Here is my prediction for this forum... 10 days after rollover.

On January 10, 2000, we will have survived Y2K. The power, communications and financial services will emerge intact. The media will declare Y2K a nonevent (prematurely). Some optimists will take great delight in taunting the forum regulars. Traffic will remain brisk over the first week, but as we move deeper into 2000, some regulars will drop out of sight. Some pessimists will continue arguing that it will take months for the real effects of Y2K. They will partially right. There will be long-term difficulties, but only enough to tip the economy into a recession just prior to the 2000 elections. For every problem post-rollover, at least one forum poster will blame Y2K. After a few months, the media will begin covering the lingering effects of Y2K. The mainstream view of Y2K will change from "nonevent" to "modest problem." On this forum, both sides will claim "victory." Bitter arguments will rage over who said what in 1999. The pessimists will claim "Pollies" like Flint were wrong... and they will look intently for evidence of a single family who used Y2K supplies... though chances are they will be used in response to a natural disaster, not a Y2K-induced emergency. There will be a relief rally in the U.S. equities market in January, then a long slide. Gold will bounce around, but prices will settle in late winter.

The forum, at Y2K +10 will still be a vigorous place... though testy. After only ten days, the fat lady will not have sung... but the case of Y2K apocalypse will be very difficult to make.

-- Ken Decker (kcdecker@worldnet.att.net), October 24, 1999

Answers

If we are lucky enough to have got by bank runs, infrastructure collapse of international banking, market closures, and electricity still being up...

Look for serious problems to occur downstream of 10 days.

10 days is absolutely ludicrous.

If you think after 10 days, and everything appears to be sorta OK, and you relax your guard, you are a bigger fool than the originator of this post.

Think about it.

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), October 24, 1999.

As a card carrying Y2k prep fiend who would not be surprised to see a "10" I sincerely hope you are right and will be amoung the first to offer you heartfelt congradulations on the accuracy of your foresight. If you are wrong then I will still wish, many times over that you were right.

-- Dolma Lhamo (I'm@nonymous.now), October 24, 1999.

I made a bet with Jeff Donohue on this forum to do something like posting "I am a Dodo" after the first of the year if nothing untoward happens. I intend to honor the bet. If I haven't posted whatever Jeff wanted by 01-10-00, assume I don't have the services necessary to do it.

-- helen (sstaten@fullnet.net), October 24, 1999.

I am a Dodo too! Hey everybody I am a Dodo!!! Everyone who knows me agrees, I am a Dodo!!!!!!

-- Dodo (dodo@dodo.dodo), October 24, 1999.

If you think after 10 days, and everything appears to be sorta OK, and you relax your guard, you are a bigger fool than the originator of this post.

Actually, I think he's a shill, not a fool. But I get your drift anyway. If anyone cares, I think it may be several months before we find out how bad Y2K turns out to be. Although I expect some serious problems to surface fairly soon after rollover, the cascade effects of supply chain failures may take a while to reach full force.

-- Steve Heller (stheller@koyote.com), October 24, 1999.

Ken; I really do pray at night that you are correct. It will be worse than you expect. I sincerely hope it is better than I expect.

-- Michael Erskine (osiris@urbanna.net), October 24, 1999.

I have told everyone I have tried to preach Y2K to, that I would rather spend 2000 apoligizing for frightening them to death than killing them for trying to break into my house. I stood up at a staff meeting at work and promised to buy pizzas and sodas for lunch for everyone on the first Friday in March, if nothing serious happens. By then any trickle-downs would have surly started and a Leap Year bump might have occured.

-- gambler (gambler@dice.veg), October 24, 1999.

Hey Decker, where'd ya get that crystal ball? Did you buy it online? Where can I get one? I certainly hope your scrying capabilities are right on this one. And if they're not?

-- (dot@dot.dot), October 24, 1999.

I see the slogan is changing from "It won't be long now" to something like "It will be long now, but don't give up. It's coming, I promise."

Ken, can you tell us if any current economic models are suitable for factoring y2k out of a recession? In other words, is there some good way to determine to what degree y2k was a contributing factor, and to what degree it would have happened (or been as bad) anyway?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), October 24, 1999.

I hope you are right because it's been a long haul and I'm not up to playing anymore wait and see games after January 1, 2000.

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), October 24, 1999.

If we do not see immediate failures after the rollover, that would be wonderful, and this forum will probably be a great place to exchange info. I would give it one fiscal quarter (thru 3/31/00) before proclaiming an "all clear", as I think that this is a reasonable amount of time to see what shakes out. Even if there are Y2K problems after date, they presumably will be at a frequency level that will not cause things to go down the tubes in one fell swoop.

