As the financial markets set new benchmarks, the population of the USA, those I come in contact with, have never been more complacent. I believe this is a good time to present what I think are the likely events for the next two to three years. No one can predict the future; the unexpected always looms large. But for once in my mental life, given a lifetime of thought, study, and preparation for just this moment, I believe I can see the outlines of coming events. The sea of life is huge and unpredictable but the tides are made up of the combination of many forces which are knowable. We may miss the icebergs that I see floating in the shipping lanes ahead; but we will not be able to ignore them. I therefore feel confident in making these forecasts.

The stock market may continue to set new highs this year. The Nasdaq is over 2000 already, it is not impossible that the DOW Jones Industrial Average could top 10,000 this year. But three icebergs are visible; the Asian financial crisis and meltdown; the Y2K computer problem; and the increasing mania for material wealth which characterizes Western life. This mania fosters greed, insensitivity to other humans, and ultimately a widening gap between the rich and poor, especially on a global basis. Americans don’t care in the slightest for the problems of their Asian brothers and sisters, even though those Asian problems are causing massive human suffering on a scale which would be unthinkable to Americans if it were happening to Americans. Hubris on this scale seldom goes unrewarded.

I predict that the Asian crisis will dramatically affect American manufacturing, which in due time will slow down the US economy. Eventually, whether later in 1998 or in 1999, this will result in a recession in the USA. The stock market may not go down at the same time as the recession becomes noticeable; although the stock market is said to be a leading indicator, we are in a blowout stage of hyper speculation. Greed causes everyone to be afraid of missing out on stock market profits. Nonetheless, eventually, the market will crash.

When the stock market does crash, it will destroy the most profound religious faith ever witnessed in human history; the faith of late twentieth century Americans in materialism and technology, science and money.

The complex processes running the world today, that depend so much on this profound religious faith, will collapse. The US government itself will in some ways begin to disintegrate.

The Y2K problem, which in and of itself is so simple, so avoidable, so trivial, will be the instrument which symbolizes the collapse of the Western materialistic faith. When not fixed in time, these simple computer glitches will bring the complex computerized society to a chaotic state. Information flows, the vital fluid of our times, will be subtly corrupted. This will greatly exacerbate the recession brought on by the Asian crisis.

Deflation will rule the financial landscape. There will be a crisis of consumerism. Americans will be literally forced to observe how their own interests are intricately intertwined with those of others around the globe. Third world and developing countries will see first hand that the Gods of the materialistic West are not all powerful.

The global depression will last at least through the year 2000 and into the year 2001. It could well last much longer. We can and will recover , but it will require a change of civilization.

The new civilization will be process oriented, global in nature, democratic, and capitalistic while actively discouraging the extremes of individual wealth and poverty. Employees will often own their own corporations. Technology will be decentralized, purified, and then advance at a faster clip. Computer software will be Java based, and much more attention will be paid to make software solid, rugged, and fail-safe. In fact, much of software will actually be free, with free source code, and thus continually evolving through user input. Software creators will be paid for service, support, and contract work, with users willfully (even joyfully) supporting the creators of great software with monetary rewards.

The government of the earth will be truly democratic, decentralized, and yet global. All will recognize that the earth is one country, and all mankind its citizens.

We must go through much pain. Economic pain from the great recession will be intense. But the end will be the flowering of a new world civilization.

The causes of the tragedy we now face are human in origin. We made the greedy choices in our economic life. We made the valueless choices in our political life. We made the sloppy choices in our technical life.

When the Great Challenge comes, America will be "lead’ by a President who has lost all moral authority. When Truth and Believability matter most, Clinton will be what we deserve.

We could have made our software more robust; but it would have been too much work, and taken too much time. Short term gains are all that mattered to us. We could always leave the company we were in if it failed. The company could always abandon its employees. More money could always be earned overnight in the stock market on Wall Street, and we could all just sit back and drink alcohol in Joe’s Bar at the Waldorf Astoria and watch the numbers of our fancy, the idols of our illusion, dance before our eyes.

But we only have one world, and one human spirit, and one true God. And that human spirit will yet find that true God and live together peaceably in one world.