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Comment: |
Tony Keyes warns about the failure of computers and firms outside the United States. We're all in the same boat.
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The `new economy' which has been credited with fueling the decade-long bull market we have been enjoying is equivalent to an inorganic organism. Decisions, events, actions and inactions unfolding in other parts of the world have a direct impact on our own economy here in the states. Devaluations of the currencies in the developing countries of South East Asia carry with them the threat of deflation in the west as unsold goods are dumped on our markets. The world felt the impact of Australia's sale of gold reserves, and the conversion to the Eurodollar will most surely be felt in many ways outside Europe.
This global, economic interdependency may never be felt more intensely than in the aftermath of Y2K. We here in the U.S. might pull off the miraculous, converting all of our most critical systems in time; yet, if our trading partners fail, we fail. David Iacino, CIO of Bank Boston, drove this point home in his keynote address to the attendees of a recent Y2K investor conference sponsored by Cruttenden Roth. Iacino said that he is "concerned with the general progress of institutions worldwide", which means that on the international level, many countries are far behind the United States in terms of their Y2K projects. . . .
Wise investors will be making defensive moves in anticipation of the calamity ahead. Gold and silver, at prices near a seventeen-year low, are the bargains of the century. No pun intended.
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