Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Y2K (Year 2000) Stocks: An Investment Discussion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rollcast... who wrote (13757)	3/2/1999 2:51:00 AM
From: DEER HUNTER	Respond to of 13949

they better be right about those defense systems.....an article about possibilities of recession and other information regarding the y2000 situation. biz.yahoo.com Tuesday March 2, 2:26 am Eastern Time Y2K expert allays fears at millennium meeting MANILA, March 2 (Reuters) - The chief of the United States' millennium compliance programme on Tuesday allayed fears of a global recession which may be brought on by the millennium bug. ''The consensus of economists in the U.S. is that overall impact on the gross domestic product of the U.S. will only be two-tenths or three-tenths of a percent and they saw no risk of a local or worldwide recession or depression resulting from this,'' said John Koskinen, chairman of the U.S. President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion. Koskinen delivered the keynote speech before 500 local and foreign delegates at the second global Y2K conference, an international cooperative venture seeking to determine the best practices to fight problems caused by the millennium bug. The millennium bug refers to the inability of some computers to recognise dates beyond 1999 because programmers once used only two digits to refer to years. Some experts have warned of widespread chaos after December 31, 1999 as computer systems crash. ''At this juncture there is no indication that we will have a major or worldwide recession, but I would stress one of the reasons we need more time working together...is so that six months from now we will have a better idea of what the risks are and prepare for them,'' he said. However, Koskinen conceded that some economists' predictions of a recession may be based on expectations of a supply shortage. Koskinen said the U.S. government has prepared contingency plans in spite of the fact that its federal systems were now 79 percent prepared for 2000. One of these contingency plans include printing an additional $50 billion in cash. The U.S. has also set aside two to three months' worth of petroleum reserves, he said. Koskinen also said the U.S. was not planning to impose any trade sanctions on countries which may not be millennium compliant before January 1, 2000. ''We have no plans to impose trade sanctions on countries that are not Y2K compliant,'' Koskinen told reporters after his address. ''The bottom line is if their systems work. If the systems in the country do not work, those systems will in effect be cut off from international operations and that, I think, is the ultimate sanction,'' he said. Fears that security and military systems may backfire have also sprouted, but Koskinen said American and Russian missile systems were unlikely to backfire at the turn of the century. ''We have established that both weapons system in the United States and in Russia and newly independent states do not fire without human intervention. There is not that risk,'' he said.