I just want to know why people think that Dr. North made any money off this Y2k thing...as far as I know, he has never sold anything related to this and has never said that anything will DEFINITELY happen(though he was persuasive,but left you with only to make the decisions). He repeats on his site...no one knows and are you willing to take the chance given the facts....Though it is definitely not over, though I think the worst in unlikely by now(and I am relieved!). Yes, a lot of people DID make a barrel of money.Mr. North certainly has a lot of "intestinal fortitude" to come out with the facts and did so at least a year before most of the mainstream media even uttered a word about this. And, yes, he was right about there being problems. Many companies spent a lot of money on the y2k bug, so this was not a non problem with no evidence to support possibilities cited on his site. Time will definitely tell. Thanks and I would like to hear from anyone that knows of a way that North has made maney from this(and not just spent money and time o upkeep the site,etc.)

-- K (eskola@usit.net), January 02, 2000

Answers

North got a lot of money in speaking fees, talking to local community groups, churches, He also these events and his website to push his books and his newsletters.

-- Alice in Wonderbra (downther@bbithole.com), January 02, 2000.

Right -- Pareto's Law...in any system the great majority lead and the rest follow. The follower's leap to the indications of the leaders with a lack of understanding and wisdom. Thinking for yourself after listening to evidence and theories of Gary and others is a practice relagated to the few. Garies insights were rational and if anyone really paid attention they would know that the risk doesn't end until weell into Jan., at least. And, you always plan for the contingencies either way.

Wave

-- Wave (eades1@flashcom.net), January 02, 2000.

Hey K --- sorry to remain anon...

I read a lot of the postings on Gary's site...

He is very systematic, very persuasive, and very intellegent...

I also paid his company about $300 for subcription to Remnant Review which had at least 20,000 subcribers so you can figure that he gets about $1.5-2.0 million per year for that (take away printing and mailing costs and staff, and he is still at least at $500,000.)

To tell you the truth, I think that his publisher Agora, Inc. uses too much junk mail...I was very embarrased when I gave a senior friend of mine a small book from Agora, this friend suscribed to one newsletter and then got immense amounts of mail.

Gary certainly gets some kickbacks through all of that..

But we should say....he made all the info on his site for free....he almost never tried to steer readers to specific products....

Gary is a bit off the deep end...but he taught me a lot....because of this whole story I have gravitated to a lifestyle with a lot more self sufficient options...

Now, for as long as we live in this lovely home in a small town, I never need worry about hard times...we will always be able to fall back on garden, well, septic, woodstove, etc....

-- stocked up too (north@follower.net), January 02, 2000.

North made very large coin selling food...time to eat it!

-- Look (at@the.facts), January 02, 2000.

I bought one of North's penis pumps. Works great, even after the rollover.

-- Bob Hauk (truebeliever@netscape.org), January 02, 2000.

North writes two newsletters. One is an audio newsletter called "FIRESTORM CHATS", and is published monthly by a guy named Bruce Tippery. The other is a printed newsletter, called "REMNANT REVIEW". It is also published monthly, by Agora Publishing in Baltimore MD. FC sells for $99 a year. RR sells for $199 a year, although it's usually discounted to $129. I used to get 2 or 3 magazine type ads every month for RR, until quite recently, and they were all about Y2K and TEOTWAKI--they went far beyond " there being a problem", as you so delicately state it. The world as we knew it was coming to an end, and there was no way to prepare unless you had the info he was providing every month. North, Hyatt, Lord, and Yourdon, and McAlvaney are all FRAUDS-and no amount of backpedaling now will change that. They all made HUGE AMOUNTS OF MONEY scaring the crap out of people. You tell me-if North didn't make a lot of money on this, then how was he able to spend TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS A MONTH ON PREPS, as he once admitted? And if these newletter ads weren't bringing in subscriptions, then why did he mail out TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND of them a month , month after month, which he also bragged about in an email to a guy named Charles Reuben? Wake up and smell the filthy lucre!!

-- Forget It (computergeek75@hotmail.com), January 02, 2000.

Hmmmm...generally penis size is inversely proportional to intelligence -- the exception that proves the rule

Wave

-- Wave (eades1@flashcom.net), January 02, 2000.

Whatever.

I'm more interested in North Sails. Anyone know if I should get the carbon fiber or Kevlar spinnakers for my Beneteau Oceanis 44?

-- Truk (truk@loa.moc), January 02, 2000.

All businesses make money scaring the crap out of people -- marketing is about making people terrified not to have it. But that doesn't mean the product is without economic value. Think for yourself.

Wave

-- Wave (eades1@flashcom.net), January 02, 2000.

Wave-you're an idiot, who will say anything, no matter how outrageous, rather than admit these guys are frauds who bamboozled you.

-- Forget It (computergeek75@hotmail.com), January 02, 2000.

Wave, I totally agree. God bless America. God bless consumerism. God bless marketing.

-- Bob Hauk (truebeliever@netscape.org), January 02, 2000.

and who sent him a buck that he requested?

