The Dow was up 94 points today to 9321 and is 55 points from the all time high. I watch CNBC every morning. You get analysts, CEO's and commentators of every stripe giving their opinion on the financial future for '99. No one and I mean no one mentions the impact of Y2K on the economy in the coming year and even the cost of fixing it are never factored into projections.

Ed would have you believe that this is because they don't know what to figure so it is being ignored. HELLO! HELLO! You there McFly.

The wise guys that move money know everything there is to know about Y2K. They know more than Ed does, they know more than Koskinen and they certainly know more than the loudmouth, windbag, condescending, Holier-than-thou pompous ass morons on this forum. (You know who you are). People on this forum were dancing on tables when the market dipped in August. "Here it comes, it's gonna get worse, yada, yada, yada." NOT!

If anything remotely resembling TAEKWONDO or whatever you call it were at all possible you'd be seeing some serious domino theory in action right about now. The Fortune 1000 would be cutting bait and vendors would be falling by the wayside left and right. The Y2K problem has already been factored in and digested by the financial markets around the world. That's the way things work. The Players have the information and are ahead of the curve on everything. Even this simple computer bug.

Do you think the media would ignore a story like the end of the world? Though the mass media is always behind the curve, Y2K has certainly gotten enough play that if there were any facts at all to back up any sort of Doomsday scenario they would have been uncovered by now. Hey Squire; call your local paper. Tell them what you think, then see how they handle it. Do you think if there were any facts at all to back you up they would ignore your scoop about the end of civilization?

Sorry folks, there may well be worldwide starvation and an end to the world we now know, but this ain't it. BTW don't you think it's just a little bit chauvinistic to think that after man has been here for 3 million years YOUR generation is going to be the one that's around when we have to start over.

I think the legacy of Y2K may be that we have learned that everyone should have a stockpile of the things they think they need. Temporary disruptions in the services we are used to can in fact cause a disproportionate upheaval in our lives. I think this lesson will save countless lives in the future from floods, earthquakes and other natural disasters.

Do you like me this way or when I'm funny? Or do you care?

Have a Nice Day

-- Jimmy Bagga Doughnuts (jim1bets@worldnet.att.net), December 29, 1998

Answers

JBD,

This way is much better. Though our perspectives may be diametricly opposed in dealing with the Y2K problem, I can at least understand your position when reading a post of this nature. Pardon me for not catching the humor in the previous posts.

Bob

-- WAAHOO (bobb@mtjeff.com), December 29, 1998.

1) NOTHING bad will happen before the end of the year (yea, 3 days, but..) because none of the "wise guys who push money around" can afford to have their funds go south. They all need to have the "de jure" stocks in the portfolio for the end of the year.

2) Check out what is driving the DOW up so much. It's TECH and WEB stocks, most of which are (in the WEB cases) backed by AIR!! these stocks are being chased by fund managers who "need to have them" in their protfolios so that the little guys who are trusting them with their retirement money will continue to trust their accumen and continue to add to th emoney they have to move around.

3) There are a lot of positions out there that are being "unwound" under the surface of the Tech Rally now being played out. Check out the actual story on L(ongT(ermC(apitol) and you will find out that the "bailout" was no more than a change iin ownership at the point of a shotgun, and the new owners didn't bring a lot of cahs with them, they just made the margiun calls. If you look hard enough I expect you will find that the LTC positions are NOT unwound, and ANY serious, sustained (1-3 week(s), 15-25%) slump will call for a NEW bailout of LTC and the rest of the bubble-hedge funds. (If you find evidence I'm wrong on the unwinding of the Hedge funds, do NOT hesitate to quote it.)

4) ref TAEKWEONDO errr TEOTWAWKI:

Large companies are getting the same info from the lawyers of their suppliers as we are in the public. My company does a LOT of business with Booz Allen, Anderson Consulting, McKinsey, etc. Anderson sent us a many-paged request for Y2K Compliance info. Since we drive Roadmasters, and could dispatch from a 3X5 card file, we essentially told 'em that as long as we can buy gas and answer the phone, they'll have cars waiting in Cleveland. this is not the case in terms of other companies, whose lawyers have taken the senior executives asside and explained in excruciating detail just what is at stake in telling the truth. this assumes that it's not perfect (ie we are ready completely, our suppliers are all ready and we know that the transportation chain we use is ready). By anouncing that they "expect to be ready but we cannot guarantee continuation of service due to a possible interruption in service from one or more of our suppliers, trading partners" they avoid a lot of messy litigation. they also become inscrutable as to how they are REALLY doing.

