From the Financial Times for Educational Purposes Only

Link

The last two paragraphs are quite interesting:

The millennium (Y2K) bug poses additional dangers, with some analysts predicting investors will pull money out the region for fear of a New Year's Eve financial meltdown.

"We fully expect a rush of private capital out of emerging markets sometime before the Y2K bug evolves into a problem," says Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics. "If so, huge capital outflows from emerging markets before the end of this year will cause monetary implosion across the developed world and reverse all the incipient economic recoveries."

-- Mike Lang (webflier@erols.com), July 18, 1999

Answers

Mike, I'm pretty sure you know the Financial Times is a highly respected newspaper in Britain (perhaps THE most highly respected now that the Times has gone Murdoch).

I just bought some kitchen knives. The paring knife cost around .69 and the wavy-edged trimming knife was around $2.49. When I got them home I saw the blades were stamped "made in Brazil." I just needed a couple of utility knives for the kitchen, but these are excellent quality, with hardwood handles. I have to wonder if there's some quiet "dumping" going on due to the shaky financial situation down south.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), July 19, 1999.

"If so, huge capital outflows from emerging markets before the end of this year will cause monetary implosion across the developed world and reverse all the incipient economic recoveries."

Geesh, talk about avoiding certain non-PC words! What a dance!

"huge capital outflows" = "everyone's gonna bail at once"

"monetary implosion" = "crash"

"and reverse all the incipient economic recoveries" = "depression"

BTW, here in my area of the corn belt, I think we're already seeing the beginning of a depression. You gotta be here to see it, lots of stores closing, nobody buying anything except the essentials, etc.

-- B-17 (flying@fortress.com), July 19, 1999.