You know, my oldest friend loves the saying: "When the green flag drops, the bullsh*t stops" We have 100 days to the green flag. Then one "side" or the other is going to be eating a LOT of crow... (It may well be all they have to eat, *IF* ...)

-- Dennis (djolson@pressenter.com), September 22, 1999 ___________________

The foregoing was posted in another thread, but it perpetuates something that I think is a false notion: that y2k effects will become evident immediately after 1/1/2000 gets here. Rather, I think that there will be only minor problems evident during the first week or so of that January. In fact, I expect that the internet will be weighted down with gleeful I-told-you-sos from the pollys.

Then, in February or March, when it becomes evident that the petroleum pipeline has dried up and that the refineries that were shut down due to lack of electricity from local blackouts will not be back online until June or July, when it becomes evident that the JIT supply chains for many of the Fortune 1000 are broken or severly wounded, when all of the super market shelves are empty except for the canned eel and squid, there will be a collective in-drawn breath and a slow, disbelieving, "Oh, shit," from just about everyone.

Then, in July or August, when the first 3 or 5 of the Fortune 500 can no longer hide the fact that their corporate data have been so scrambled that they can no longer continue to function as viable enterprises, the witch hunts will begin in earnest.

Then, ....

Anyway, you get my point: the effects will trickle in slowly over the first few months. They will not be born "standing up and talking back" on 1/1/2000. And they will be terrible. As Cory Hamasaki is fond of saying, "Something wicked this way comes."

George

-- George Valentine (GeorgeValentine@usa.net), September 23, 1999

Answers

Good thread George. Very insightful. I agree with you. I feel that the main problem will not show up right away but later, when they try to balance the books. No doubt, the pollies will have a few passing moments of glee.

-- rcw (cwiowa@uiowa.edu), September 23, 1999.

Yea, right. You mean trickle down like the Joanne Effect did? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! You people are SOOOOOOO full of it. Give it up. Y2K is a non-issue.

-- Laughing at You (shakingmyhead@uarenuts.com), September 23, 1999.

Unless the embedded systems problems prove to be "showstoppers" on New Year's Day.

-- Concerned (concerned@worried.com), September 23, 1999.

Right, George. I don't believe things will come to a screeching halt. Y2K will be a bag on our hip long after the rollover.

-- mil (millenium@yahoo.com), September 23, 1999.

George,

My first thought when I saw the topic was, yea, they'll probably all be stoned!!! What other way can they esuage there utter stupidity??

-- fed watcher (allgoinbyby@soon.com), September 23, 1999.

On marijuana? What does that have to do with stupidity? I didn't open the can, you did.

-- mil (millenium@yahoo.com), September 23, 1999.

http://www.techserver.com/noframes/story/0,2294,75662-119493-847488- 0,00.html

[Fair Use: For Educational/Research Purposes Only]

Koskinen, government's top Y2K expert, predicts failures for more than a day

Copyright ) 1999 Nando Media

Copyright ) 1999 Associated Press

By TED BRIDIS

WASHINGTON (July 29, 1999 6:14 p.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) - Computer failures related to the Year 2000 technology problem could extend well beyond New Year's Day, President Clinton's top Y2K expert John Koskinen said Thursday.

Although Koskinen predicted a national "sigh of relief" in the early hours of Jan. 1, he also anticipates scattered electronic failures over the first days, weeks and even months of the new year.

Koskinen, chairman of the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion, said in an interview with The Associated Press that some failures may not become obvious until the end of January, the first time after the date rollover that consumers review their monthly bank statements, credit-card bills and other financial paperwork.

"It won't evaporate until after that," Koskinen said. "Clearly, this is more than a January 1 problem." But he also slightly hedged his predictions: "None of us are really going to know until after January 1."

Unless repaired, some computers originally programmed to recognize only the last two digits of a year will not work properly beginning in 2000, when those machines will assume it is 1900.

Some computer systems may shut down quickly with obvious failures, and others may gradually experience subtle problems or degraded performance that may take weeks to notice.

"The more difficult problem will be where the system looks like it's doing it correctly but it's doing it all wrong," Koskinen said.

Some failures won't be recognized until the work week starts Jan. 3, as employees return to their offices and turn on their computers for the first time.

Repaired computers also will need to recognize 2000 as a leap year, even though most years ending in "00" don't need to adjust for Feb. 29, he said.

A new $40 million Information Coordination Center being organized down the street from the White House will operate until March, sharing information about failures with states, federal agencies, corporations and foreign governments.

[snip to end]

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), September 23, 1999.

A world without rioting and looting and in which you can flush the toilet is, to me, the best-case scenario. If effects sneak up on us rather than punch us out, oh happy days!! YES, thank YOU!! PLEASE!!!

-- Mara Wayne (MaraWayne@aol.com), September 23, 1999.

George, you know about Taltos? !?!

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), September 23, 1999.

Mara,

You know not what you ask for.

I think that it is likely that by February 2001 that as many as 10 per cent of the Fortune 500 will be incapacitated or defunct. This will sneak up on us, 3, 4, 7, 28 per month until suddenly we _know_ that we are about to experience TEOTWAWKI _again_!!

If the depression in the '30s was the Great Depression, the depression in the '00s will be the Super Colosal Humongeous Depression. When supply chains for JIT fail, the dependent businesses fail.

George

-- George Valentine (GeorgeValentine@usa.net), September 23, 1999.

It is worth noting that although the stock market crashed in October, 1929, the full effects of the Depression weren't apparent until 1931 and 1932.

-- Paul DiMaria (p_dimaria@hotmail.com), September 23, 1999.

I thought the chips stop on 01/01/00? Isn't "00" the big moment for embedded chips? Granted the effects may be felt weeks or months into the new year, but the big day should still be a big day right? The crash of 29 rippled through the US economy rather slowly. I am looking for y2k to flip off the light switch or at the very least throw a wrench in the gears. Death by a 1,000 cuts, but the cutting will be with a chain saw.

-- Bill (y2khippo@yahoo.com), September 23, 1999.

During my short and unnotable college career, I managed to sit through Econ 101. It was during this discussion that we learned that the stock market crash of '29 did NOT cause the Great Depression. It was merely a precursor to the dangers of margin buying run amuck!

The Great Depression was a spiraling chain of events of including: improper government intervention; excessive lending; and selfish corporate greed. It is naive to think that a single event as small (by macroeconomics standards) as a stock market crash would catapult an entire economy into a tail spin. As usual, the doomsayers use partial facts to sensationalize minor issues into an illogical conclusion of global disaster.

Yes, alot of people got hurt by the crash, but they brought it upon themselves by their own greed.

-- John Kelleher (john.c.kelleher@worldnet.att.net), September 23, 1999.

Well, maybe according to your horn-haired butthead of a professor the stock market crash didn't cause the depression, but according to a good many economists of the day it sure as hell did!!! And anyway, comparing the Y2K crisis with the 29-31 depression is mindless blathering...there is no comparison.

-- Don Wegner (donfmwyo@earthlink.net), September 23, 1999.

John Kelleher,

Yeah well its typical for ignorant doubters to use partial facts to obfuscate MAJOR issues and sensationalize them as minor.

Jack

P.S. Review MURPHY's LAW in some 'o' dem College booooks

-- Jack Mercer (mercerjohn@usa.net), September 23, 1999.

Right on, George.

(Am I allowed to say right on to something like this?)

-- Lane Core Jr. (elcore@sgi.net), September 23, 1999.

George,

A most predictable and retreating stance. Nothing will happen of social signifigance - no starving and dead in the streets, no loss of power, water, or electricity - only the 'hidden' and 'conspiratorial' failures that some have 'under-estimated' the government-media- industry coalition's ability to 'hide.'

Personally, I applaud your effort. Doomers need some way to save face after the months of unrelenting tomes you must have thrust upon your friends, family, and co-workers. Remember, however, that when nothing happens (viz. when your predictions fail), they (your friends, family, and co-workers) will henceforth consider everything you say with an extra pause. That half-second look will communicate volumes, as they recall your dire predictions regarding Y2K, and how wrong you were.

So, continue, please. Set the stage for 'massive media cover-up,' or some such drivel...continue twisting the facts into whatever meme you can coerce them. Please. And hurry, time is running out.

Regards,
Andy Ray

-- Andy Ray (andyman633@hotmail.com), September 23, 1999.

Here we go again. The doomers looking for a way out. NOTHING, I repeat NOTHING yet has come of any of the so-called Y2K preludes. Jan. 1, 1999, March 1, 1999, April 1, 1999, GPS rollover, 9-9-99.

The only thing I'm going to start preparing for is life as usual. Our power company here said they have completed testing and everything worked. NO Problems. My bank said the same thing. I'm looking forward to making big bucks in the stock market.

Doomers, try smiling and thinking positive for once in your miserable lives.

-- (sickofthis@crap.com), September 23, 1999.

Personally, I don't worry too much about what andy ray and the other smug and ignorant pollys say or think. They'll all be dead in another six months anyway.

-- cody (cody@y2ksurvive.com), September 23, 1999.

dear sick,

then simply quit wasting your time here you moronic twit.

lovingly yours.

corrine

-- corrine l (corrine@iwaynet.net), September 23, 1999.

George,

Are you the same George Valentine who in mid-1998 repeatedly assured me that the government would have declared nationwide martial law on or before July 4, 1999?

-- Paul Neuhardt (neuhardt@ultranet.com), September 23, 1999.

Doomers, try smiling and thinking positive for once in your miserable lives.

The knowledge that you will be dead soon makes us smile and think very positively.

-- (rodan@melkor.org), September 23, 1999.

Excerpts from 9/19/99 Boston Sunday Globe article: "Year 2000/With 103 days ot go, many are not ready"

Speaking of the recently released Navy Ware College report, "For example, rather than view potential Y2K problems as a single incident that will happen on New Year's Day or thereabouts, they believe a more likely scenario is one of gradually unfolding consequences and aftershocks that could propagate into 2001 or 2002."

More likely the pollys will do what they have always done, to claim that any possible disruption is a result of reasons totally non-y2k- related. Indeed, I fully expect my DWGI acquaintenances to entirely deny any relationship of Y2K to any impact on their quality of life or lifestyle next year. Cognitive dissonance.

-- Brooks (brooksbie@hotmail.com), September 23, 1999.

I smile when I visualize the new category in my newspaper's classified section "Pollies trying to liquidate stuff at 1/2 price"...

-- lisa (lisa@work.now), September 23, 1999.

More likely the pollys will do what they have always done, to claim that any possible disruption is a result of reasons totally non- y2k- related.

You are wrong. Pollys will die. This is not something they have always done.

Indeed, I fully expect my DWGI acquaintenances to entirely deny any relationship of Y2K to any impact on their quality of life or lifestyle next year.

You should expect that your DWGI acquaintences will die also. Get used to the idea, it will make things easier.

-- (its@coming.soon), September 23, 1999.

George,

A most predictable and retreating stance.... Regards, Andy Ray _______________________________________________________________

Well, Andy, I see that your reading comprehension is not up to snuff. My statements are in no way a retreat. Merely another in a short series of forcasts of what I expect to happen. In the original post I was considering only the effects of failed supply chains and creeping data corruption. I think both of these are likely effects, but I do not, and never have, contended that they would be the only effects. For example, I expect the misfunction of certain embedded process controllers to precipitate local catastrophe that will, in turn, engender more widespread woe.

George

-- George Valentine (GeorgeValentine@usa.net), September 23, 1999.

George, Are you the same George Valentine who in mid-1998 repeatedly assured me that the government would have declared nationwide martial law on or before July 4, 1999?

-- Paul Neuhardt (neuhardt@ultranet.com), September 23, 1999.

Yes. I was wrong about that. I still believe that I am wrong only about the timing, not about the event, but that remains to be seen. I still believe that Bill Clinton wants to be President-for-Life Clinton and that he wants to use the wealth of the united States to create a global government of which he will be a high-ranking member, perhaps its first emperor.

George

-- George Valentine (GeorgeValentine@usa.net), September 23, 1999.