I predict that if there ARE immediate and obvious major Y2K problems soon after the rollover, the pollies will be nowhere to be found. We saw that last August when Jim Lord's expose of the Navy Report hit and the pollies pulled a disappearing act -- they came back to us ONLY when the Koskinen spin machine was cranked up full force. When spin meets broken code, the latter will win....

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), October 24, 1999.

Doesn't matter if the Iron Triangle holds its own...The Machine will fail in short order without the Post Office. It's the little things that count!

SidelinesAnnie

-- SidelinesAnnie (your email address@xxx.com), October 24, 1999.

I will never understand the mindset that wants to use Y2K as an opportunity to "bet on the horses", whatever they may be and whatever may happen. To try to bait people in s spirited betting one up manship match seems at best insensitive and at worst sick. I'm thinking Decker might be very sick. And, up until this post, I was not a critic (or a fan).

Do you not understand Y2K is not a children's GAME of chance? Do you bet on everything? Let's bet on how many people those firemen can get out of that burning. Gee, let's bet on how many car crashes will happen this evening before midnight in Chicago!

Sick...Sick....Sick...Sick. There, I've said it. Decker is sick to post like this.

-- Leslie (***@***.net), October 24, 1999.

I think you grossly underestimate the effects of our non-compliant oil producing countries on our economy. Just a 10 percent reduction in our supply chain will knock the underpants off our ridiculously dependent country. The economy is going to slide faster than an avalanche.

-- DGBennett (bennett1@peachnet.net), October 24, 1999.

Annie:

Decker did no more than make a prediction. He didn't propose any wagers at all. Look at Steve Heller still predicting that most people will die. Decker has made a very positive prediction, and you find the positive prediction "sick" and the mass death prediction OK?

People are making predictions here all the time, most of them dire. Why do you find a less ominous prediction sick?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), October 24, 1999.

Leslie, Ken the Cockroach double-decker has always been sick and slick.

-- shills (banking@PR.slime), October 24, 1999.

Decker, Decker, Decker. Nothing good on television? It's pretty clear this has been a "waiting" weekend. Maybe we are all bored or, as I posted earlier, feeling 7 months pregnant.

I don't buy Ken Decker's premise. There are too many holes in terms of global implications. I would love to be wrong and will happily eat crow if I am.

However, this earth is not equally prepared for Y2K by any means. We are on a very small planet with issues in shipping, imports/exports, fuel, financial services and on and on.

I am with the growing majority who expect this to last several years in varying degrees of intensity. Remediating code and regression testing is never totally clean. I think we may have a feel for how interesting the times will be by spring, but some people may well be lulled into complacency when things are relatively calm the first few days of January.

-- Nancy (wellsnl@hotmail.com), October 24, 1999.

Hey Deck,

Why is the NIPC estimating (preparing for) 7-10 days of blackouts/brown outs (CONUS), comm. outages and banking failures? Why is their bigger fear, terrorism and, the rest of the world collasping because of Y2K?

Tell us Deck! You, Flint, ALKLLOYD and your ilk, wish to bring everyone else down with you. Deck you (and the rest),smell like egalitarian Jacobinism.

Y'all's motto is "liberty, fraternity, equality or (ALKLLOYD's favorite) or Death!,

Deck cover up, y'all look cold!

Deo Vindicie,

BR

-- brother rat (rldabney@usa.net), October 24, 1999.

I hope the prediction is correct. I have seen evidence to the contrary. And if government is doing the whole 'plausible deniability' thing, I'm immediately suspicious.

The nice thing about linear time is that eventually we'll see. Change happens regardless of human prognostications. Sure wish the endless crystal ball flogging would cease. Boring, boring, boring. "I'm right; NO I'M RIGHT!" Some people's kids. Harumph!

-- Donna (moment@pacbell.net), October 24, 1999.

I'm with you, Donna. I very rarely read these 'this is what will happen' threads, and even more rarely answer them - they're too full of troll and anti-troll, and I just don't have the time. All too soon, we'll find out who's right, and I'll know how far I have to stretch those beans.

-- T the C (tricia_canuck@hotmail.com), October 25, 1999.

Ken

So you are still dazzelling the masses :o)

But I am in the mood to respond tonight.

I think the conserns with the big three have been replaced by the other intangibles. From my point of view the rollover is a crap shoot decided by the effects of the Embedded chips. NO ONE will be able to tell the effects of them. But the problem should be localized around the start of the year.

Therefore it the oil refineries, chemical plants, waste - water systems, health, ports, shipping, bio labs (watch out folks, these are in universities and hospitals) and what ever else has chips in it works, then it is an IT problem which would be non life threatening but economicly relevent. Those effects may not be felt right away but will be accumulated (death by a thousand paper cuts).

