However I see the amount of money people are willing to lose to contain this thing... they didn't shut down factories and conventions, and quarantine people on nearly the scale with those previous illnesses as they are with this one.

The people who are creating the panic (and benefiting from the panic) are not the ones who are paying the costs of shutting down factories, conventions, etc.

They are certainly benefiting from the increase in:

• MSM revenues (through commercial advertising)
• State-funded medicine/"vaccination" research
  
• Quarantines investments
  
• Medical equipment
  
• Public fear (which results in voluntarily sacrificing civil rights, so the state can "save us")
• etc.
  

My sense is that there is a plan to crash the economy, and if the economy collapses because of "a flu pandemic" then there is no one to blame...