Every year I send out a "Christmas Missive" usually they are funny. This year I just couldn't muster up the humor for a full missive and, at the risk of embarrassing myself in front of my friends I sent out this just before Christmas. Recent events on Wall Street may yet prove me right.

The further adventures of DesertDave@aol.com and KimchieKim@work.com

The Christmas Missive 1999

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times  times were hard! So I decided to give up my career as a freelance Existentialist on the Left Bank and return to the good old USA. Subletting my apartment on the Rue De Day, I (cleverly disguised as a crate of truffles) headed for home amid luxury aboard the Concorde.

The career counselor studied my application, education dossier and Social Integration index (that things not fair; I love humanity, its people I cant stand.) then announced I was qualified for only two jobs: cab driver or mall Santa. (Pizza delivery boy had placed a distant third, but had been ruled out due to my lack of social skills.) I was leaning toward taxi driver when the career counselor pointed out that since I already possessed the physique of an athletic grape the mall wouldnt have to provide a pillow  thus increasing my chances of employment.

Since each of these jobs paid an order of magnitude more than Id been making as a freelance philosopher, I decided to quit the day job and go for the eggnog.

*** Sorry folks, I cant seem to get into the Christmas spirit this year. Id intended to do a bit on adventures as a mall Santa but I cant seem to come up with anything funny.

Two missives ago I first forecast the coming Dark Age or Depression. (Whichever comes first.) Actually, being an optimist, Ive been betting on Depression. True, anybody can stand in the desert predicting rain and, eventually, be proven right. None of that New Age hocus-pocus for yours truly, Ive said the programming of computers, which will cause them to think the year after 1999 is 1900 will bring on the clowns in early 2000.

Ive been putting my money where my mouth is and will be out $3000 to $5000 for goods I wont use if absolutely nothing bad happens. On the other hand if nothing bad happens the goods I can use will mean fewer trips to the grocery store for awhile. (20th century prices for 21st century food!) Unfortunately I doubt well get off that easy.

Y2K will be at fault even if it only panics people into getting their money out of the stock market and banks and that trips our confidence and causes us to fall into a depression. More likely it will be compounding computer errors and failing confidence in our worldwide monetary institutions that will have its way with us. The stock market low following the crash of 1929 didnt occur until 1932 and the bank failures didnt peak until 1933  I expect things will move faster in our modern world. Lacking a TV TEOTWAWKI ((TV = Hollywoodized: lots of explosions) TEOTWAWKI (The End Of The World As We Know It)) version of TEOTWAWKI Im not expecting much to happen in the first few hours of the new century.

A more significant test will occur on Monday, January third. Thats when well learn if they really have fixed the programming of the main frames that make modern monetary policy possible. If the banks (including foreign ones) cant settle up at the end of each business day modern banking will, at least temporarily, end in a crunch of cascading cross defaults whether the phones and power systems are working or not.

TV TEOTWAWKI vs. the Death of a Thousand Cuts If we get TV TEOTWAWKI (Lights going out in Rome, Paris, London, New York etc.) we could have panic and riots. On the other hand, if XYZ corp. has a database breakdown on Monday morning they wont necessarily rush to the microphones to announce their failure and vulnerability to their competitors, creditors, stockholders and the world.

Further, as Ive read the news reports over the last two years, Ive noted a curious trend. Once they realized the problem is real and isnt going away the bureaucrats (whether they were government or industrial) bravely announced they were going to fix the entire computer system by December 31st 1998 with a year for testing!

Then, in the process of doing an inventory of the systems that enable their bureaucracy, they discover the job cant be done in the time left. This leads to announcements of new deadlines (with plenty of time for testing) and versions of the phrase critical core systems will be compliant creeps into the news releases.

As the new deadlines draw near the number of core systems is reduced to more nearly approximate the number of fixed systems. Then those deadlines are missed too.

Lately the phrase compliant by December 31st 1999 has been replaced with fix on failure or Y2K ready (whatever THAT means) in many news releases.

If any leg of the iron triangle (Electrical power, Telecommunications, Banking) goes down and stays down it will herald a Dim Age (Dim Age not Dark Age because well remember what we had and know how to get it back) thatll take awhile to climb out of.

Virtually no one whos ever lived with electricity will ever willingly live without it for long. In other words if the grid goes down there will be tremendous pressure on the government and the industry to give us back our lights, TV and air conditioning. People whove experienced the 20th century will not willingly leave it for any but the 21st.

Electricity is not some esoteric concept to Americans. Even the morons (voting age, often college educated, real people who dont know if the Earth revolves around the sun or visa versa much less how long it takes for the Earth to go around the sun Because I had that astronomy class a long time ago.) on the Jay Walking segment of the Tonight Show know what electricity means in terms of comfort and convenience.

If the electric grid goes down power seekers in 2000 will replace the traditional two cars in every garage rhetoric with something akin to Ill turn the lights back on. Such a theme will have tremendous appeal to those whove been dragged, kicking and screaming, into the 18th century.

More likely, after the flurry of disruptions and bankruptcies, well see the politicos finger pointing over who failed to fix the Y2K bug and resulting hard times as they promise to turn the good times back on (on someone elses dime).

Well likely get a new FDR with a eat the rich policy thatll aggravate our troubles into problems thatll make the last depression look like the Reagan years. With everybody looking for relief funded by the rich money (taxed from the rich) that should fund the recovery will be wasted on welfare instead of private sector job re-creation.

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with a result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by dictatorship. The average age of the world s greatest civilizations has been 200 years. -- The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic Alexander Fraser Tyler (1748 - 1813)

-- David Craig (DesertDave@aol.com), January 06, 2000

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-- jigsaw (u@u.u), January 06, 2000.

You sent a letter like this to your friends prior to Christmas? Shhhsh! if I got a letter like this, I'd promptly ask to be removed from your mailing list!

-- Rich (rubeliever@webtv.net), January 06, 2000.