[was: Re: [PEN-L:11900] Re: Re: Re: Re: Paul Krugman: no energy crisis]
Andrew wrote:
>... One thing to look at this year is Microsoft Windows XP, the new
>operating system version. If it forces a lot of hardware and software
>upgrades, that will help the economy quite a bit. It's scheduled for a
>third quarter release, but Microsoft has a tendency to miss its
>deadlines.
of course, when times are tight businesses may delay "upgrading" to XP
because they don't want to upgrade their hardware and their other
software... Households are even more likely to follow this strategy. BTW,
I'm told that Windows ME is a disaster -- that the best thing to do is to
install it (to get the bug fixes for Windows 98) and then to un-install it.
If this is true, it will encourage folks to delay...
>Although I've been pretty pessimistic over the last two years, I'm
>becoming less so. The technological outlook is getting much more
>interesting over the next 5 to 10 years. There are some new,
>interesting ideas on the horizon.
of course, during the 1930s, there were a lot of technological advances.
But many of them weren't put into practice because demand was depressed.
Supply doesn't create its own demand.
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine
