You can see the complete article by clicking here. The summary follows:

Y2K is the next significant hurdle for the U.S. economy to overcome. The most likely outcome is that the U.S. economy will largely shrug off its impacts much like the other shocks it has had to endure since this expansion began eight years ago. Like any natural disaster, Y2K will cause disruptions and various industries and various regions will suffer. But like a natural disaster, businesses and consumers will be able to look through any problems, deem them to be temporary, and thus not significantly curtail their investment and spending. Even if the global economy sinks further into recession as a result of Y2K, the U.S. economic expansion will not falter. It will celebrate its ninth birthday this time next year, and become the longest in the nation's economic history.

-- Stephen M. Poole, CET (smpoole7@bellsouth.net), April 29, 1999

Answers

Mark Zandi's article has already been posted and is being commented on at this link:

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000lyf

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), April 29, 1999.

But y2k is not a natural disaster its manmade. I'm afraid that consumer confidence is gonna fall through the floor and drag the economy w/it.

-- Johnny (jljtm@bellsouth.net), April 29, 1999.

---take your economy overseas where hundreds of thousands of jobs went. Talk to all the thousands of families who have lost their homes because of downsizing, so that fat bosses can drive an even bigger mercedes. Our us army wears boots made in china! We can't exist as a nation without a manufacturing base. What was one of the heaviest bombing campaigns in ww2? How about the german ball bearing factories? Guess where all our ball bearings come from now? It's BRAZIL. Name just about anything, and IT AIN'T MADE HERE ANY MORE. These "economists" are NOT about to really give the straight skinny on how vulnerable we are, because they would be out of a job pronto-no one in us biz would buy their reports. How confident is anyone with mexico growing 80% of the us seed crop every year? How about all our vulnerable petroleum? How good is the economy going to be if gasoline gets to 5$ a gallon with rationing, which is a best case scenario? All this "it's gonna be ok stuff" is hooie, way too many biz's have met and passed a variety of "deadlines". And the ONLY way bigbro.incompetent.org is getting even remotely compliant is by re defining mission critical, which also brings up the question, why the hell are we being ripped off for NON mission critical systems? Our economy doesn't exist in a vacuum--I don't care how compliant wesayso corp is, if the other stuff that feeds them overseas isn't, and they have a hard time selling their widgets, they are still going to tank. Asia is sitting on inventories now, teetering. Japan has to just GIVE tax money to banks to keep them solvent at all. The bottom line is that probably only about a 5% failure rate is still enough to cause major disaster, and if we get outright failures of systems from embedded chips, or chemical plants leaking poison, or water treatment plants and sewerage systems not working, then that's it, fall of rome part deux. This "work around" stuff is nonsense as well, if there was an economic way to work around not having the computers working, they'd be doing it already. Profit margins for most biz is slim, and only there because of cheap working automation and computers, and the further exploitation of third world labor, and the majority of the grunt work in the us being done by illegal immigrants working for ridiculous wages under the table, and living 20 to an apartment. I watched it direct last few years here in atlanta. A lot of the building trades, and almost all of the landscaping is done by illegal immigrants-not because they are better workers, but because they'll work really cheap for a short period of time in order to send cash back home. I've WORKED with them, I know many contractors and landscapers, and a lot of them have just quit in disgust, because it's either hire illegals at a ridiculous wage and take a chance on getting busted, or have to bid lower than the cost of materials and wear and tear on machinery. Go to any home depot in the morning around here, look at the return desk, it's packed with illegals turning in clapped out machinery and tools that they swear just broke down. Ya, it got wore out! and a lot of times, they just buy something for one job,use it-then break it, and turn it back in for the refund to keep up their operating capital.

Sorry, got in rant mode. To back up. double phooie on economists. let them get out of the lecture circuits, and into the homes of WORKING people and ask THEM about the economy. Only good thing about the economic breakdown ahead is that blue collar workers, who are generally tool users and used to manual labor, will be better able to cope in a mostly barter and survival economic society. Oh ya, de-centralization of power and utilities! I hope for the complete END of the monthly "bill" for electricity, etc. That was the stupidest mistake we made, that and using oil for cars instead of ethanol, and letting dupont and the bankers destroy the us hemp crop in favor of their petroleum based products, with the side effect of creating a mass police state. Phooie. Economists. Double phooie. "Work arounds" by folks who don't work. It's still the old "they" will fix it--wishful,naieve thinking. Triple phooie.