-- Jim Bob (vibratomachina@aol.com), January 02, 2000.

Forget it,

I didn't buy an extra can of soup. I reasoned that there was never a significant risk to infrastructure or high profile systems. And by the way, I have spent the last 15 years making 250K plus ave SELLING and managing software sales(you know that high tech stuff that has blown the market to unprecednted highs which you have probably bought). And, there is still a sinificant risk to IBM OS/390 MF systems...see my previous post "Look for where the problems probably are..."

Wave

-- Wave (eades1@flashcom.net), January 02, 2000.

How come you people aren't raking Larry Flint of Hustler magazine over the coals for his entrepreneural spirit? What's the difference between him and Yourdon, Lord, North, etc.? Hell, Larry Flint is willing to pay women $1,000,000 if they can prove that they had sex with any high ranking political official. News and information sells and what you do with the information is your business, but don't go whining about the millions people make off if it. Turn your TV off too, those commercials are brain washing you.

-- ~~~~~ (~~~~@~~~.xcom), January 02, 2000.

At 12 midnight on January 1, 2000 (a Saturday morning), most of the world's mainframe computers will either shut down or begin spewing out bad data. Most of the world's desktop computers will also start spewing out bad data. Tens of millions -- possibly hundreds of millions -- of pre-programmed computer chips will begin to shut down the systems they automatically control. This will create a nightmare for every area of life, in every region of the industrialized world." --Dr. Gary North

K---do you stand by your statement "as far as I know, he has never sold anything related to this and has never said that anything will DEFINITELY happen(though he was persuasive,but left you with only to make the decisions)."? This sounds pretty freaking definite to me.

-- Forget It (computergeek75@hotmail.com), January 02, 2000.

Kevlar. When carbon fiber frays or breaks, the spikey fibers sticking out of the fray can go through your hand like a hot knife through butter. They don't do much damage, being so tiny, but they hurt like hell.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), January 02, 2000.

Forget it,

It's an opinnion, a theory an hypothesis abd lifted out of context to boot. It's up to you to decide how to use it or not. What are you trying to accomplish?

Wave

-- Wave (eades1@flashcom.net), January 02, 2000.

The whole enchilada-"long before January 1, 2000 the world's stock markets will have crashed". Yeah, nothing definite here, K.

Gary North's Y2K Links and Forums

Summary and Comments (feel free to mail this page)

---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- Category: Introduction Date: 1999-10-20 12:08:59 Subject: My Original Home Page Comment: I removed this page on October 20, 1999. It was on-line with only a few updates for almost three years. But the deadline is ten weeks away. It was time to update it.

I figured I should not drop it down the memory hole. So, for the historical record, here it is.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

We've got a problem. It may be the biggest problem that the modern world has ever faced. I think it is. At 12 midnight on January 1, 2000 (a Saturday morning), most of the world's mainframe computers will either shut down or begin spewing out bad data. Most of the world's desktop computers will also start spewing out bad data. Tens of millions -- possibly hundreds of millions -- of pre-programmed computer chips will begin to shut down the systems they automatically control. This will create a nightmare for every area of life, in every region of the industrialized world.

It's called the year 2000 problem. It's also called the millennium bug, y2k, and (misspelled), the millenium time bomb. Millennium or millenium: it doesn't matter how we spell it; this bomb isn't going away.

Think of what happens if the following areas go down and stay down for months or even years: banks, railroads, public utilities, telephone lines, military communications, and financial markets. What about Social Security and Medicare? If Social Security and Medicare go down, it will affect millions of people. Yet both programs are at risk.

Is this possible? It's far more than merely possible. One man who thinks that disruptions are likely is Ed Yourdon, one of America's senior mainframe computer programmers, author of two dozen books on programming. He and his daughter have written a book, TIME BOMB 2000. You can read the Preface by clicking the link I've provided under the category, "Domino Effect." See the document, Yourdon on the Domino Effect. I have also posted extracts from a key article he wrote in the summer of 1997. See the Categories "Domino Effect" and "Programmers' Views." Look for the key word, "Yourdon." You may not believe my scenario. You had better take Yourdon's scenario very seriously. In the Category "Programmers' Views," he warns programmers that it may soon be time to quit their big city jobs and head for safer places. See the posting: Yourdon: Should Programmers Quit and Leave Town in 1999? If they do, there will be no solution for y2k. Will they quit? I'm betting my life on it. The exodus of programmers will begin no later than 1999.

Months before January 1, 2000, the world's stock markets will have crashed. Who is going to leave his money in his bank if he thinks his bank's computer is not reliable? A worldwide run on the banks will create havoc in the investment markets. People who have placed their retirement hopes in stocks and mutual funds will see their dreams vanish. How reliable will stocks and mutual funds be if the banking system has closed down? How will you even get paid? How will your employer get paid? How will governments get paid?

By the way, no government tax collection agency above the county level is Year 2000-compliant today. People will know in 2000 that the government cannot trace them. Will they continue to pay, especially if the huge government welfare programs for the elderly have shut down?

