Alan Greenspan--doomer poster boy. Not!!
September 17, 1999
>> Greenspan Discusses Y2k Impact
Filed at 9:13 a.m. EDT
By Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal Reserve Chairman
Alan Greenspan said Friday there was a risk of
bottlenecks in the U.S. economy resulting from the fear
of end-of-century computer problems, but widespread
disruption was unlikely.
Speaking before the President's Council on Year 2000
Conversion, the U.S. central banker said he was
confident that the risk of any widespread breakdown to
critical business infrastructure from the computer bug
was ``negligible.'
``If only a small percentage of businesses choose to add
to their inventories as a hedge, the effect on production
will be insignificant,' Greenspan said.
``However, should a large number of companies want
to hold even a few extra days of inventories, the
necessary, albeit temporary, increase in production (or
imports) to accommodate such stock building could be
quite large. Bottlenecks could develop, and market
pressure could ensue,' he said.
Economists are unsure how the public response to the
computer bug, which prevents some computers from
distinguishing 2000 from 1900 because of an old
programming shortcut, will affect economic activity.
Inventory building by businesses could add to
economic growth and inflation risks or a widespread
technical breakdown and public panic may undermine
the economy.
Greenspan noted that the U.S. public was more
sanguine about the coming event, which should ease
fears of major disruption, though ``we are not as yet
home free.' <<
I caught a few minutes of his speech on CNBC. Just as I was settling in to listen, CNBC cut him off. The message seemed to be that if he wasn't going to talk about interest rates, they might as well go back to regular programming. Pretty dismissive of Y2K as an issue, I thought.
Hopefully, the full text will be available soon.
Karen |
