Mosquitoes

Folks,

Another reason why I like free-market economics is the thinking is
Ockam-razor sharp and clear.

Malaria is one of the many scourges of mankind. It can be controlled with
harsh means such as DDT; it can be palliated with expensive drugs if you
contract it. It remains a problem.

Malaria is carried by mosquitoes, or to put it another way... malaria is a
bug that is delivered to you by mosquitoes. Malaria is a problem for mosquitoes
too. This bug may not bother mosquitoes, but they don't need it.

So why not solve the problem by curing mosquitoes of malaria (or west nile
virus, or whatever else)? If so, mosquitoes are reduced to giving one an
amusing itch, rather than being death-dealers.

Of course there is no reason why not... I am told mosquitoes are less complex
than humans and therefore easier for which to develop medicine and cures. And
the idea has the advantage of not needing to clear FDA human trials and
approval.

Of course, it has to work. And there is the problem of getting mosquitoes to
cooperate in their cure... but apparently science has solved this problem
already by understanding the behaviour of insects and thus being able to apply
any desired treatment.

So what is left is the #1 question... who is the customer? Will there be
enough orders from customers aggregate to cover the suppliers minimum production
run, profitably, in a workable amount of time?

It is easy enough to test... who buys malaria related products now? Who
would buy? Google thrives because it did exactly the opposite of the advice of
the experts (google.com gets people AWAY from their site as quickly as possible,
whereas the experts wasted billions trying to figure out how to get people to
STAY at a website).

As the experts legislate and litigate over music on the internet, and
degenerate into recommendations for destroying the computers (see Sen Orrin
Hatch) of
people who disagree with arbitrary rules, Steve Jobs has introduced a
profitable way to do sell music on the net. This week he added a feature: you
can
set up an account that automatically puts "allowance money" from your credit
card each month for your kids to spend buying music from Apple's iTunes.

'tis a challenge to see how one can make money curing mosquitoes... but it
will be the free marketers who come up with the solution. Any ideas?

John

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