On This Day Pre-Y2K
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May 6, 1999 Permalink
The reason for the guessing about the outcome of Y2K is so we can answer the question, prepare for what and how much?
One year ago my opinion (guess) was that the electricity was going to go down big time. The first two NERC reports didn’t help with all the weasel words etc. Recently my own sources about individual turbine “islanding” tests and reports from Hoffmeister on this forum make me much more upbeat. So where as a year ago the idea of no electricity was a given and for quite a while at that, my best guess as of today is that the power will stay up most likely and if it does go down it will probably be back up in 3-6 days. Of course my efforts at being a later day Nostradamus have never been very good, so I’m still hedging my bets with a diesel generator. The possibility that it might go down, whether that is 10% of 90% still morally obligates me to prepare to keep my elderly parents in a nice warm location 1/00.
One the financial side it’s the other direction. I was worried about another round of the Asian Flu spilling over into the US a year ago. With a profound lack of progress over the last year in S. America, Africa, and E. Asia the likelihood of finacial market turmoil is in my opinion (guess) more likely than I thought before. Add to that more outrageous P/E ratios of the internet stocks, plus idiotic op-ed pieces in the WSJ about “new market dynamics” where P/E ratios mean nothing, and labored explanations as why a 20,000 DOW is possible and likely not merely in the coming decades but in the coming year or so (I’m not making this up!) makes me think of tulips or the South Sea (think Lawrence Welk). Than add things like LTCM and the derivatives numbers that are out there and little ol’ risk adverse me doesn’t like the financial weather that might be coming over the horizon.
To recap my long windedness, prepare yes, but to do that you have to know (guess) what to prepare for and how much. I live on a very high hill (140’ above flood level) in Missouri, I am a survivalist but if a hurricane or a flood hits my house I’ll be caught flat footed as the next guy.
—Ken Seger, Time Bomb 2000 Forums (LUSENET), 05/06/99
