-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.zolatimes.com/V3.3/pageone.html <A HREF="http://www.zolatimes.com/V3.3/pageone.html">Laissez Faire City Times - Volume 3 Issue 3</A> The Laissez Faire City Times January 18, 1999 - Volume 3, Issue 3 Editor & Chief: Emile Zola ----- Odds & Ends & Year 2000 by Zola Laissez Faire City TimesAsian correspondent, Richard Ehrlich, has taken time off to act as a media consultant to Leonardo DiCaprio, who is making a movie The Beach in Thailand. We couldn't think of a better choice, given Richard's command of the language and the local scene. But luckily he still had time to send us an article about an unusual shrine on the grounds of the Hilton Hotel in Bangkok. As for Leonardo DiCaprio, his most recent role was in the Titantic, a movie parable about the unsinkable U.S. stock market. The Dow went up on Friday by almost as many points as it went down on Thursday, but on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday the Dow sank also. It was helped along by a little foreign exchange crisis in Brazil, where the real sank against the dollar by about 10 percent. The Brazilian stock market, the Bovespa, fell 5.05 percent this past Wednesday, and 9.97 percent on Thursday. We decided to sit tight on our put. We might have sold it if Friday had been a down day also, but it wasn’t. Some readers were warning us to get out, because Clinton is going to announce a bribe to Wall Street in his State of the Union speech on Tuesday. "Washington, Jan. 13 (Bloomberg) -- President Bill Clinton may use next week's State of the Union address to suggest expanding 401(k) programs for low-income workers and to lay the groundwork for investing a small portion of the Social Security trust fund in financial markets, two White House aides close to the discussions said." Who knows if Wall Street will take the bait—we already know they can’t calculate. But low-income workers contributing to 401(k) programs isn’t going to generate much cash. As for investing the Social Security trust fund in the stock market—what a joke! There isn’t any trust fund! Social Security is a pay-as-you-go system, and there is temporarily a cash flow surplus on a year-to-year basis (i.e. money coming in this year is bigger than money going out). We’re not talking about a lot of surplus cash in the first place, so a "small portion" of it funneled to Wall Street won’t go far. But the Dow will probably rally just from the sight of Clinton appearing on TV. Clinton is Wall Street’s symbol of reality denial. But we’ll take our chances, even though we have no doubt that Clinton will, as usual, treat government revenue as his personal piggy bank. He’s also getting ready to wag the dog again, treating the U.S. military as an adjunct to his personal defense team. But all the anti-Impeachment bribes Clinton has to offer can’t cover all the accidents waiting to happen to financial markets. Our time horizon is March 18, not tomorrow. Millennial Calculations Speaking of dates, it’s annoying enough when people can’t get the end of the century or the end of the millennium right. The Twentieth Century ends on Dec. 31, 2000. The Twenty-First Century begins on Jan. 1, 2001. The Third Millennium, according to the Gregorian calendar, also begins on Jan. 1, 2001. The Third Millennium ends on Dec. 31, 3000. The latter date will also be the last day of the Thirtieth Century. But it’s more disturbing when people confuse the Y2K problem with Gregorian date calculations, and then compound this with totally irrelevant allusions to the year Jesus was born. The latest inanity along this line I came across said, in effect, "the millennium really began on Jan. 1, 1995, because Jesus was born 4 B.C." Assuming the statement has any meaning whatsoever, the calculation is off by a good 2 years, and realistically by 2 years. Let’s sort through this nonsense. I first went through these types of calculations long ago in theology class. But it’s not a matter of theology, it’s a matter of simple arithmetic. Dagny Deb in her excellent article on calendars vs. computer time, Year 2000: What is Time?, already covered the basics. But let me take a stab at it also. It is not surprising that many associate the Y2K problem with apocalyptic prophecy. After all, we have those in the money-making Apocalypse Business like Gary North (see Declan McCullagh’s There's Something About Gary) who once assured us that there would be a nuclear war with Russia, and then that we would run out of hospital beds by 1992 because of AIDS. He now parades Y2K as the latest gimmick to market his survival tools, and given his previous history it’s no wonder people associate Y2K with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. But he’s not the only culprit: in England, a number of ministers are interpreting Y2K as God’s punishment. (For electing fascist Tony Blair, presumably.) Let’s