The above is after almost 2 years of looking at it. We are now dealing with the short hairs. It is not dealing with the known that is the problem it is dealing with the unknown. And you and I can't guess the effects.

As for the forum, I hope it evolves into something beyond what it is. Right now my purpose has been achieved. Alot of information if it threatens life in my region has been forwarded to the appropriate folks and has been acted upon. And for all the forum members that have posted information, thank you.

It is now a waiting game. Personally it is hard to give "new" information anymore. Except recommending folks to stay warm (my bias). The die has been cast and seeds of the past will bear fruit or weeds in the future. But one thing is sure, the efforts of individuals is past, to much momentum to change things now. And after the US Thanksgiving not much of anything will help, dammed if you do and dammed if you don't.

So sorry about my spelling and syntax but there is my 2 bits.

Know your destiny by the rollover.

-- Brian (imager@home.com), October 25, 1999.

Hello Mr. Decker,

You may be right, I've gone back and forth on this. After a career in software engineering, I still can't get a handle on how bad this could be.

That concerns me. It concerned me enough to get prepared, get some range time in, etc..

If the power is up within a few days after rollover, everything else can be fixed. Banks, the govt. etc can throw around BILLIONS to fix just about anything.

I don't believe in the 'latent effect' theory. If communications, and power stay up during the rollover. I believe we will fix all critical systems very quickly. We will probably make money at it as well.

There is a real chance that there could be widespread power outages though. In the puget sound, 800,000 people lost power when it snowed about 14 inches (very minor to what I grew up with in the midwest).

Basically our power is stringed along a network that has been demonstrated to be weak.

I'll err on the side of caution..

Bryce

-- Bryce (bryce@nospam.com), October 25, 1999.

Well, thanks for the interesting comments. As Flint noted, this was not a wager... just a prediction. In response to Flint's question, the Y2K model is not appropriate for normal econometric modeling. I have heard the folks at NSA can model economic impacts of "unusual" events, but no one can "confirm or deny" this capability. (laughter)

While my post generated some anger, please note that my view is far more pessimistic than mainstream America. I'll do a post on the latest issue of Kiplinger's today. Have any of the serious pessimists wondered why we are in late October... and there are only a handful of people panicked by Y2K? Oh, I know I'll get the usual "sheeple" comments, but really, folks.... Do you honestly believe only a tiny number of people have "figured out" the problem? Or do you think there's a huge conspiracy of people who really are in a position to know? If you favor the conspiracy angle, why hasn't someone broken ranks and gone public?

-- Ken Decker (kcdecker@worldnet.att.net), October 25, 1999.

They are not panicked DDecker because America has been dumbed down by the likes of you and your employers.

Enjoy the 13 pieces while you can, shill.

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), October 25, 1999.

Sorry, Mr. Decker, but bad computer code does not care what people think. What will happen will happen.

Let us recall that in the early days of Hitler's reign in Germany, a minority of people did indeed "figure out" that things could get very nasty -- particularly for Jews. A few, a very few, left Germany and escaped. I don't know if anyone has ever done a breakdown of what their occupational backgrounds were, but I suspect they were probably not bankers, politicians, nor economists. I would suspect they were just people who could add two plus two and get four, and then act on it.

67 days.

Y2K CANNOT BE FIXED!

-- Jack (jsprat@eld.~net), October 25, 1999.

Overlooking the usual patronizing asides in the main post, this is certainly a plausible possibility -- Yardeni delayed (as I recall, Yardeni expects a sharp, immediate recession beginning 1Q).

I don't have any problem admitting I have been continually surprised by the muted public reaction to Y2K impact potential, even given the PR. I would LIKE to believe it reflected a kind of mass "knowing". I believe it reflects gross ignorance about software.

That said, a surprising and, to me, disappointing number of public statements in the current time time frame are still being made BY government, corporations, etc, and lend ample fuel to a wide range of possibilities, including, still, TEOTWAWKI (cf "Herstatt").

Also, while I am more optimistic about core infrastructure, everything remains, as it has been from the start, self-reported and highly spun (and the content of the "spin" was pre-determined from the beginning). I don't EXPECT power to go out for 30 days, say. Yet, if it did, I wouldn't be "surprised".

While I have never doubted Decker's ongoing argument that we have a system that runs pretty darn well based on self-interest, Y2K, IMO, provides a troubling case where Flint's "deliberate misleading" AND market-driven short-term "self-interest" may be coinciding disastrously. I don't find the argument that legal disaster awaits everyone if they "lied" terribly persuasive.

If Decker's prediction comes true, I suspect Y2K and "normal" end-of- biz-cycle factors will each play a supporting role. It will be impossible to disentangle them and I'll be glad to say so on this forum.