But if governments don't get paid, what happens to government debt markets? How high will interest rates go in 1999 if investors think that governments will default in 2000? What will high rates do to the world's economy?

Everything is tied together by computers. If the computers go down or can no longer be trusted, everything falls apart. And it matters not a whit to the computers whether we accept this fact or not. They do what they've been programmed to do. They've been programmed to recognize 2000 as 1900. (Uncorrected PC architecture DOS and Windows- based desktop computers will revert back either to 1980 or 1984. They can be corrected briefly, but as soon as a PC is turned off, the correction dies. It will reboot to 1980 or 1984. Meanwhile, PC programs must be redesigned.)

Our first response when we hear this news is denial. Most people will stay in denial, including the business managers whose companies are totally vulnerable to a computer failure. This is why the problem will not be fixed. Everyone in authority will deny that time has run out to get this fixed, right up until December 31, 1999. They are paid to deny this. I'm saying that it's over. Right now. It cannot be fixed. Whatever it does, the Millennium Bug will bite us. How hard? There the debate begins.

Read the list of vulnerable systems that was posted by the Institution of Electrical Engineers. It's under "Noncompliant Chips": If These Systems Are at Risk, Everything Is at Risk. Anyone who says that y2k is not a big problem needs to understand just how many systems are at risk. Print out this list and hand it to the skeptic. Let him see for himself.

I don't expect you to believe me . . . yet. That is why I have created this site. On this site you will find links to other Web sites that have posted documents related to the Year 2000 Problem. Included are such things as military sites, government hearings, news releases, and much more. I also include comments with each document, so that you can understand why I think it's important.

Despite its 3,500+ entries, the goal of this site is not to bury you in information. Rather, it is to give you a sense of the magnitude of the problem. The domino effect of a computer-driven breakdown in supply delivery systems, including the means of payment (banks), will be huge. This site will help you to evaluate your own personal vulnerability.

I have many critics who believe that my scenario is too apocalyptic. You must decide for yourself. This Web site is designed to provide you with relevant evidence to help you make an informed opinion, and then a principled series of decisions.

If you have practical questions -- where to go, what to buy, etc. -- ask them on one or more of the discussion forums. That is why I have created them.

When you hear good news about some organization that is y2k- compliant, recall Ronald Reagan's statement with respect to disarmament treaties: "Trust, but verify." Get a signed letter on letterhead stationery that the organization is 100% compliant. Until you receive this form of written assurance, which the outfit's lawyers have cleared, assume the worst. Don't take seriously any promise that the outfit will be compliant RSN: Real Soon Now.

Note: If my critics want to create their own Web sites filled with "it's not going to be all that bad" evidence, they may do so. I am unaware of any such site on the Web today.

I am also unaware of any y2k programmer who says, "Even if programmers don't get this fixed, there will not be big problems." The debate is over two questions: (1) "Can the programmers get this fixed in time?" and (2) "How big will our problems be if they don't?" My answers: "no" and "catastrophic." You'll have to decide for yourself, either now or later.

U.S. goverment leaders and other experts have now confirmed the threat of the Millennium Bug. To see what they have said publicly, click here.

One last warning: the governments' strategy, all over the world, is: (1) talk this problem to death, (2) form committees, and (3) send out PR sheets that they will make it -- without evidence. But this problem cannot be talked to death or solved by committees. It cannot be avoided. There is an absolutely fixed deadline. Bureaucrats are not used to absolutely fixed deadlines. Neither are computer programmers.

I'm not a programmer. My Ph.D. is in history. I take the historian's view: things are interconnected in ways we can barely understand. If you want to know what I think lies ahead, get copies of the three books that I mention in my free e-mail report, "Blind Man's Bluff in the Year 2000."

"Blind Man's Bluff in the Year 2000" is ideal for introducing the problem to wives, in-laws, and other skeptics. You can receive a copy in a few minutes.

---------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------

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-- Forget It (computergeek75@hotmail.com), January 03, 2000.

Wave,

Please explain how I missed the hypothetical part. And how was it taken out of context? There were no "maybe"s, "possibly"s or anything else in that quote- which is in no way out of context.

-- Forget It (computergeek75@hotmail.com), January 03, 2000.

I know that some of ya'll are pitching a "hissy fit" about Gary North. Some of y'all need direction and relief. Here it is! Keep eating those leeks and garlic. (look it up, as I'am sure most of y'all dont GET IT!) Keep eating/viewing that MTV. Y'all missed Brigadoon this CDC, but maybe, some of you will live long enough to meet Cherri the next CDC. (one can only hope!) Iam sure she does!

Deo Vindicie!, Solo Christus!,

BR

-- brother rat (rldabney@usa.net), January 03, 2000.

Wave, how is it that you know so much about penis size?

Regarding GNs wealth and its source, I claim no knowledge. But many of his actions and recommendations (like leave the city) were something that most people could not afford.

-- (ruminating@remnant.review), January 03, 2000.