get some things straight. "Millennium" simply means a 1000 years. That’s all. You can start a millennium any day you want to, but it ends a thousand years later. As Dagny notes in her article, the Gregorian calendar began in the Sixteenth Century (October 1582) in Italy, but in September 1752 in America. (That’s why September 1752 in the U.S. only has 19 days.) The Gregorian calendar, like all calendars, starts at an arbitrary time point, point 0. Pope Gregory thought point 0 corresponded to the birth of Jesus, but it would not change any of the calculations if he thought it was the birth of Dionysus or Mithra or Santa Claus. Now a thousand years is just a thousand years, but sometimes the term "the millennium" is used to refer to the prophecy of Rev. 20:1-7--a thousand year reign of Jesus, King of Kings, etc. When Adolf Hitler talked about "a thousand year Reich," he was simply quoting from Revelation—the German bible of Martin Luther. (The word "bible" simply means book, but many so-called "Christians" of the illiterate Sunday-church-going sort capitalize it as "Bible" or "Holy Bible," because they place it on the coffee table as a relic to be worshipped, as opposed to any book anyone would ever actually read, mark up, and dog-ear. They are typically as equally illiterate in history, archaeology, Greek, and Hebrew—but somehow expect others to take their petty cartoon beliefs seriously.) This is another use of the term "the millennium," but nothing in the prophecy relates this 1000-year period in any shape or fashion to the birth of Jesus. So calculating 1000-year intervals after the birth of Jesus has no meaning whatsoever, even for "Bible" believers. The best they can do is to rely on Medieval theologians, who were the first to claim that Jesus would return 2000 years after his own birth. So, purely as an exercise, suppose Jesus was born 4 B.C. What date is 2000 years later? B.C.-A.C Start at Time Point Zero. Note: not Year 0. There is no Year 0. The first day after Time Point Zero is Day 1 of 1 A.D. Let’s call this Jan. 1, as in the current Gregorian calendar, even though this calendar would not exist for centuries. The day prior to Time Point Zero is the last day of 1 B.C. Let’s call this Dec. 31, as in the Gregorian Calendar. The first day of 1 A.D. follows the last day of 1 B.C. Now one year after Time Point Zero can be indifferently viewed as having been obtained at the end of Dec. 31, 1 A.D., or the beginning of Jan. 1, 2 A.D. Similarly, 1994 years after Time Point Zero can be viewed as having been reached at the end of Dec. 31, 1994 or the beginning of Jan. 1, 1995. And 1996 years after Time Point Zero can be seen as arriving on Dec. 31, 1996, or Jan. 1, 1997. If we go forward to the Fall of 1997, say end Sept. 1997, we have 1996 years after Time Point Zero. Keep this number in mind for future reference. Now let’s go backwards from Time Point Zero. Jan. 1, 1 B.C. or Dec. 31, 2 B.C. corresponds to one year of time B.C. Jan. 1, 3 B.C. or Dec. 31, 4 B.C. corresponds to 3 years of time B.C. If we back up to the Fall of 4 B.C. , say end Sept. 4 B.C., we have 3 years. Now anyone who takes the record seriously (and I’m not saying you need to) knows that Jesus was born in the Fall. The shepherds were still tending their flocks by night—something that would not have occurred in the cold winter months. So if you take the year 4 B.C. as the correct date of birth, adding 2000 years to this date brings you to the Fall of 1997 (3 plus 1996 equals 2000). A quick way to get the date 1997 is just to subtract 4 from 2001. This works as long as you are talking about the beginning of 4 B.C., and the beginning of 1997 A.D. But if you move forward to the Fall of 4 B.C., you have to move forward to the Fall of 1997. If Jesus was born in the Fall of 6 B.C., instead, then 2000 years later brings you to the Fall of 1995. And so on. It’s not difficult if you just think about it, instead of waving your hands like a blithering idiot, as much of the world does. Now, as a qualified theologian, I will say it makes just as much sense to have Jesus return 2000 years after his death. So I give you my personal guarantee that he will not be returning either in the Year 2000 or the Year 2001. And clearly he didn't return in the Fall of 1997, either. As to whether my Dow Jones option will make money—well, that’s a much more difficult prediction. -30- from The Laissez Faire City Times, Vol 3, No 3, Jan. 18, 1999 ----- Published by Laissez Faire City Netcasting Group, Inc. Copyright 1998 - Trademark Registered with LFC Public Registrar All Rights Reserved Disclaimer The Laissez Faire City Times is a private newspaper. Although it is published by a corporation domiciled within the sovereign domain of Laissez Faire City, it is not an "official organ" of the city or its founding trust. 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