Dominoes suggests that there have been atributable interruptioins of service somewhere. Be patient. On monday, the UI depts in 6 oris it 11 or 13 states are going to have to admit they aren't compliant. Being th efirst to say the emperor has no clothes on is always the most difficult. Once these guys admit it, then I would expect others in othyer arenas to come clean on an ACCURATE estimate of where they are.

5) Mass Media:

As we have covered before, the Mass Media has one goal: "Sell advertising". being the first (again) to point out the lack of clothes, and the possible scenarios, just ain't gonna sell papers, air time, or ohter advertising. the only way a Media Darling will come out and cover the possibilities is if there is some other support, and several other Media Darlings out there with their flack jackets on.

And in answer your question, this particular post was a refreshing effort. Please do not stop pushing us to reevaluate our basic assumptions. We may both learn from the effort to marshal information in refutation.

CR

(and yeah, I never met a $4 word I didn't like, from preschool through Clarkson. Fortunately (or unfortunately) I think in 'em)

c

-- Chuck a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), December 29, 1998.

JBD,

a. you're theories concerning major players and y2k having already been factored in are interesting but entirely unproven, and unprovable until after the fact.

b. when were you ever funny?

Arlin Adams

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), December 29, 1998.

Jimmy, those brilliant analysts you cite are the same type of people who said exactly the same things in 1929.

Use your own eyes. Otherwise you'll be like the German guy who drove his car into a river despite warnings, lights and his own eyesight, because the GPS said there was a bridge, not a ferry.

--Leo

-- Leo (leo_champion@hotmail.com), December 29, 1998.

There are a lot of rabbits that can get pulled out of hats when it comes to maintaining The System, and the last couple of decades have seen lots of this to prevent the collapse of the stock market (though 1987 was pretty darn close!), etc. I think that JBD has a point here, there is a lot to this stuff that is hard for people to really grasp, with a lot of variables that Greenspan et al can manipulate so that everything stays on course.

But grasp this, Jimmy: It all depends on computers. Those computers are dead meat on or about January 1, 2000 (with bank runs towards mid-1999 not exactly helping either...). There is no rabbit that is going to get pulled out of any hat that can change that. Its going down, hard, like a powerful TAEKWONDO side-kick into the solar plexus of the world.

-- Jack (jsprat@eld.net), December 29, 1998.

Chuckie "Check out what is driving the DOW up so much. It's TECH and WEB stocks" That's NASDAQ. Why should I beleive anything else you say

I like your LTC point. You almost got me but do you really think LTC worst case scenario would be worse than S&L which we came through smelling like a rose. Took a while though.

TAE KWAN DO joke-get it?

"As we have covered before, the Mass Media has one goal: "Sell advertising"

Replace Mass Media with Eddie; Replace advertising with product

The Unemployment thing was a positive story and you're buying into Eddie's 5000 word spin. What I read is that there is a work-around that works.

"(and yeah, I never met a $4 word I didn't like, from preschool through Clarkson. Fortunately (or unfortunately) I think in 'em)" Yeah well it's unfortunate for everyone else. In my experience you don't have to tell people how smart/good you are. They tell you.

Leo didn't call me a name. bummer I will admit I identify with the German guy who drove into the river. Why I got married.

"But grasp this, Jimmy: It all depends on computers. Those computers are dead meat on or about January 1, 2000."

Ok so the computers are dead meat on '00. Wellll we could grind wheat and lock and load, or we could pitch in and triage that mother right back to filet mignon. The ballpark figures I'm reading say 25% critical systems overall. Not insumountable when you consider there's nothing else to do.

To those of you who said "You're funny?" Pet Day wasn't funny? Fat Guys selling their legs for food wasn't funny. Making INVAR's head explde wasn't funny. Making Import Andys' head explode simultaneously on two threads wasn't funny. I also had a ton of A material one liners

Hope it wasn't lost on you guys you went to this thread because you needed a doughnut. Check the topic

Have a Nice Day

-- Jimmy Bagga Doughnuts (jim1bets@worldnet.att.net), December 29, 1998.

