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Click the "Start" button of the controls on the left to listen to the first 45 minutes of a full 55- minute presentation by David L. Smith titled "Profit and Peril in the New Millennium." Press the "Start" button of the second set of controls on the right to hear the final 10 minutes.

First 45 Minutes

Concluding 10 minutes

This presentation was delivered to 200 Chairmen of the Board and Chief Executive Officers at the 115th annual meeting of the Association of Edison Illuminating Companies at the Greenbriar Resort in West Virginia on October 15, 1999.

What is remarkable about this presentation is its prescience. Mr. Smith indeed offered "the most valuable information you his audience could use and the most expensive advice to ignore," describing with uncanny accuracy the 7 "clouds in the silver lining" gathering to rain on the parade at the height of the 1990's boom. For a press release describing the presentation in greater detail, click here. The 7 "Clouds" predicted by Mr. Smith were the following:

  • 1) Stock market crash due to over-valuation
  • 2) Credit crunch due to excessive personal and corporate debt
  • 3) The third oil shock
  • 4) A resurgence of inflation
  • 5) Foreign military and/or financial crises in an increasingly unstable global
  • economy
  • 6) Devaluation of the dollar due to record trade deficits
  • 7) The Y2K problem which he dismissed as "trivial"