One word: Japan. They're far from ready and with their current economic situation they may, at some point, not even be able to fix on failure.

Q: Is ANYBODY looking at T H E B I G P I C T U R E ?

Y2k may just be the icing on the cake when considering a global depression.

Thanks,

TS

-- T.S. Monk (ts_monk@hotmail.com), May 09, 1999

Answers

Over to you PNG :)

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), May 09, 1999.

Errrrr......... You may want to add just one more word..... CHINA! IMHO, China is not toast, it is doomed. Next time you are in your favorite store, really look at how much of the goods come from China. When you are done, turn around and look at the store, and imagine none of the China goods is there. Looks pretty empty eh? Then there are the banks for the financial transactions, and the stock market.......... Questions?

-- FLAME AWAY (BLehman202@aol.com), May 09, 1999.

Flame Away, you said "IMHO, China is not toast, it is doomed." If that is the case, it will be the U.S. that is doomed even more so than China. The Chinese are used to living on a fraction of the products we think we have to have in order to function. Sure the economy will suffer there, as here. But loss of foreign products will affect Americans more than the Chinese.

My friends daughter went to university in Beijing (sp), and her roommate asked why she needed so many pairs of slacks and jeans. Her roommate had only two, one to wear and one to wash. Lucy said rooming with her changed her whole way of thinking about how much is necessary to get along in life. She gave away most of the "stuff" she'd brought to China, and said, " You would be surprised how much time you have when you don't have so much "stuff" to deal with.

-- gilda (jess@listbot.com), May 09, 1999.

China is toast due to Y2K and they KNOW it. Now we have bombed their embassy and they will draw a line in the sand because they have NOTHING left to lose. Their economy is ruined and they will go down due to Y2K.

They will issue the US an ultimatum and they will not back down. Use it or lose it time for China.

-- Paul Milne (fedinfo@halifax.com), May 09, 1999.

yup- all those nice summer clothes, many shoes and sandals- allfrom china and other countries likely to be a mess. Picked up several items today on sale- really needed some pants and shorts to wear- mine are seriously worn- all from foreign countries. Also- a nice market umbrella for my stand from China, and a nifty stock pot from India.....sigh. Don't tend to do much shopping- tend to be the use it up and wear it out type (also tend to be broke)- but- definitely want to pick up some of these things now.....although- who knows- if we go to war with another nuclear power- probably won't need stuff at all....

-- anita (hillsidefarm@drbs.com), May 09, 1999.

T.S. Monk
 

PNG, a regular to this board has a web site with plenty of interesting articles on Japan. You live in Japan don't you?

Japan Perspective y2k finance business politics culture

-- Brian (imager@home.com), May 09, 1999.

Paul,

Do you have any hard information on the extent to which China's industrial and business sectors are computerized? What types of systems they're using? And more importantly, which CALENDAR they use in those systems?

-- Stephen M. Poole, CET (smpoole7@bellsouth.net), May 09, 1999.

Which Calendar Poole you maroon? - they're in the ox now you oaf and about to fail to convert to the oxen at rollover.

Doh!

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), May 09, 1999.

Stephen,

To the best of my knowledge ever since 1949 the western calendar year has been the standard for Chinese government, business and industry. they actually started before that, but the forced modernizations brought on by Mao really clinched it.

Also, If you go back, somewhere around wed or thur of last week you'll find an article I linked to that estimates something like 90 percent of PRC government controled organizations (which include most industries as well) are running on pirated versions of western software.

If you go back two or three weeks you'll find an article I linked to in which the Taiwanese government is predicting a 15 percent drop in real GDP due to y2k related issues. For reference: a 10 percent drop in GDP is generally considered enough to politically destabilize an industrialized country.

Now, all of that being said, I firmly disagree with Paul Milne regarding his interpretation of China's current situation. They have no reason to expend their nukes at this time, and every reason to conserve them - unless and until India and the CIS are both disarmed, which wont happen any time soon. China's government and military are quite capable of functioning using older technology...

Most likely the PRC will use the embassy bombing incident to leverage full membership in the WTO, and some sort of trade bennies from the US besides.

Arlin

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), May 09, 1999.