Bank Of Canada Sees No Serious Y2K Bank Problems

OTTAWA (Reuters) - The Bank of Canada said Friday that the country's financial sector had prepared well for the Millennium bug and there should be no big disruptions.

``I am encouraged by the actions that have been taken to date by the financial sector in Canada to deal with the year-2000 challenge,'' Governor Gordon Thiessen said in the bank's annual report.

``Serious disruptions are unlikely. Nevertheless, it is widely recognized that more work is required, and financial institutions are developing contingency plans so that they can respond quickly to unforeseen problems.''

The bank said inventories of bank notes would be increased significantly in case there is extra demand toward the end of 1999. The Millennium bug refers to the fact that older computers cannot distinguish the year 2000 from 1900.

On economic matters, Thiessen noted that with global turmoil, expansion of the world economy slowed during 1998 ``and is expected to slow slightly more in 1999.''

He added: ``All too often during the year, however, assessments of the international situation and its implications for Canada were too pessimistic.''

-- Norm (nwo@hotmail.com), March 20, 1999

Answers

Norm, You are going to get shot down BIG TIME!

Headaches start as the bug bears down on banks

-- Wow (look@that.com), March 20, 1999.

Norm, did you read this article in the London Times about 12 of their financial institutions? The only difference is this was not written by the banks own CEO.

Can we hear from you Norm?

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), March 20, 1999.

Wow and Ray,

Why shoot Norm? He posted information that he did not author.

Norm,

Lie low because the majority still shoot messengers.

Thanks for the post.

-- Watchful (seethesea@msn.com), March 20, 1999.

Watchful,

I believe Norm has a tendency to post fluff articles quoting a companies CEO or a government agencies administrator or any one else that has a vested interest being sure good news is forthcoming.

I think it is fair to say that most of the credible articles on y2k DO NOT originate with one of the above.

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), March 20, 1999.

Thiessen is "encouraged" that the financial sector "had prepared well" and "there should be no big disruptions."

Why not be "certain" that the financial sector "completely eradicated the problem" and "there will be absolutely no distrutions of any kind"?

For my money, that's the kind of statement that would "encourage" me to keep my assets in the system.

-- dollars (under@the.mattress), March 20, 1999.

dollar:

You can't prove a negative, for one thing. If you had NO bugs, you could never know this. And of course there will be bugs that survive any kind of testing, there always are. You are demanding that the weatherman predict the exact weather in your neighborhood a week in advance. It can't be done.

The allegation that 12 financial institutions in Britain (which is less than 10% but still important) are in hopeless shape, is pretty serious. This allegation, however, was made without giving any evidence, and without even naming those instutions. Indeed, there's a lot of speculation as to who might have been included. The financial institutions themselves don't know!

To me, this kind of story belongs in the same bucket with the PR puffery Norm posts -- utterly undocumented, and therefore highly suspect pending further details.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 20, 1999.

Flint,

In one case a member of an independent Authority (government agency) is making the charges. In the other case the very dependent bank CEO is claiming it's not a problem. It's totally wrong to equate the two. But, don't let that stop you.

-- ding (dong@bell.com), March 20, 1999.

For any Newbies out there, Norm is a survivalist who cites numerous articles such as the one written above. He has admitted storing up food and disaster preparations in hopes of surviving any coming disaster. Norm rarely responds to any question or comment. My current theory is that Norm wants to survive at your expense. What are you stocking up on now Norm, fava beans and nice chianti?

-- Puddintame (dit@dot.com), March 20, 1999.

ding:

You'd have a good point, were it not for the fact that if companies say they have problems and government agencies publish good news, people here immediately reverse the roles. In that case, you can't trust the government liars, and the companies themselves are in a real position to have the true facts.

The underlying argument does hold some water, though, as I tried to imply. Real bugs aren't subject to debate, while 'no bugs' is impossible to verify. Nonetheless, unsupported assertions should be filed in the 'unknown' category -- especially of the subjects of those assertions themselves don't know who they are.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 20, 1999.

Is what we have going on here is pure brainwashing. Throw out an idea, scenario, news release on a doomsday plot, then turn around and paint a rosey picture, all is well, go back to sleep. Only those that can see through this will find the right answers. Don't believe anything you hear and only half of what you see.

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), March 20, 1999.

Flint, if you are not NORM, then you are at least his virtual tag team partner. Here again, Norm does his post and run and you step in to do his dirty work.

Flint my problem with Norm is not his posting the articles he chooses. I actually appreciate the articles themselves. My problem is that he appears to operate on an agenda to persuade people that y2k is not a problem.

Norm will have no effect on those who post here regularly as their minds are made up. My mind is made up. I'll have trouble believing any of this last minute religion offered by the industrial/military/ government complex. I would have readily believed the same declarations if this were 1995. They simply played this one too close to the line for me.

I will continue to expose the NORM posting, as I believe that they could prove harmful to an innocent Newbie. I cannot predict y2k dislocation, but I believe with all my heart that everyone should prepare for at least a month of self sufficiency. If you have young children this is even more important.

Advising people on unique unquantifiable risk is my business. I am no specialist on computers. I have read what Yourdon, de Jager (during his lucent interval), Greenspan and others have written and I have drawn my conclusions. Newbies can get my take for free on this forum. They can also get the advice of many other knowledgeable people.

