Steve Heller:

In response, I accept the distinction between your views of Browne's market observations and his position on the year 2000 set of problems.

There was nothing in your response to his y2k position to indicate otherwise. I consider you to be an honest observer, based on what you have written.

That is a trait that I also admired in Browne's writing through the years. It was characterised by his developing a position that no one can predict future events, and that he would not claim the ability to make market calls. He would instead view his projected outcomes as probabilities, while listing the other possible outcomes also.

Hence his coining of the phrase, re inflation, hard landing, soft landing, etc., as he examined the possibilities. He dismissed his market call re gold and the dollar in the early 'seventies as good luck.

With this as a reference, I was surprised that he would make a "hard call" on y2k and appear to get it wrong on top of that, based on the evidence that is available.

It is neither here nor there. I appreciate your perspective based upon your experience.

Thank you,

Tom Beckner

-- Tom Beckner (tbeckner@erols.com), May 21, 1999

Answers

Harry Browne: past, present, and future

>In response, I accept the distinction between your views of Browne's market observations and his position on the year 2000 set of problems. There was nothing in your response to his y2k position to indicate otherwise. I consider you to be an honest observer, based on what you have written.

Thank you for the compliment. I never intended anyone to consider my comments on Harry's Y2K position to be general comments on his character or abilities, but I just wanted to make sure that they were not taken that way. However, see below for some comments on how he might have come to this conclusion.

>That is a trait that I also admired in Browne's writing through the years. It was characterised by his developing a position that no one can predict future events, and that he would not claim the ability to make market calls. He would instead view his projected outcomes as probabilities, while listing the other possible outcomes also.

Exactly.

>Hence his coining of the phrase, re inflation, hard landing, soft landing, etc., as he examined the possibilities. He dismissed his market call re gold and the dollar in the early 'seventies as good luck.

Yes, I'm aware of that as well.

>With this as a reference, I was surprised that he would make a "hard call" on y2k and appear to get it wrong on top of that, based on the evidence that is available.

I'm afraid it's hard to take a charitable view of this failure, ascribing it to simple error. Harry is much too intelligent and knowledgeable for me to accept this without question. Of course, we'll probably never know the actual cause of his apparently unintelligible position on this matter, but I would like to point out that if there isn't going to be a presidential election next year, his quest for the Libertarian party nomination doesn't have much of a future. Of course, that still doesn't explain why he would be running for a nomination that will lead nowhere, but perhaps he has finally fallen prey to exactly the sort of wishful thinking that he has so eloquently argued against in his books. That is, if he ignores the possibility of a disaster, it won't happen. By the way, he is not alone among high profile libertarians in dismissing Y2K as a hoax. In particular, Neil Smith, the well-known libertarians science-fiction author, takes virtually the same position. I've tried to talk him out of it, but he won't listen. Oh well, we'll all know how it works out in just a few more months.

-- Steve Heller (stheller@koyote.com), May 23, 1999.