Does anyone besides me find it somewhat odd that the administration managed to get Glass Steagal nixed the day after the market shit it's collective pants over IBM's admission of Y2K impact on future earnings? Ya gotta imagine what that one looked like at Penna Ave on Thursday night. I can hear them now, "Bubba, I mean Mr. President, the markets are in deep shit sir. We need to take some action right away or the whole thing could go down the tubes and fast." Bubba: "I thought Greenie said he had it under control last week with his big speeches and all that other gobbly gook about CDC?" Aid: "Well Mr. President it seems that a real business leader, a Lou Gerstner, stepped out and made a statement about Y2K negatively impacting profits for the next two quarters." Bubba: "Hold the fucking fried chicken and interns a moment, I thought we told those bastards to keep their mouths shut? Tell Gerstner I wan't to meet with him to discuss this, in Fort Marcy Park near the benches. That oughta get him to stop this crap. But whatre we gonna doo nowwww?" Aid: "Well we could run the Abbey Cohen piece again." Bubba: "Naw, nobody's buying that shit anymore, and Rubin called me last week and said she's really tired of looking like an ass for us anyway." Aid: "How bout another Greenspan speech?" Bubba: "Hell no, at this point his approval rating is below Algore's for God's sake. We've worn that one way to thin......I know, let's get going on the Glass Steagal thing." Aid: "A stroke of brilliance sir" Bubba: "Hell yes, a good old muddy the waters, merger increasing, good for the bottom line policy change. Hell yes....we'll get the damn thing done tonight over some cheesburgers, announce it before the market opens...and then fill it in with some bullshit from some Fed guys about how Y2K is the ultimate weenie roast and no big deal...Hell should be worth about 200 points to the good I'd say." Aid "Absolute brilliance sir" Bubba: "Now get me some fresh interns and buy some IBM calls through our swiss account...."

For educational, research and post Y2K prosecutorial purposes only: Friday October 22, 12:03 am Eastern Time St. Louis Fed's Poole expresses PPI concern ST. LOUIS, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President William Poole said on Thursday he was concerned about the huge jump in September U.S. producer prices but he urged financial markets not to overemphasize any one economic indicator.

``The last PPI concerns everybody no matter what your view of inflation is,'' Poole said at a news conference.

Last Friday, the Labor Department reported a 1.1 percent spike in the producer price index (PPI) in September, more than double what markets had anticipated. The core PPI rate, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, rose 0.8 percent, also twice average expectations.

The data fueled inflation fears and triggered a 266-point drop in the Dow Jones industrial average and a 75-point dive in the NASDAQ index.

``What's more important is that you fold this particular number into a whole totality of evidence. You must look at the PPI, CPI (consumer price index), exchange rates, wages etc.,'' Poole said.

He noted that the PPI was influenced by a handful of factors, referring to tobacco, auto prices and oil. ``We have to be careful not to overinterpret those things,'' Poole said.

The St. Louis Fed president also said that Year 2000 (Y2K) uncertainty should have no effect on economic policy.

``I don't think there will be anything significant,'' Poole said. ``The only significant risk we face is there may be some panic reaction from people.''

Poole added that he plans to be working at the turn of the year. ``I'll be here on New Year's Eve,'' he said. ``There will be a whole lot of testing the next day and if anything doesn't work, it'll get fixed.''

-- Gordon (g_gecko_69@hotmail.com), October 23, 1999

Answers

Remember Infomagic's warning on Deja News? The closer to Y2K the stock market crash occurs, the worse it will be for the economy. I am amazed that the stock bubble is expanding again due to salient manipulation. When this thing blows, it will astound the world!

-- Randolph (dinosaur@williams-net.com), October 23, 1999.

RANDOLPH: You just mentioned someone or something that I have seeen referenced many times here. WHO or WHAT is INFOMAGIC?

Would that be someone with deep inside knowledge like Nixon-era's DEEP THROAT?

BTW, a Jay Leno joke from a few weeks ago... What is the difference between Nixon and Clintoon? Nixon detested Deep Throat!

-- profit of doom (doom@helltopay.ca), October 23, 1999.

Profit of Doom, ROTFLMAO

-- (laughigASS@off.com), October 23, 1999.

profit of doom:

Infomagic has had some articles published by Cory Hamasaki and has contributed to Deja News. I'm not able to supply links to his articles, which have been discussed ad nauseum on this forum.

If you check in the Archives, you'll easily spot the Infomagic links. I'm surprised at your professed ignorance.

If you've never read Infomagic's words, then be prepared for a mind expanding journey.

-- Randolph (dinosaur@williams-net.com), October 23, 1999.

Infomagic is one of that class of doomers who predict that the few survivors of y2k will be stunted degenerate human forms who will subsist by foraging for nuts and berries.

Unlike most, however, Infomagic had a fairly specific schedule for the initial phases of this devolution. There were several pre- rollover milestones by which time panic would have set in, the market crashed, the banking system closed due to runs, critical preparation supplies unobtainable, etc. By today, we'd have been well down the road, watching the economy dissolve around us.

