To:         The Dallas Morning News
Date:      January 10, 1999
Subject: How everything is connected, economically
Result:   not printed because the day after I faxed it
              there was bad news about Brazil, which caused financial
              markets around the world to react, and the Morning News
              didn't want to make me look too good

Dear Editor,

I had not realized that Scott Burns held such disdain for us "dismalists", as he calls people like me in his recent column under the heading "Gloomy predictions unfulfilled" (12-27-98). His assessment reminded me of another hunky-dory column written by Steve Blow a few months ago.

What gets in the way of their rosy outlook for me is when I see how so much of the rest of the world is having problems of an unprecedented scope and variety. I just do not feel confident that we in America will be able to remain forever an island in the world, removed and largely immune from its problems, as we have been able to do up to now.

Mr. Burns lists some of the people and their books and prophecies of doom where they made very specific predictions that didn't pan out. Number one, obviously, any particular thing having to do with economics is impossible to predict with certainty. Except general things can be seen, such as that you've got X amount of pie, and Y amount of people who want part of it, and when you have an interconnected world as we have, that means everybody is connected.

Maybe countries like Russia and many other countries  won't totally collapse in the next year or two or five or ten, with all the very serious problems that confront them. But it seems to me very possible that it won't be long before the problems of perhaps quite a few countries will overwhelm them, and the International Monetary Fund will have nothing left to give. I mean, all these countries we're bailing out, is it like, hooray, they're saved, and now we don't have to worry anymore about the things we were worried about when we gave them the money?

From my view, how can anybody not be scared to death with the world the way it is today, for themselves and for their children? But for Mr. Burns, "Don't worry, be happy."

Concerning the authors cited by Mr. Burns whose time-specific prophecies did not come true, I guess it's just that when you see a great monster coming, in your fear and trembling, it may appear closer than it actually is.

As for the book "Future Shock" by Alvin Toffler, who Mr. Burns says is a dismalist-busting optimist, as I recall that book, while Mr. Toffler's analysis of the circumstances was accurate, his response to them and his recommendations for how to address them was pure never-never land.

One prophet who Mr. Burns did not mention in his column, who you could call wrong because the year 1984 passed and the world had not gotten to where he predicted in his novel of that title, was George Orwell. But it seems to me that everything is working out just like he said.

Thank you, John Vehon