Contingency Planning: Y2K Reality Check? (Mitchell Barnes)

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Millennium Salons : One Thread

Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998
Reply-To: year2000@efn.org
From: Mitchell Barnes spanda@inreach.com
To: year2000@efn.org
Subject: RE: Are we missing what's really happening? (Chris)

Chris Apgar wrote:

All that said, I firmly believe we will encounter significant challenges when we see the calendar move into a new century but I don't think the financial markets will collapse and society moving back into some form of the Dark Ages.

Mitchell Barnes wrote:

I would like to point out there is a considerable body of "real factual" writing and testimony out on the Web re banking and financial markets which make the present systems' survival look bleak.

I suggest those who view y2k as the doorway to the Dark Ages aren't using their imagination to much of a degree.

Regardless of the FedGovt's ultimate compliance, regardless of the ultimate compliance within all of the US systems, there is still the rest of the world with which the US is intimately connected. No one except the total denialist is thinking anything other than, all the world is going to be very different than now.

I would like to suggest that now is the time to begin thinking and, if possible, building social realities which do not knee jerk into militaristic, piratical capitalism (hats off to Ed Yardeni for that one), monster nation states, exerting fascist control over subject populations.

Dialog abounds on recovering from a currency collapse. The best options include a precious metals based currency. Paper currency stabilized by law against the precious metals. An electronic currency transaction similar to that which we are now familiar (Cynthia that is for you).

If you have a solid currency, then markets will be able to function. If we have electricity then we will pull through.

But do we want to rebuild what we presently have?

Ed Yardeni is estimating a 60% chance of a 1974 style recession, which equals a trillion dollar loss in the stock market. Add to that his estimate of a trillion dollar loss in national infrastructure. Add to that the estimate of a trillion dollars in y2k lawsuits. The US has about 4.5 trillion dollar GDP.

Will we be able to rebuild what we presently have, even if we want to?

Contingency planning for post y2k realities must begin at grass roots.

Thanks Chris,
Mitch



-- Mitchell Barnes (spanda@inreach.com), June 06, 1998


Moderation questions? read the FAQ