To The DON'T WANT TO GET IT, To face y2k as a the great depression after seeing the oil and gas and food prices beginning to rise, floppy goverment lies that makes liar,Liar look like Old ABE in comparrison.

I want to tell you that everybodys right. No one can tell whats going to happen in 2000. If you are 20 years old and got thro the 4th grade you can see the signs. I have been crunching numbers and watching the goverment since my daddy told me he and his buddies was run out of Washington after ww1 for wanting to get the bonus they were promised.

I know you go to the market and it seems like Almighty God has guaranteed our needs in abuntant in our lifetime.What you should also know men people are stupid. What you don't know is the stores are trying to make money before y2k hits and are trying their best to stock up for you in case you GI For DGI to stock up now and not tear thing to pieces before the fact not after the fact. They know the supply lines are going to be lost. And you still don't get it.

In a few more days it will be april 1999 and I know by just reasoning that and adding people+ stock+Transportation+breakdowns+miles of track, miles of pipe+switches + employees+Fix on failure now that is being done- minus programmers+More breakdowns + letters of request for immediate replies to confirm compliance+ letters thrown into file 13 and you are going into a depression. Not a 70's recession.

I have seen enough from banks,business and news confirms my fullness of concerns that I would be preparing to the hilt without a computer or if I never heard of Gary North or any other y2k writer or programmer. (I have never read one y2k book.)

I have been without before, hungry nowhere to sleep and I decided I don't like someone else dictating if I can eat,sleep,take a shower spend my own money and do all the things that a human being should to take care of them selvesand their family. I say this only to tell you I know how things work. I have given thousands of dollars to get people started in their own business if they will help someone else.

I'm just a tiny weenie business man and I have had computer problems and I know the cost of fixing, time wasted, payroll expense,waiting time and shipping problems.Those were in normal times.

I am preparing a garden for the first time in 25 years, and have purchased seed for all my neighbors and family which I think will be very thankful when 2001 gets here. Needless to say, I hate that it has come down to this.It never should have and now that it has, everythings a top secret about who's winning the war against the bugs. Sometime I think maybe most business has been lookings for roaches or termites.

Take a piece of paper and write down all you have to lose on one side if y2k becomes a reality ,and all you have to win on the other side if you prepare now. Now figure your chances are 60 percent against and 40 percent in your favor. Then you will see the black and white of it all. Flip a coin make it fifty fifty.

Also write down on one side of the paper for sure facts you have heard againt y2k. Now on the other side write down on the other side all the for sure facts you have heard in favor of fixing y2k. Now how do you feel?

Lon

I will post no more until the blackberries have died away.

-- Lon (lon1937@aol.com), March 26, 1999

Answers

"a tiny weenie business man" eh?....heee heeee! Nawwwww...That's just too easy! LOL!!!!

"Also write down on one side of the paper for sure facts you have heard againt y2k. Now on the other side write down on the other side all the for sure facts you have heard in favor of fixing y2k. Now how do you feel?"

Let's see...I've got half a page of doombrood assumptions, and several pages of y2k reality....gosh.... I feel pretty good!

Thanx a MILLION Lon!

-- Mutha Nachu (---@tinybabyscallops.com), March 26, 1999.

"A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest..."

Nachu, think happy thoughts. If you're wrong about Y2K, you're screwed if you haven't prepared. If I'm wrong, I'm in the same position as I always have been, a good one.

P.S.

Why don't you post some evidence every once in a while? You say you have all this good info, where is it?

-- d (d@dgi.old), March 26, 1999.

d:

Some of this good information has been posted here, and we all rolled around the floor laughing at the the thought that any of us would be fooled. Not many have the temerity anymore to post this stuff, since it's clear that we simply dismiss the material and spend the rest of the thread attacking the poster.

But if you'd like, maybe if I get time I'll pull a 'Kevin' in reverse, and start posting the entire text of every press release I can find.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 26, 1999.

Flint,

Overall, you have been by far the best "Polly" poster. I proudly wear the "doomer" badge, so I hope that you don't take the P word as an insult.

I would love to feel better about the situation. Nothing is going to keep me from heading to Sam's Club though. If it means a few less pizzas or a few more over time hours, so be it.

I woke up yesterday to find that there was no power. I looked outside and saw a cop directing traffic. I showered by flashlight and went to work with my .45 in the trunk.

Of course, NSP had simply made an error while trimming trees. I was scared though and I don't like that. I'd love to see the happy news more often, if it is backed up by facts. I don't like living with this weight on my shoulders. No one does.

If I recall correctly, you have done some prep. I'm glad about that. You've stuck around through the worst of Milne's attacks. I hope this does turn out to be a "bump in the road." I'll raise my glass and toast that mysterious Flint.

-- d (d@dgi.old), March 26, 1999.

Once more, gang: What's the difference between EVIDENCE and INSURANCE?

Evidence is the arson squad trying to figure out who burned down my house, and me trying to figure out why. The house is still smokin', whatever the answers.

Insurance is me (or the bank who financed my mortgage) knowing years before any fire that houses DO burn down, whenever, whichever, whyever. Playing the odds, and paying extra for peace of mind.

That's why the insurance industry EXISTS (and owns so damn much of USA!) Because people are willing to pay for peace of mind, once they know that something bad is possible. Evidence? Insurance.

Insurance -- we'll see soon enough. It's why airplanes might not fly Dec. 31. It's why NRC will shut down some nuke power plants (even though nukes have liability limits written in law). It's why some major corporations may switch to new providers of telecom and other services.

y2k evidence, y2k insurance. You can't argue between the two -- two different topics. Go on trying to argue right past each other.

-- jor-el (jor-el@krypton.com), March 27, 1999.

d:

If you step back and look, you'll see that the bulk of the 'bad' news consists of estimates of where the laggards stand, followed by speculations of bad things that might happen as a result. The bulk of the 'good' news is estimates of where the leaders stand, followed by speculation about what might *not* go wrong.

Besides doing our best to help one another prepare properly for what we consider the most likely outcome, our job is to (speculatively) assign degrees of reliability to everything we read, and to assess the likelihood that what *can* go wrong actually *will* go wrong. We need to remain aware that what we consider 'facts' are really estimates in a large sense. Partly this is due to the future always being uncertain, and partly due to the whole system-of-systems being too complex to model.

A large number of organizations say they expect to be compliant (or at least compliant enough, to be realistic) in time. The reliability of these statements is highly variable, but we can't tell which ones, or how misleading any particular statement is. We have pretty good indications, here and there, that some of these statements are wildly false. Should we reject ALL such statements as a result? If we do, then actual, factual good news becomes impossible to hear.

Even no-prayer Andy says his shop is finished and ready. Is this a fact? Is this good news? I'm inclined to believe him, are you?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 27, 1999.