From 1980-1997 the big money guys were the Japanese, where are they now? They may have seen their troubles coming, but no one talked about it. The wave of BKs were the only clues we had of how bad things were in Japan. They had a big pile of chips and now they are gone.

The "Players" lose their chips, too.

Gates and Co. should hedge their bets and diversify. Bill G. just bought a big place in Switzerland, maybe he bought some gold bullion there, too. Buffet had (has?)billions in silver and billions in cash equivilents.

The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

-- Bill (bill@microsoft.com), December 29, 1998.

The following is an email I received from Jimmy Bagga Doughnuts. I choose not to correspond with him by email.

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

Subj: wadda u kare

Date: 12/28/98 5:39:28 AM Eastern Standard Time

From: jim1bets@worldnet.att.net (Jim Meisel)

To: vtoc@aol.com

I'm doing a Crazy Eddie/Fast Eddie schtick. Get it? Crazy Eddie whips people into frenzy and Fast Eddie sells them books and videos and stuff. It's not necessary to get the oblique rererence to the notorious stereo salesman to know who Crazy Eddie is. Everyone has heard of Fast Eddie the pool hustler. This lesson is free but please don't help, I seem to be doing OK on my own.

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

OK Jimmy. No more help from me. You have my word.

MoVe Immediate (who wonders why the phrasing 'wadda u kare' sound familiar?)

-- MVI (vtoc@aol.com), December 29, 1998.

JBD:

Read this here or on c.s.y2k:

http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/business/DailyNews/internetstock981 229.html

Fear of Internet Fever Market Health Questioned as Net Stocks Swell cr

-- Chuck a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), December 30, 1998.

Not to mention this one which I will quote in entirety thanks to Daeron Meyer

*LOL*... the internet stock craze is turning the whole stock market upside down. Welcome to the gambling casino of '99.

Pollyanna: "Problem? I don't see no steenkin' problem. I just opened my Daytek Online account and I'm gonna make a fortune with these USENET stock tips, so don't spoil it doomster!"

This is the economic context of Y2K: -------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.msnbc.com/news/227367.asp Net mania will burn down the Street

Momentum investing in Internet stocks has some shady goings on, but market authorities are just dumbfounded OPINION By Christopher Byron MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR

Dec. 29  There are not many things in this life that an investor in the stock market can be sure about, but this is one of them: a riot has broken out in Internet stocks, and its spreading. Ill get to the particulars of what happened Monday in a minute, but first some thoughts on the wild, free-for-all buying panic that has taken over the sector.

I, AMONG OTHERS, have been writing about the developing speculation in Internet stocks for well over a year now, and in that time we have seen this speculation swell into a bubble and now into a full-bore stampede. It is a riot that neither the Securities & Exchange Commission nor the National Association of Securities Dealers has any idea whatsoever how to quell  and with every day of inaction the riot gets worse.

Stocks that used to take a month to double in price now ouble in a week, a day, even mere minutes. There are so many examples they hardly need citing anymore. Nor do we need bother listening any longer to strained new paradigm rationales for why price-earnings ratios dont matter. We dont even hear anymore talk about price-revenues multiples, and similar nonsense. Now all that one needs to do in order to make a stock take off is to put out a press release announcing plans for a Web site. You dont even need the actual site  just the plan for one will do well enough.

The criminal underworld is now spreading like oil on a mud puddle throughout this whole mess. It is impossible to escape the feeling that crimes like front-running  in which a broker trades for his own account before submitting a customers order that he knows will move the market price of a stock  are now rampant. Yet the scale on which they are taking place is so vast that the cops just seem to stand by dumbfounded.

Examples abound. Every day I talk to market veterans who tell me stories of Wall Street figures who take secret positions in stocks via Canadian and European brokerage accounts, then tout the shares to their acolytes on the Web. Some foreign exchanges seem to have sprung up expressly to court this sort of activity. But no one in a position of authority is doing anything to stop any of it.

In fact, there may well be nothing anyone can do, since the combined buying power of retail investors on the Internet has now engulfed and overwhelmed not just the market policing apparatus of the regulators, but indeed the whole of the stock market itself  in particular the market-making system of Nasdaq, where the riot has reached its most deafening decibel level.

