interest rate would be needed to match saving and investment. Given a nominal interest rate floor of zero a positive expected rate of inflation becomes necessary to generate negative real interest rates, which will stimulate aggregate demand and restore full employment.

Equally importantly, injections of liquidity by the central bank which raise base money (or bank reserves) turn out to be pretty ineffective in raising the growth rate of broader money aggregates. Krugman shows that Japan’s monetary base grew 25% from 1994 to 1997, but that the broader monetary aggregate (M2 + Certificates of Deposit) grew only 11%, and bank credit didn’t grow at all. And more recent statistics indicated that “money hoarding” continued to be evident in 1998-1999, as an expansion of the monetary base in the range of 8% to 10% resulted in only about a 3% growth in M2 + CDs. Posterior Bank of Japan data show that between March 2001 and May 2004 while Japanese bank reserves grew by 800% the monetary base (which is bank reserves plus cash in circulation) only increased by 67%.

Click that link up there and read it all.

I am Jon. Watch your step.

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February 8th, 2009 Posted by Jon | Business/Finance | Leave a Comment

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Victoria Burning

Australian Heat Wave

Many of us here in the US don’t follow the weather overseas. Australia is going through one of its worst droughts on record at the same time as a record-setting heat wave.

And they’ve caught fire.

From TheTimesOnline:

The fires began on the hottest day ever recorded in Melbourne and were fanned by gale-force winds. Many of the dead were said to have waited too long in their homes before fleeing and were burnt alive in their cars as multiple fires tore through the countryside of Victoria state. Some of the blazes were set by arsonists.

Witnesses said the sky had turned to ash, began to rain embers and the fires which obliterated entire houses in seconds had turned parts of the picturesque Victorian countryside into something resembling a nuclear holocaust.

Cars became tombs as people tragically tried to out-run the flames. Others made lucky escapes by diving into dams and local reservoirs. One group broke into a local pub to seek refuge in the cool room until the blaze had passed.

[...]

Described as “hell on earth”, the bushfires began on Saturday amid record-breaking temperatures as the mercury hit 46.4C, Melbourne’s hottest day on record. The fires left a trail of death and destruction across the state, burning through 350,000 hectares (1,350 square miles). Fifty fires also began burning across the border in New South Wales, where temperatures reached 46C on Sunday.

The Australian Army was called in to assist the thousands of weary firefighters who battled the blazes over the weekend, and the government announced a $10 million (£4.5 million) emergency relief fund as well as immediate $1,000 cash grants to help the thousands of Victorians now left homeless. The fires are now officially the worst in Australia’s history, surpassing the death toll of the Ash Wednesday fires which claimed 76 lives when they tore through Victoria and South Australia in February, 1983.

For those of us who are Celsius-challenged, 46C is about 115F.

I am Jon, always looking forward to something.