I have enjoyed posting back and forth with you on points of disagreement; I don't have any problems with an intellectually honest skeptic. I consider myself a skeptic, and I strive to be intellectually honest. Norm means nothing to any regulars on this forum except to the extent that he may lead a Newbie astray. That does make me angry. Lives could be at stake.

I will continue to attack the Norm postings

-- Puddintame (dit@dot.com), March 20, 1999.

Hi, I am the President of my bank. I would like everyone to know that we have done a horrible job of y2k remediation. There is really no hope that we can correct this problem. Please leave your money in my bank and we will figure out what to do with it. Our shareholders are loyal and look forward to reaping 25% profits this year.

Thanks for your continued support.

The Pres !!

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), March 20, 1999.

Puddintame:

Here's something I wrote offline. It dealt with Y2K Pro and not Norm, but the issues I raise are the same, and they do bother me:

********

Forgive me for having at least a little sympathy with 'y2k pro'. She, he or it (contracted to sheeeit) seems to be trying, in my opinion ineptly, to spotlight the overwhelming bias found on this forum. I've run into this same blind spot repeatedly, and been trashed for it regularly. The blind spot is this: that there is a clear distinction between the degree of risk, and the appropriate level of preparation for that risk. An example: very few houses burn down. The probability is miniscule. This is a fact, backed by voluminous data. Does this mean we shouldn't have fire insurance? OK, let's get more abstract here. Is it misleading to *mention* the probability of such a fire? That is, can we assume that anyone with the temerity to cite accurate statistics is ipso facto making the case that we should not buy fire insurance? Do *you* make that assumption, on the grounds that why else would someone even bring up those statistics? The point of my post is that loony positions predicting (or tacitly accepting) doom are taken seriously, while posts presenting positive news are trashed regardless of whatever is supporting them. For a while, I said this took the form of "all bad news is facts, all good news is lies." More recently, I feel this needs to be modified to read "All speculations of possible bad things are facts, all hard data of real progress is lies." Y2k Pro is simply pointing out a bias that sticks out like a pro wrestler in a kindergarten class. The justification for this utterly illogical double standard is, we're here to promote awareness and preparation. That's our *purpose*. To do so, we need propaganda, the more blatant the better -- because most people are simply too dumb to deal with a balanced presentation. I ask, do you hold to this position yourself? Is it impossible to get people to prepare without as ironclad a guarantee as we can fabricate that their houses *will* burn down? ******

Puddintame, this is my concern. I simply won't go along with the argument that the purpose of this forum is to *misrepresent* the dangers we face so as to maximize the warning value.

And look at some of the results. Scotty's EVEREST post postulates failure numbers over a full order of magnitude larger than Infomagic! And rather than be corrected for utterly unsupportable panic- mongering, you notice that the responses nod sagely and say yep, we're in big trouble all right!

Now, I'm not a big fan of Norm myself. I fail to see the purpose in reposting all the PR puffery out there. We can all go to the various y2k news sites and read this for ourselves. I welcome brief extractions of salient comments from different sources on the same subject -- this leads us toward what I view as the proper Rashomon perspective(s). But so long as we all agree to grab the elephant's tail and say an elephant is like a rope, and all agree to trash that jerk who says no, an elephant is like a tree, we'll all miss the elephant.

Am I making sense to you? I think *I* know what I mean (most of the time).

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 20, 1999.

Flint, I do understand what you are saying. Most everything you say in *most* of your postings makes sense. The computer technicalities are lost on me, but most of your posts aren't about programming.

The stated purpose of the forum, in part, is "This forum is intended for people who are concerned about the impact of the Y2000 problem on their personal lives, and who want to discuss various fallback contingency plans with other like-minded people."

Now, I know that is only a loose guideline, and you have to know the risk before you can plan, so any intelligence can be pertinent to planning.

A Norm posting is not intelligence. The Norm poster is not intellectually honest. No one could seriously cite the articles he posts as evidence of "doomsday avoided." The articles may contain kernels of optimism, but Norm doesn't offer any analysis or engage in any meaningful discussion. The Norm poster hangs a strawman pollyanna headline on the post, and then sinks beneath the surface.

Again, if the only people on the forum were those who post regularly, I'd get a kick out of NORM, but there may actually be Newbies coming in all the time who are searching for the truth. A NORM posting could really do harm to some lost soul out there.

Look Flint, you're smart and I'm paranoid. Between the two of us we'll survive a lot of dangers, real and imagined. Many many people are much different. My mother, bless her heart, truly believes people in high government office. She believes corporate hucksters. The smarmier they are, the more she believes them. On Dec. 31, 1999, she will have 1-2 days worth of food on hand. I will look after her, but what about the other gullible people who do not have people working quietly in the background on their behalf.

If this forum were a debate society, Norm would be a nonentity. But it's not a scholarly debate society. The innocent are tuning in all the time for advice. Norm could hurt someone.

-- Puddintame (dit@dot.com), March 20, 1999.

Hi gang. I see once again that Norm is the topic. For those that haven't seen it yet, the following thread has Norm's reason for doing what he is doing. I do wish him luck with his effort, but it is obvious that the good news stories are few and far between, and the ones that we do have here have been presented many times before with the "no problem" point of view. Maybe some day he will find something original. I for one welcome any and all news on this topic. <:)=

OK NORM. Why won't you answer my question?

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), March 20, 1999.