This said, and agreeing that Decker is a doomer with respect to the mainstream, this isn't a terribly difficult prediction to make.

I still believe we're looking at a situation which will be markedly more serious, with greater numbers of breakdowns early, a "relief market and PR rally", followed by years of recovery.

I much prefer Decker's prediction to mine. I like "BITR" even better. Someone wake me, my wife, children and community when it's over, please.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), October 25, 1999.

Hey, weasel boy, how's prudent bear today? Ah, $4.56... and Tice is still enjoying 2.6% of your money? (laughter) You'd better hope for a disaster, or a relief rally in January will knock the price down, down, down....

-- Ken Decker (kcdecker@worldnet.att.net), October 25, 1999.

We may not know how serious y2k is until companies begin to report their first quarter earnings, or to pre-announce. If they are having problems at that time, that will not be able to cover it up any longer without serious legal consequences.

-- Danny (dcox@ix.netcom.com), October 25, 1999.

The problem with Ken has always been that he doesn't have kids.

I wish he'd get somebody pregnant.... then report back.

-- lisa (lisa@work.now), October 25, 1999.

Lisa,

I love how you are "killing" me with "kindess." What does your version of hatred look like? For the record, you have no idea what my family status is. Furthermore, you have no idea what I have (or have not) done on behalf of children.

From my perspective, having a child does not necessarily make someone more wise or compassionate. I've seen enough children who have been abused by their parents to draw that conclusion. Having children does not make one more responsible, logical or intuitive. It does not give one any special insight into the economic ramification of Y2K problems. In short, Lisa, it is one of your two-sentence straw man arguments. Let's try to argue the facts... not the person.

-- Ken Decker (kcdecker@worldnet.att.net), October 25, 1999.

Ken, I am shocked that you have stooped to the level of name calling -- calling people "weasel boy" does not do much for constructive communications.

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), October 25, 1999.

Gosh, Spain, if only I could learn to be as respectful as you... inviting any poster with a female handle to mud wrestle. I'm just not sure I could post like you... continually adding absolutely nothing to the discourse.

-- Ken Decker (kcdecker@worldnet.att.net), October 25, 1999.

This forum K2k +10? My prediction is that it will have been locked tightly into private via password-protected mode for 9.5 days by then.

-- CD (not@here.com), October 25, 1999.

Ken, I am shocked that you have stooped to the level of name calling -- calling people "weasel boy" does not do much for constructive communications.

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), October 25, 1999.

LOL!! What about "scum-face piss-ants" and "Pieces of frigging crap?"

But no, it does not really work that way. Because those pollies are nothing but scum-face piss-ants that only post on a Y2K forum because they know damn well that Y2K is a lot more than a bumpo. So, to try to make themselves feel better about not preparing, they try to discourage YOU from doing so. Pieces of frigging crap, every one of them.

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), October 25, 1999.

LOL LOL!!!

-- (LOL@LOL.LOL), October 25, 1999.

Ken, that was not a slight, it was an observation, and I'm pretty sure 99% of doomer parents here are nodding along with me.

It does make one more protective, though.

-- lisa (lisa@work.now), October 25, 1999.

OK, so I hadn't had my coffee yet! (Gawd.)

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), October 25, 1999.

LOL,

KOS is allowed his 'poopy' days...doubtless everybody gets a case of 'the ass' somedays and verbally beats on someone...

Ken, for once I totally hope that I can say you are dead on this prediction, and hopefully this is the way things go. The biggest problem is that when people have no real idea as to what is going to happen, they (as a group) tend to ignore what -may- happen. Many times people posting against you have used the metaphore of the Jews in 1938-40 in Poland. This isn't quite the one I would use, but for the most part it is a correct comparision. The reason we, as a nation, have not seen an enormous rush to prepare is the fact that there are so many unknowns involved. A hurricaine, blizzard, hell, even a tornado can be expected, predicted and even (roughly) planned for. This Y2K shindig is the X quantity in modern society. We as a species have evolved to the point where EVERYTHING is quantitfied, calibrated, and classified. Hopefully more folks will sit up and pay attention to this as the days roll by. This is truly an event, be it good or bad, the 'Odometer of Humanity' is rolling over again.

67 an' countin'

-- Billy Boy (Rakkasan@Yahoo.com), October 25, 1999.

As I have stated OVER and OVER again...

I PREPARE FOR ANY TYPE OF ADVERSITY! Y2K is just another in a long list of possible disasters. You think you shouldn't prepare, just because you believe Y2K is no big deal? What about earthquakes,storms, hurricanes, tornados...etc??

Oh wait..I already know your answer.. "That will never happen to me"

-- Cory Hill (coryh@strategic-services.net), October 26, 1999.