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To: Bobby Yellin who wrote (9901)	4/13/1998 10:58:00 AM
From: IngotWeTrust	Respond to of 116764

WIN95 is not Y2K compliant; long interest rates/short currency hedge funds' bets in place; potential for disruption in insulin availability, ditto coffee. SOURCE: USA Today Moneyline section today. usatoday.com Could mini or maxi hoarding be ahead, and thus "cause inflation?" I keep remembering the spiking price of water in CA when "supply" was disrupted by Whitter Quake a few yrs back... Make one think, eh? Good Investing O/49r

To: Bobby Yellin who wrote (9901)	4/15/1998 5:42:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 116764

U.S. Sees Big Growth in Electronic Commerce 03:56 p.m Apr 15, 1998 Eastern WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Booming business on the Internet is boosting economic growth and holding down inflation, according to a Commerce Department report issued Wednesday. ''The digital economy is alive and well and growing,'' Commerce Secretary William Daley said in a speech outlining the Clinton administration's electronic commerce initiatives. The report found that growth in information technology industries, like computers and communications, accounted for more than one-quarter of the economy's growth for the past five years. Plummeting prices for high-tech goods have also helped keep inflation at bay, the report said. Commerce among businesses on the Internet, barely a trickle last year, could grow to more than $300 billion by 2002, the report said. The report also projected a future where consumers will do more of their shopping, banking and reading online. For example, online bookings in the travel industry could rise to $8 billion within three years from $1 billion last year. Daley said the administration generally favored a low-profile role for the government in regulating electronic commerce. ''Our approach to e-commerce is that the private sector should lead,'' Daley said. ''Government's role is to establish a climate where electronic commerce can flourish.'' Daley, leaving later on Wednesday with President Clinton for the Summit of the Americas in Chile, said he planned to take that message to other countries. The administration has called for an Internet free trade zone, allowing electronic commerce to expand without government tariffs and taxes. The administration also favors an international convention approving use of digital signatures and other authentication technologies, Daley said. Several challenges remain for the administration in key areas, however. Congress has yet to pass legislation favored by the administration to impose a moratorium on state and local taxation of Internet commerce. And the administration's plan to have industry adopt voluntary codes of conduct to protect the privacy of consumers has not caught on as widely as hoped, Daley conceded. ''Industry has been slow to put these protections in place,'' he said, adding that ''the pace has picked up recently.'' On perhaps the most contentious issue, regulation of computer data scrambling technology, Daley called for renewed efforts to find a compromise solution. The current U.S. policy imposes tight export limits on powerful encryption products at the behest of law enforcement agencies that do not want foreign criminals using the technology to thwart surveillance. But the high-tech industry, arguing the policy simply gives the market to non-U.S. manufacturers, wants the limits dropped. Clinton has sought to balance the interests of both sides by slightly relaxing export limits, granting a series of exceptions for certain products and encouraging development of products acceptable to law enforcement. But Daley conceded Wednesday that the administration's policy was in need of overhaul. ''The reality is that encryption products are rapidly multiplying in the global market,'' he said. ''Our policy, ironically, encourages the growth of foreign products at the same time it retards growth here.'' ''The truth is that while our policy goal -- balance -- is the right one, our implementation has been a failure,'' Daley said. Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited.