People will be over expectant, very little will happen, and the whole thing will be written off as a big hoax, people will laugh. And then, things will get wierd, then wierder, and by March it will be truly screwy as problems accumulate and snowball into serious trouble. The longer term is the real issue.

-- Forrest Covington (theforrest@mindspring.com), December 28, 1999

Answers

Forrest... Why do I believe you are correct?

-- (...@.......), December 28, 1999.

I'm just praying we get through Jan without the high count of deaths due to power loss in the northern cities...let's not get ahead of ourselves. It's just coming up to the plate here.

-- Hokie (nn@va.com), December 28, 1999.

I think we will see quite a few things happen in corporate america that will be significant on Jan 3-4th. This may make people think twice before blowing it off so quickly.

KT

-- K Taylor (KTaylorOre@webtv.net), December 28, 1999.

Hey look.. Jan 1 IS THE DATE!!

For a long time I've heard "1999 is not 2000", etc.. Well, Y2K is not Feburary, or March or June 2000 either.

Jan 1, 2000 IS THE ROLLOVER.

We care about embedded chip issues right? We care about safety concerns, the state of the power grid, the food supply, etc.. right?

I could give a rats a** if a few thousand badly put together application systems fail. If the power is on during the first week, communications are up and there is no major catastrophes the the bankers and corporate america will shovel BILLIONS out to fix whatever problems are left.

I'll be there to scoop up any change these tight wads are willing to throw my way. The blame software engineers when corporations continue to run systems that are 10-20 years old. Their cheapness caused a lot of the problems.

Bryce

-- Bryce (bryce@seanet.com), December 28, 1999.

Someone else,forget who, posted this projection - seems pretty fair to me...

Week 1 Dec 31st-Jan 8th primary embedded failures (some water/sewer, chemical plants, manufacturing) - Unknown level of impact...could be a 1 (unlikely but possible) or a 7-10 (unlikely but possible) figure a general 2-3 in most areas but a 10 in others.

Week 2-14 The unraveling of the economy-JIT failures, processing, accounting glitches. Fuel goes through the roof... rationing is probable. Stock market contracts, puffs then implodes for 2 qtrs. minimum. Longer if fail scenarios in production facilities remain troubled. This will be a 5-9 on the scale. Oil and chemical plants hold the key here. 40% of small businesses have done nothing for y2k. 10% of these will fail outright within 6-12 weeks. 7-26 million will be added to the unemployment rolls by June 2000. Govt. steps in but can't stem the tide. National emergency declared in most states by mid Feb.

Week 15-52 Slow then moderate recovery mixed with new fail scenarios keep anxiety very high. Level drops some to 4-7. Market starts back on recovery but will take yrs to recover fully.

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), December 28, 1999.

Bryce, I hear you about the software engineers. Same goes for the programmers. Personally, I think if the world is anywhere near recognizable a year from now that every New Year's Eve should be celebrated as International Techno-Geek Day in honor of the heroic efforts made by the thousands of unsung in-the-trenches-when-the- blood-was-flowing workers. Thanks, people.

-- Faith Weaver (suzsolutions@yahoo.com), December 28, 1999.