Ah! that felt good! LOL!

-- zog (zog@avana.net), April 29, 1999.

"---take your economy overseas where hundreds of thousands of jobs went."

But zog, isn't that where they're having those economic meltdowns right now? Despite all of 'our' jobs?

"Talk to all the thousands of families who have lost their homes because of downsizing, so that fat bosses can drive an even bigger mercedes."

But zog, our economy is currently thriving and unemployment is at an alltime low. How is this possible?

"We can't exist as a nation without a manufacturing base."

But zog, I work for a US manufacturer that competes successfully with Taiwan Inc. Imagine that!

Fine to rant if it makes you feel better. But you might feel even better yet if you didn't pick imaginary enemies.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), April 29, 1999.

I don't know about the rest of the United States, but our county currently suffers from double-digit unemployment (more than 13% in '98 prior to the recent closing of additional lumber mills) and a very very high percentage of the population receive some form of public assistance.

-- marsh (siskfarm@snowcrest.net), April 29, 1999.

As I said on another thread, you might wish to take a look at a good article from American Farm Bureau Federation at http://www.fb.com/views/focus/fo99/fo0412.html

Exportation of agricultural products is currently one of the few areas where the US balance of trade weighs in with a plus. At least up until now.

-- marsh (siskfarm@snowcrest.net), April 29, 1999.

Poole,

Give me a break! This clown says:

"the U.S. economy could not be performing better."

What a joke - the largest trade deficit in history - you call that a GOOD performance???? Yeah, and which brokerage firms are paying this poser to print this kind of crap? There is a BIG difference between an economy being led by an overly-optimistic and over-inflated Las Vegas style stock market and a healthy economy. This guy calls himself a "Dismal Scientist"? Well he's right about the dismal part of it, but he had better hit the books long and hard before he can call himself a scientist.

-- @ (@@@.@), April 29, 1999.

" Regulators, including the Fed, FDIC and OCC are carefully monitoring banks under their supervision and have a careful timetable for Y2K preparedness. In their latest report card, the FDIC cited less than 1% of the over 6,000 institutions that it reviewed as having achieved "unsatisfactory" progress in their efforts."

Sorry for the delay in postings, but this comment alone warrants a reply. So let's round up the number to 1%. 1% of the businesses, depositors and little old ladies cannot access their funds for say, 120 days, or for giggles, 90 days. What will that ripple effect be? Hmmm, most individuals are in debt up to their you know what. Banks who try to collect drafts on those 1% of "unsatisfactory" institutions will have to hope the Fed can cover them. But then again, what if the Fed is busy bailing out the money center banks because they are S.O.L. overseas due to the unmentioned rates of compliance in Asia, South America, etc. No, I'm not paranoid, just wise. Look at the dominoes. And remember, the last domino is your ATM which will blink "OUT OF SERVICE" from January 4 on; that is if you have electicity.

-- John Galt (jgaltfla@hotmail.com), April 29, 1999.

Flint asked: But zog, our economy is currently thriving and unemployment is at an alltime low. How is this possible?

CREDIT!

-- Mike Lang (webflier@erols.com), April 29, 1999.

Flint said to zog:

"---take your economy overseas where hundreds of thousands of jobs went."

But zog, isn't that where they're having those economic meltdowns right now? Despite all of 'our' jobs?

uh yes Flint, in fact that makes the situation worse, not better.

"Talk to all the thousands of families who have lost their homes because of downsizing, so that fat bosses can drive an even bigger mercedes."

But zog, our economy is currently thriving and unemployment is at an alltime low. How is this possible?

the economy is thriving because businesses and consumers are stocking up, overextending their credit and their savings like no other time in history. The world's collapsing economies are "buying quality" in the US, the last market to go down the tube. And the "new jobs" we have are mostly in the low paying service sector.

"We can't exist as a nation without a manufacturing base."

But zog, I work for a US manufacturer that competes successfully with Taiwan Inc. Imagine that!

The problem is, Flint, I don't think the high-tech widgets your company makes classify as "common consumables" (like sugar and shoes) that will be in short supply after the overseas collapse.

Fine to rant if it makes you feel better. But you might feel even better yet if you didn't pick imaginary enemies.

IMHO Flint, zog is not as far off base as you think

-- a (a@a.a), April 29, 1999.