(FORTUNE Magazine) – For more than two years, Ed Yardeni, Deutsche Bank's chief economist, has been Wall Street's biggest Y2K agitator. His forecast--that Y2K had a 70% chance of causing a global recession this year--appears to be 100% wrong. FORTUNE's Daniel Roth chatted with him about the bugs in his crystal ball.

Q: Looks like that Y2K-related global depression isn't going to happen.

A: I never talked depression, but recession. Let's use the right word here. But yeah, recession isn't going to happen related to Y2K.

Q: Do you feel foolish?

A: No. I based my concerns on officially available data coming out of congressional hearings, from the General Accounting Office, and the Office of Management and Budget. Based on that, I honestly believed that there could be some serious disruptions to global supply chains. That combined with an [overpriced] stock market...might lead to a drop in the stock market that would lead to a drop in consumer confidence and consumer spending. And all that would have added up to a recession.

Q: Any chance of its still happening?

A: Certainly not Y2K-related. Maybe I shouldn't use the word "certainly." But it looks doubtful. Things have gone so well that Y2K just looks like a nonevent.

Q: Are you unhappy about that?

A: If you read my work over the past year or so, I was consistently saying that I'm not rooting for this forecast. On Dec. 13, I said I wouldn't mind sacrificing this particular forecast to the forecasting gods.

Q: How did you prepare for Y2K?

A: Well, I always approached this as an economist. I certainly didn't get into any sort of survivalist issues.

Q: You didn't stock up on anything?

A: Did I stock up on anything? Our house is always full of food, so it wasn't necessary.

Q: I saw in another magazine you said you were stocking up on spaghetti, bottled water, flashlights, and extra cash.

A: I don't recall saying that.

Q: It was in Forbes.

A: I don't recall saying that.

Q: They get a lot of things wrong, probably.

A: [Indeterminate grunt.]

Q: You know, Nostradamus did a good job forecasting by being very vague. Have you thought about going that route?

A: I guess I believe in taking a stance. I always have. That's gotten me into some very good forecasts, including Dow 5000 and Dow 10,000, productivity rebounds, and the high-tech revolution. I got quite a bit of the 1990s right, but at the tail end, I got too focused on Y2K, and I was wrong.

Q: And if you have to blame anyone ...

A: Blame anyone for what?

Q: For the bad data you were using for your forecast ...

A: I'm not going to blame anyone. The data were what were available at the time. I'm not making any excuses. The three summarizing words are "I was wrong."