Rodan,

I won't be dead. You will be dead from eating tainted food from your pantry, crawling with bugs. Watch out for those exploding bean cans.

bwaaaaaaaaaaa hahahaha bwa hahahahahahaha

-- (sickofthis@crap.com), September 23, 1999.

sickofthis@crap.com opined:

>> I'm looking forward to making big bucks in the stock market. <<

I see. Another ardent believer in the bigger-fool theory of investment.

Once upon a time, investors in equities looked to dividends as a return on their investment. A check would arrive in the mail from the company you owned stock in, that could cash and spend. Nowadays, modern investors are content with no dividends and no profits from their stock, until the day comes when they find that bigger fool to buy their shares for a higher price than they paid.

The bigger fool then sits around cheerfully holding his sterile stock certificates, assuming the next fool to come down the road will be a bigger fool than he was, and consequently pay still more for the same shares that pay nothing in dividends. He may wait a very long time.

-- Brian McLaughlin (brianm@ims.com), September 23, 1999.

Will pollies BE gleeful in January? You bet! They'll be crowing early in the morning of 1/1/2000, just like all the newspapers carried headlines and story titles of "no problem for 9/9/99" on the MORNING of 9/9/99. Never mind that a "9's" error probably wouldn't show until batch processing the following night.

On 1/1/2000 we can expect to see the headlines that are even now being crafted, just like the "Dewey Beats Truman" headlines, all ready to print because everyone knows it's a foregone conclusion. And the few things that blow on 1/1/2000 will be terrorist problems, or something like that. And after a few days the computer problems will no longer be spinnable, and then the reality starts to sink in ...

Mara, I agree. The best outcome is a soft landing, where problems arise slowly and we can adjust as we go. The worst is where the lights go out and everyone goes nuts. If the power stays on, we'll survive, more or less.

Oh, and BTW, pollies, you're right, we change our predictions as we go. That's because (stop me if you've heard this before) we've never done this before.

Remember the streamlined rockets in the early 60's films, and the autogyros everone was going to commute on, and the wheel-shaped space station we were going to have by now? Easy to laugh at all of them, but we DO have the rockets (we just found you don't need them streamlined in space), and some DO commute by plane (but not autogyro), and we HAVE built a space station (but it didn't have to be a wheel). Forecasting is inexact, to say the least.

I'll take a missed detail by Cory or a valid social observation by Taz any day, over the increasingly frantic and plaintive "you're WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG" by a polly. We are entering a forest of scary possibilities, and pollies are gnats. Forget 'em.

-- bw (home@puget.sound), September 23, 1999.

Paul, You're right that the Great Depression's worst part was not in 1929. Unfortunately, though, the worst part of the depression wasn't until 1938, and there wasn't a great deal of hope that it was going to very soon after that. The single event that pulled the U.S. out of the Depression was the beginning of WWII. Not a very comforting thought. The newest releases from the Senate Y2K sub-committee are out now, and the pollies are strangely quiet since the release. Have Flint and the others gone out for, perhaps, an extended shopping trip? The writing is on the wall. Get beans.

-- Ann M. (hismckids@aol.com), September 23, 1999.

Please do not take this in the wrong manner, but according to you doomer jackasses, I'm supposed to be dead already! Therefore, I suggest that on or about 000101, you find some warm, moist soil and attempt to grow a new purpose in life - as your hopes are dashed by the refusal of the universe to accomodate your pathetic little dreams and meme of outliving the psychologically balanced people surrounding you in your culture.

Regards,
Andy Ray

-- Andy Ray (andyman633@hotmail.com), September 23, 1999.

Maybe take a deep breath and start a new thread, folks.

-- Dan (cubfan@dannonnet.net), September 24, 1999.

Wow,look at that.Andy Ray's getting a bit snippy.That little nagging voice that's usualy drownded out by the screaming din on ego is getting a bit more insistant.We're jackasses for taking personal responsibility and then hanging out at a public forum designed for us?The irony of those like Andy Ray is perversly satisfying.

-- zoobie (zoobiezoob@yahoo.com), September 24, 1999.