Although most people are focused on Jan. 1st 2000 as the pivotal day in this unfolding Drama how many of you realize that the actual so called 'y2k event' will stretch over more then 2+ years and that no single day in that transitional period will feature more then a small % of the entire event? If you look closely at the 2 germinal studies available on Y2k timelines the Gartner groups world-wide readiness report in Oct. 98' and Ian Hugo's Task Force 2000 report you'd realize this. We are already in the Y2k penumbra and the curve of possible problems is rising daily. The BIG question is when will the mounting glitches and problems start to have a noticeable effect on our economy and society? I think Dr. Yardeni's recession call for late 99' is pretty close to the mark. What do the rest of you think?

-- Glenn L. Klotz (lee00@earthlink.net), January 15, 1999

Answers

Think we're inside a moving "Y2K event" horizon, about 18 months long for the "good" stuff.

The bad news suppression factor may have a large impact on how the general public reacts, or not. There are just some things that won't keep lids on them.

I have a long time friend, with two children who is as DWGI as they come. She just asked me to send her information. Little light bulbs are going off in people's minds all over. Maybe they're hearing, from their neighbor's friend, about those little Y2K glitch things that don't hit the mass "news."

What if, people are getting it, because problems at their workplace are more prevalent that anyone imagines?

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), January 15, 1999.

Glenn,

Almost all of the problems we will experience this year will be software problems. Even the fiscal year turnovers on April 1st may not be events that gets the media or publics attention. From what I read as a non-geek, there are ways the geeks can put off the day of judgment until jan of 2000. Maybe the geeks can speak to this.

Hugo's report points to April 1st as the first date of major impact because of state's maintenance fiscal rollovers. His figure of 60% of the software problems occurring this year does not mean that they will be encountered and FIXED this year so that only 30% of y2k problems remain. (He said 10% has already occurred.) I read it that they will only be ENCOUNTERED this year. The 60% of y2k problems happening this year is also based on government agencies, all businesses, corporations, banks, utilities, telcos, and refineries in all nations doing their testing in '99.

The reason we are hearing so little about failures in my opinion is that so few have begun their testing. Therefore, I do agree with you that the end of this year will be a major y2k event as computers crash due to rushed testing and critical suppliers and vendors fail those who may be y2k ready or even compliant.

For me, the date that will be critical will be July 1st. This is when NERC has promised to shut down uncompliant nuke plants. If they do, there will be power outages due to the summer being the time of greatest stress on the power grid. If NERC keeps them up due to politics, the next date for me, would be August 22nd when the GPS satellites roll over. Cowles has stated that with proper warning, those dependent on the GPS can easily be ready for the rollover. But the problem is whether the GPS satellites have chips that are not y2k compliant which would affect GPS in 2000.

Hugo does say 20% of failures will occur on Jan 1, 2000. Seems like a small part of the whole until you realize that the majority of these failures will be embedded chip failures. This is the great danger of the y2k problem....the shutdown of our infrastructure, government, and the domino effect impacting our nation and world. That is why Jan 1st is still the day of reckoning as far as I'm concerned. Of course, I expect the stock markets to collapse sometime this year due to unrelated financial problems.

I believe Yardeni's call for recession is optimistic. I am fully convinced that our nation and world is headed for a deep global depression. This is one man's read. Buffalo Springfield.

b

-- bb (b@b.b), January 15, 1999.

Yardeni makes a number of good arguments. He also appears to do his homework on the econimics of Y2K. I am concerned about other non-Y2K related economic problems occuring in Asia, Russia, Brazi, etc. And the trend towards deflation. Y2K adds more stress to the system. I do not have a good crystal ball. However, I have recently taken some profits and reduced the degree of risk in my asset mix.

-- Sue (conibear@gateway.net), January 15, 1999.