In the process, more than a half a century of scholarship and study into the nature of investment and the theories of financial analysis have been trampled into the dust. Remember the so-called efficient market theory? Its the theory that holds that more or less everything worth knowing about a stock is built into its quoted price in the market  which in turn means, of course, that the best investors are those best able to analyze the known facts. Its the theory that explains, for example, why Warren Buffett is a billionaire whereas Ivan Boesky  who stole information about various stocks and traded on it before the information could be reflected in the market  is now an ex-con living quietly in France.

Yet what is now taking place on the Nasdaq stock market in the name of momentum investing in Internet stocks has thrown the efficient market theory out the top window of a 50-story building. Investors in Internet stocks need know only two things: (1) the stocks ticker symbol, and (2) whether some day-trading guru they follow on the Web says the shares are going up. What the company actually does, doesnt matter. Whether it ever made a dime (or ever will), doesnt matter. All that matters is whether the chat rooms say its going up.

This is a disaster developing right before our eyes  for the markets, for investors, for Wall Street as a whole  and unless it ends soon, it will prove a disaster for the nation. Sadly, I fear that the end is nowhere in sight.

Some of the biggest and best-known firms on Wall Street are in this oily vat up to their necks. Theyve all plotted to game the system. Their favorite strategy: gin up a 2 million share IPO for some juvenile, no-name company, then get a handful of momentum hedge funds to buy the deal at $10 or $15 a share, hold it for an hour or two, then flip it into the grasping, open hands of retail investors on the Web.

If market regulators thus want to do something really useful for their pay, they could subpoena every trading record, memo and document generated by Bear, Stearns & Co. and its momentum-fund clients in theGlobe.com IPO from Nov. 13th and ask some tough, no-excuses questions as to how that smelly deal was priced by Bear at $9 when everyone involved knew the stocks first after-market trade would probably be north of $50. Within minutes after that, the shares were at $97! Shame on them. MONDAYS MADNESS

As for what happened on Monday, well, theres plenty the market cops could look into there too if they only would. I personally think theyre too shell-shocked even to try. A week before Christmas, I spoke to an SEC investigator about the most recent Outrage of the Week  evident games-playing in the shares of a Web-site operator named Tel-Com Wireless Cable  and he said that getting to the bottom of it would probably be too hard: foreign brokerage accounts, and that sort of thing.

So I doubt anyone at the SEC or Nasdaq or anywhere else will be rushing to ask why it was that an obscure Nasdaq SmallCap stock named 800 Travel Systems Inc. (IFLY) sold for $6.75 last Wednesday yet by 4 p.m. Monday was selling for $16.12. This company, which went public last spring at around $5 per share, quickly sank to barely $1 in the after-market, and was still selling for barely $4 as recently as Thanksgiving week. Then came Monday when, for no apparent reason, the stock nearly tripled in a day, on roughly 70 times normal volume.

Why? One good place to start looking for answers would be the co-underwriter of the companys IPO: First Liberty Investment Group Inc. The SEC investigated an employee and a consultant of the firm, a microcap underwriter, as part of a 1997 probe of penny stock swindles. If that avenue leads nowhere, then investigators might ask questions of at least one IFLY board member: Pasquale Guadagno. Guadagno may be pure as the driven snow in all this, and no evidence is known to suggest otherwise. But he might have some helpful suggestions for investigators since prior to joining IFLYs board he served as a senior vice president of a now-defunct Boca Raton swindle-shop, Euro-Atlantic Securities, that was expelled from the National Association of Securities Dealers for market manipulation and deceptive sales practices. Maybe Pasquale has some thoughts on how IFLY got from $6.50 to $16.12 in a day.

Heres another company the feds might take a look at: Active Apparel Group Inc., a direct mail retailer of sports fashions for women. Between the start of the year and Christmas Eve, this stock sank from $3.50 to $1.25 per share. Then, on Monday morning at 7 a.m. ET  two and one-half hours before the start of trading  the company put out a press release announcing that it would begin selling its wares over the Web. By noon the stock was selling for $15.

It would be interesting to know if anyone associated with the company  or who knew of the pending press announcement  was among those who bought stock the previous week, when an average of about 30,000 shares per day changed hands. On Monday an unbelievable 15 million shares were traded  i.e., 500 times normal volume.