By about the fourth exact opposite result from his predictions, he wisely declared victory and vanished. When last heard from, he was claiming that his abysmal prediction record constituted proof that things were somehow even worse than he thought.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), October 23, 1999.

Reading INFOMAGIC should be followed by a nice hot cup of Cammomile/Valerian tea.

Night train

-- Jes a relaxed ol footballer (nighttr@in.lane), October 23, 1999.

Don't read Infomagic at night.

-- JIT (justintime@rightnow.net), October 23, 1999.

"Infomagic has a compellingly accurate grasp of history. Here is a sample of the future he envisions:

>This is something that's never happened before. There has never been a civilization that's been so dependent on automation, on a single point of failure.

I'm not so sure it hasn't happened before, although on a smaller scale. Many civilizations have come to a sudden end without being conquered by some outside force -- the Anasazi and Mayans in America and, within our own lineage, the Roman Empire.

Indeed I think that the collapse of the Roman Empire displays many similarities to our situation today. Y2K is only _one_ of the factors leading to our destruction, just as it's historical equivalent was only one factor in the fall of the Roman Empire. Back then, that equivalent factor was the inability of the ruling group to maintain administrative control over the empire as it grew beyond the size which could be managed with their available tools. This bears a chilling resemblance to the situation we can expect after the inevitable failure of a large portion of our administrative "tools" in the first month of 2000. The main (and frightening) difference is that our tools will fail much faster and much, much harder.

But this is not the only factor. Economically, the Romans experienced a currency and debt crisis similar to, but smaller and simpler than that we face today. They debased and inflated their "money" just as we have done with our fiat currencies (only ours is worse and more dishonest). They ran up vast public and private debts which grew so large that they could no longer be serviced in the event of a significant economic downturn. Nowhere near as big a debt as ours, of course, because they lacked the mathematical skills to invent derivatives and they had no plastics to stamp into credit cards.

Militarily, the Roman Empire was unbeatable by any other force on earth, just like America and the Western Allies today. But, like us, they ruled over a vast "world" which stretched the limits of their economic and administrative abilities beyond their capacity to maintain control (and they didn't even have to deal with the logistical nightmares of Y2K). They could deal with any single upstart easily, just as we did with Madman Insane. But in the end they had to deal with multiple uprisings throughout their world, until they lost the logistical and manpower capacity to deal with them all at the same time. Like them, after New Year's Evil, we will die the death of a thousand cuts from all of the little brushfire wars already smoldering all over the planet.

Politically, the Romans governed to appease the short term appetites of the increasingly ignorant and idle masses -- instead of taking on the hard work and responsibility of building a real future for their children. Scared of angering the "citizens" who kept them in power, the last emperors bribed them with shallow entertainments like the public baths, spectacular "games" of "sport" to amuse them, and government funded "arts" to convince the "intelligentsia" how big their brains were. Isn't this what _both_ political wings have done for the last 70 years -- bribing and appeasing the increasingly ignorant and idle masses who elect them with short term "benefits" to be paid for by excessive and destructive taxes on the true producers of their wealth? With impossible to deliver promises of easy and comfortable retirement to be paid for by someone else, sometime in the future, with money that doesn't exist?

Spiritually, they lost faith in the gods for whom they had built their empire and they lost the moral foundations (limited though they were) which had given them their strength and greatness. They swung their moral compass instead toward the immediate self and began to worship government itself, even calling their emperors "gods". Today, far too many have lost faith in the one true, living and loving God who has given us everything that we have. How many now believe instead in the Beast of Government, accepting the Mark of Social inSecurity, of the Welfare Drug and of Affirmative Hate? How many women have deserted their duty to their families and husbands, in favor of the "freedom" of servitude to someone else, falsely believing that government will take better care of their children than they or their husbands? How many spineless men have allowed and even encouraged this to happen?

Morally, the last emperors were truly vile and evil men, placing their perverted peccadillos and personal power before the true responsibilities of their office. Nero fiddled while Rome burned without the leadership it needed. Today, Clinton fiddles with himself in a sordid back room while the whole world begins to burn in a global economic and technological meltdown. Instead of providing the leadership we need, he is more interested in being worshipped for his "legacy" and in satisfying his insane lust for power over the lives of others. Like Nero and Caligula, our (mis)leader is a mentally deranged pervert whose personal behavior is so disgusting we cannot even talk of it in front of our children. And like the Romans we have only ourselves to blame. Our leaders reflect ourselves and our own moral values.

Finally, the Romans had this teensy, weensy, little technological problem. If there was one technology without which the Roman Empire could never have existed, it would have to be large scale, public plumbing. Without it, and the attendant water supply and sewage disposal systems, they could never have built and sustained the first city state with a population greater than a million. Without an extensive local irrigation system, they could never have fed such a population, and without such a large population they could never have built such an empire. Their little problem was lead poisoning, which led to brain damage and, eventually, reduced their ability to maintain their civilization. Technically, it would have been _so_ easy to replace the lead with copper, but those pipes, pots and pans were simply _everywhere_ and there just weren't enough plumbers to fix the problem before the year zero zero . . .

