The Y2k Weatherman in Dallas has 20,000 on his e-mail list. On his website he has just taken a poll on how bad it will be....and over 3000 responded. 24% voted a 6 (Infrastructure problems with banks, telecommunications, and power, but we "muddle through" somehow.) 19% voted a 7 (Significant infrastructure damage). 8% voted a 5 and 9% voted an 8.

It would seem that from all the polls I have seen from the "experts" to the layman (and including Cory's DC group) that a 6 plus is the average. That is about the middle of a bell shaped curve.

We know from polls of the general population that only 1 in 5 say they will make some preparations. I think that number will increase this fall. Most of the general population are thinking of Y2k as a 0 to 2 problem. I hope so but I don't think so.

All of the polls taken on this forum over the past 18 months have averaged over a 6.

-- rb (rb@yahoo.com), July 23, 1999

Answers

Don't you think that people who prepare might have a tendancy to think it might be worse than someone who is not preparing? I mean just to validate their position?

I'm crazy about the first few snows we get each year. No matter what the weatherman says I always think we are going to get more snow just because that is what I want to happen.

My wife thinks snow is a big mess. She likes it for a little while and then wants it gone. She always thinks we are going to get less than what the weatherman says.

Do you see what I mean?

-- Johnny (JLJTM@BELLSOUTH.NET), July 23, 1999.

Agreed and given a 6 to 7 impact it seems prident to have a 2-3 stock of non-perishables and use other assets to pay off debt or improve liquidity or in hard currency.

-- Bill P (porterwn@one.net), July 23, 1999.

Sorry I am a poor typist. Should read "prudent" not prident.

-- Bill P (porterwn@one.net), July 23, 1999.

For a poll to mean anything the respondants must be randomly selected. Any poll of internet participants is skewed to begin with. Remember that Joe Sixpack has a high school diploma but has never surfed the internet & most likely never will. He believes whatever Dan Rather tells him, so he's not worried about y2k at all.

BTW: 24, 19, 8 & 9 don't add up to 100. If you're going to give us numbers might as well give them all.... skewed or not.

-- the masses (havent@spoken.yet), July 23, 1999.

Hey the masses

Its Joe 12-pack now! Maybe even Joe 18-pack!

-- Johnny (JLJTM@BELLSOUTH.NET), July 23, 1999.

The masses won't have an opinion until after the rollover.

Kinda like personal fix-on-failure plans.

-- don't (hold@yer.breath), July 23, 1999.

Using the 1-10 scale, I figured that a "3" will be bad. That is 30% problems (employment/power outages/shipping and supply problems). IT also means that there will be some places where it could be much worse (long-term power outages, water supply and total business failure). A "5" is very bad! Most people say that y2k problems lie between the heavy doom (North) and the light (bump-in-raod), so a "5" is a compromise. But a five means major unemployment, serious power outages, serious, long-term financial problems, social outrage and a several year recovery.

Once you cross over the 5 mark, you are into unknown and terrible trouble. Nuke and Chem accidents, terroist attacts, military rule, ten times worse than '30's depression (due to 80/20% flip ratio of people living in the country/on farms and manual labor vs todays total dependence on everything just-in-time and comming from elsewhere).

I am "7" and am NOT prepared enough (60+% of work will not get done!).

Only a 1 would be a bump in the road. A 2 will be recession.

People have to add up both the USA and the world to come up with the number. If the USA is a 3 and the rest of the world is a 7, that still puts us in the middle at five and that is major unemployment, financial collapse and chaos-a-la-mode.

-- dw (y2k@outhere.com), July 23, 1999.

Complete percentages on the Y2k weatherman poll.

0 1%
1 2%
2 7%
3 9%
4 9%
5 8%
6 24%
7 19%
8 9%
9 9%<10 3%

-- rb (ronbanks_2000@yahoo.com), July 23, 1999.