The feds might also take a look at the trading in a company called SkyMall Inc., another $2-plus stock for most of the year. SkyMall sells consumer goods via catalogues such as the ones you find in the seat-backs of airplanes. On Dec. 9th the company announced that it would begin selling its wares over the Web as well, and this $3.80 stock became a $5.87 stock. Then, for no apparent reason, on Monday SkyMall became a $35.50 stock on volume of nearly 26 million shares; a week earlier daily volume had fallen as low as barely 50,000 shares. Why? Most press accounts have pointed to investor excitement over reports that retail business was brisk on the web this Christmas.

Be that as it may, it would be interesting to know whether any of the Web chat room operators who were touting SKYM on Monday were front-running their recommendations. AUTHORITIES REMAIN SILENT

The reason these questions are important is because no one in a position of authority seems to be asking them. I remember once, several years ago, visiting the NASDs market surveillance operation and watching a large room full of people do nothing but watch CNBC to see when Dan Dorfman, the then Wall Street stock columnist, would come on the air with news of some deal. When that happened, everyone would sit bolt upright and instantly begin staring at their computer monitors in hopes of detecting irregularities in the trading that followed.

Nothing even remotely like that seems to be going on now. But it should, before the fire that is burning through the Internet sector consumes the whole of Wall Street. The stock market is ablaze and the firemen are just gawking at the spectacle.

-- Chuck a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), December 30, 1998.

Jimmy

I don't like you any way! If you are so strong in your convictions then why not start communicating to express your thoughts instead of trying to impress. If you need that much attention then go see your mommy. One final word, I don't like it when you pound on Ed Yourdon - you do have penis envy.

-- Duane (Duane24062@AOL.COM), December 30, 1998.

Jimmy, keep those cards and letters coming. By the way, I think that Diane is Dennis Rodman.

Troll Maria

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), December 30, 1998.

I think Maria likes the funny Jimmy. I also think Squire could kick Rodman's butt or possibly make him put that gun back in his mouth.

Couldn't make it through that sleep inducing bagga words, Chuckie. Read a while and feel anyone with a high school education could poke plenty of holes in that diaharrea of the keyboard. Just thought I'd mention that many people on this forum like to post things other people say or write. I have no interest in in those type of posts. To me the purpose of this type of forum is everyone exchanging their own opinions and ideas. Copying things you've read is so lazy. Fire up the old grey matter and tell me what YOU think and why. That is what interests me; and if you can't express yourself in under 500 words use two posts.

Have a Nice Day

-- Jimmy Bagga Doughnuts (jim1bets@worldnet.att.net), December 30, 1998.

Nah. If I can find an expert on a field, I'll usually use his/her words. that particular person gets paid LOTS to write on the market. He knows a bit more than I do. After all, I'm just another limo driver.

cr

-- Chuck,,etc. (reinzoo@en.com), December 30, 1998.

Chuck, hope you pick your doctors better than you pick your other experts. Case in point ED YourDoneFor, the snake oil salesman.

-- Jimmy Bagga Doughnuts (jim1bets@worldnet.att.net), December 30, 1998.

If it makes any difference to you, Jimmy, I prefer you this way- my sense of humor is different than yours, so the jokes go right past me. Sorry. Still am not sure why you take the time to read and post, given how sure you are that we are all wasting our time being concerned, but figure that is your business. No, I am not on the TEOTWAWKI (?) end of the spectrum, but that is because I refuse to put energy into obsessing about what I can't predict- or change. I have an overactive imagination and have always been able to imagine all sorts of nasty scenarios (ie nuclear power, politics, etc.) for years. Experienced Chernobyl in Europe where it meant keeping kids inside, exchanging all the sand in sandboxes and trashing a bunch of vegetables-- and that certainly wasn't something anyone saw coming. Bicycled through northern Yugoslavia three years before war broke out. When war started, it seemed so unreal. The wall coming down in Berlin took everyone by surprise. So I see the potential, but I am not assuming I can predict the outcome. Question: Are you preparing in any way? Are you in a position to?

-- Maria (encelia@mailexcite.com), December 30, 1998.

Jimmy Bagga Doughnuts,

"Read a while and feel anyone with a high school education could poke plenty of holes in that diaharrea of the keyboard." JBD

Show us what you have Jimmy. If you really believe what you're saying, I'd like to see you start "poking holes". It's time for you to "put up or shut up". I will anxiously be waiting for your post and will give it due consideration.

Bob

-- WAAHOO (bobb@mtjeff.com), December 30, 1998.