...
The result will inevitably be a reduction in carrying capacity. In this case, a reduction in the ability to "carry" goods and people from one place to another. This, of course, will lead to shortages of food and other key items, and to a reduction in economic activity, in direct proportion to the fraction of capacity which is lost.

But in a larger sense, "carrying capacity" is a biological term which refers to the ability of a given habitat to sustain and support a particular population. A few years back, here in Arizona, the greenie meanies managed to impose a ban on the hunting of deer on the Kaibab Plateau (famous for it's trophy Mule deer). For years before, the number of deer had been kept fairly precisely at the carrying capacity of the habitat by means of controlled hunting just before the onset of winter and the lowered availability of food. The very first year of the ban, the Kaibab herd went into winter with a population far greater than the carrying capacity. A few months later, in the very depth of winter, the result was a cruel death by starvation for thousands of these beautiful deer as they competed for an almost non-existent food supply, consumed too early by the larger population. Even the early, stronger survivors were weakened to the point that they could not survive the worst of the winter. More than two-thirds died in that first winter, and next spring the herd was less than one third of the normal carrying capacity. It took _years_ for the herd to recover from this single event.

The human race lives in a habitat which not only includes but is for its greatest part completely dependent on computer based technology. This includes (but is not limited to) our entire social, financial, medical, industrial, transportation, hydro, energy, communications and agricultural base. Take away even a small part of that technology, and the carrying capacity of the global habitat for human beings will be greatly reduced. Go back to pre-computer days, as some have suggested, and the carrying capacity will be decimated. But the number of people who die will not be merely equal to the difference in the present and the post 00 carrying capacities. Like the Kaibab deer, the early survivors will be weakened to the point that they will not able to rebuild the "habitat", and many of them will also die, later, of starvation, disease, conflict and just plain cold.

But we have it even worse than the Kaibab deer. The regrowth of their habitat did not depend on their own actions. Ours does. With a lower population we will be less able to address problems which we cannot handle even now with the present population, a fully functional infrastructure and a vibrant economy. In addition, after the fall, more of our strength and resources will have to be devoted just to the act of staying alive (something we haven't really had to do for a long time). Inevitably, the world's population will continue to drop. It will enter a "deflationary spiral" much like the present Asian economies. Like them, there is no longer _anything_ we can do to prevent this, or to rapidly recover. We've left it too late.

Something similar, but far less drastic, happened to the Roman Empire and it's descendant the Holy Roman Empire of Europe. After the initial collapse, the survivors were even less able to maintain the infrastructure of the old empire. So it deteriorated even further, the carrying capacity was reduced further, and ever fewer survivors had it ever tougher year by year. They entered a deflationary population and technology spiral which continued right up until after the Black Plague, the death of half of Europe and, finally, the Renaissance.

This is why I have consistently predicted the loss of at least half to two-thirds of the world's population and a very, very, long period for recovery. Our problems are far more serious, far more immediate, and our fall will be faster and deeper than that of the Roman Empire. We may not even survive. Any of us.

...
And a thousand years thereafter.

Five miles from where I spent my early childhood in England are the ruins of an old Roman fort, built two thousand years ago to guard the mouth of the largest local river. It was a long way for a nine year old boy to pedal a bike, but I went there many times to explore and to imagine. In particular, I would go there every Easter when, according to legend, the old Roman town would magically come alive again.

More than one Good Friday evening I spent there, listening for and almost hearing the ancient sounds, looking for and almost seeing two thousand year old ghosts from a long dead civilization. I think about it often now, as I try to prepare my community for long term survival.

Get a sense of history, Pollyanna. It's coming soon to a city near you. "

TEOTWAWKI TEOTWAWKI TEOTWAWKI TEOTWAWKI TEOTWAWKI

-- Where Is Infomagic these days? (allaha@earthlink.net), October 23, 1999.

I'm certain Infomagic has pondered many responses generated by his published thoughts. He has realized his errors temporal, but his intrinsic conceptual aberrations regarding the inadequacies of government to aid citizens in time of greatest need will eventually be proven.

A great sorrow will fall upon America...

-- Randolph (dinosaur@williams-net.com), October 23, 1999.

Infomagic still packs a GI punch. Afraid he may be proved all too prescient.

-- it's the carrying capacity (going@go.down), October 23, 1999.

I wosh Cory or smebody would get hold of Infomajic and ask him for his take on the state of things today. Based on what we see now, has his concern changed from the origional ones he posted? It would be very interesting to see how he looks at things now.

-- LauraA (Laadedah@aol.com), October 23, 1999.

If the way this forum is heading is anything like y2k is going to be we are all fucking doomed.

I mean it.

-- Andy (AUVENGER@cs.com), October 24, 1999.

Infomagic's basic premise is that the world is going to be just like the world in "The Postman." brrr. He used to say "But I could be wrong. It could be worse."

Yeah, I wish someone would get a hold of him, I'd love to see what he has to say with 70(?) days to go..

-- mar (derigueur2@aol.com), October 24, 1999.