On This Day Pre-Y2K
Confused by any of the jargon you see below? Check the Y2K Glossary!
March 20, 1999 Permalink
Ever wonder how some really stinko movies ever get released?. Often they have big name actors, directors, producers, and maybe even had some positive test-marketing results. The answer, in my opinion, is that the producer was told what he wanted to hear since most of those doing the telling would continue to be paid only if the movie were completed. As far as test-marketing is concerned, the sample size is dictated by budget constraints, and is almost always too small to be significant. Therefore, ANYONE, who attempts to assess the importance of Y2k based on his direct, or even indirect experience, is fooling himself, and bound to get a distorted view.
With regard tio Y2k, you must do your homework by reaching around the globe through the Intenet, for example, to get as much assorted factual information as possible, and from a variety of viewpoints. Maybe after hundreds of hours of study, the real image of the disructive power of Y2k will come into focus.
Then there’s always the bell-curve argument: With millions of companies and governments around the world working diligently on Y2k, how is it that with a mere 9 months left we haven’t seen hundreds of thousands claiming that they are Y2k compliant with emphasis on the full meaning of the word “compliant”? Have we seen even a hundred recognizable companies or governments making such claims?
—Dr. Roger Altman, Time Bomb 2000 Forums (LUSENET), 03/20/99
The Burbank Post office has a countdown clock that reads in huge letters “Time is Running Out!”. It’s advertising their stamps of the century or some such nonsense. It really creeps me out ever time I have to stand in that line.
Just thought I would share. Group hug anyone? :)-
—Splice, comp.software.year-2000, 03/20/99
The problems encircling the Banking System regarding the Y2K crisis sounds much like the proverbial “Were damned if we do and were damned if we don’t”. One of the most valuable lessons my education in economics and finance has taught me, is that economic history has a very consistent habit of repeating itself and that most people have a very consistent habit of not listening.
The only certainty that exist in the Stock Market and our fractional reserve Banking System is that nothing is certain. This is the very foundation and premise on which these system are built. You cannot be certain that the stock market will rise tomorrow or weather it will go down next month. You cannot be certain that interest rates will be increased tomorrow or weather they will be decreased next month. If you or I had any ability to know with absolute certainty when these blessed events were going to occur then we would no doubt be millionaires by now.
It is my opinion, that banking system is at very great risk for default as a result of the “Y2K crisis”. As the general masses acquire a deeper understanding of this, then they will react and do what most any rational person would do. They are going to withdrawal their money and stash it in coffee cans or under their pillows. There will be widespread panic and a massive bank run. When this happens, the money being demanded will greatly exceed the banking systems ability to supply it. Combine this with an already general shortage of the money supply due to a world wide increase in the demand for the U.S. dollars abroad; as a result of global deflation, and this means that in the near future dollar liquidity is going to become even more excessively scarce. Can you spell recession. A collapse in the banking system of this magnitude will have an effect on the worlds market economies similar to that of the post 1930 depression.
—49ers, comp.software.year-2000, 03/20/99
