Sen. Bennett said that other countries would not visibly derteriote until January @0th. Why is that? I found it on the cbn.org web-site.

-- madeline (runner@bcpl.net), April 23, 1999

Answers

...er-make that deteriorate?

-- madeline (runner@bcpl.net), April 23, 1999.

Wondering that myself. 1/20/00 is a Thursday. Significant events near that time include the Superbowl (which I am prepared to "watch" on my BayGen radio) and K's State of the Union Speech (bet there is less laughter when he brings up Y2K this time). Or I may be wrong and both events are cancelled for lack of electron interest. 1/20 is towards the end of deJ's "2-3 weeks only" preps recommendation. Also about the time I'll be seriously out of clean clothes.

-- Brooks (brooksbie@hotmail.com), April 23, 1999.

The answer is further down in Cory's notes. Basically, 3 weeks is about right for the failures to show up, and start to have some effects. The first day or two will be looked at as "interesting" and "fun." as you go out farther, the less fun it gets, and the greater the effects start to show.

Just my NTBHO.

C

-- chuck, a Night Driver (rienzoo@en.com), April 23, 1999.

Wouldn't it be nice if these problems didn't show up until Jan 20 2000. This in my opinion is just more of the spin. He did say in "other countries". Keep these problems away from home. It will be interesting to see if these "problem dates" keep getting pushed further into the future. Would it make everyone feel a little safer.

-- thinkIcan (thinkIcan@make.it), April 23, 1999.

My understanding is somewhat similar to Chuck's:

basicly if little or nothing of major impact happens by January 20th, we can at least presume that problems which will be arising will all be managable...if, however, problems are already serious by the 20th, then the cumulative impact will be extremely unpleasant...to put it mildly.

I think the senator meant that Jan 20th was the date by which we could expect the other shoe to drop if it was going to do so.

Arlin

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), April 23, 1999.

My take on this is that Bennett may be partially correct. Rollover may come and go in the USA with not too many terrible problems, and all the Pollys will be cheering. Until the supply lines crash one by one as goods imported from Asia, South America, and the midEast start to be in increasingly short supply. Sen. Bennett appears to think it will take about 3 weeks for this process to reach a quasi-equilibrium state, and then we will know the worst. I suspect Infomagic may be more correct, that the downward spiral will be nowhere near over in January. Cory Hamasaki just yesterday reports that a major DC bank is in deep kimchee, and the bank management is clueless about how to fix the corrupted database. And the folks preparing for 1-3 weeks are going to be in for a rather terrible surprise.

-- Les Holladay (holladayl@aol.com), April 23, 1999.

the jan 20 date basically means it will take about 3 weeks for a significant number of failures to accumulate; by that time, outside observers will realize that the country has seriously deteriorated.

that's my paraphrase of what bennett said. i didn't put it in my story because i didn't want to put words in his mouth (something reporters often do, not always with good results).

personally, i don't think the real economic toll of y2k will be evident until march or even april. that's simply because it *always* takes a good while for economic impact to ripple through a system, and, frankly, even march or april might be a bit soon.

now, that's assuming we see primarily business/economic failures in the developed global economy, and the infrastructure issues are held to minimal economic impact.

-- drew parkhill/cbn news (y2k@cbn.org), April 23, 1999.

Thanks for all your responses. Is the possibility of serious power failures still viable? I mean, it would be 'nice' if the problems were ones that would take three weeks to be felt, but is anyone still concerned that we won't be able to "see" or "hear" anything anyway?

-- madeline (runner@bcpl.net), April 23, 1999.

madeline: The jury is still out on that and it doesn't looklike we'll get a serious group of IV&V results before LATE 1999. RATZ!!

Chuck

-- chuck, a Night Driver (rienzoo@en.com), April 23, 1999.

PS There are those that suggest the reason it's still out is that the news isn't good. Bennet says he is more optimistic. Than what?

Chuck

-- chuck, a Night Driver (rienzoo@en.com), April 23, 1999.

chuck,what does ntbho and ratz stand for?

-- zoobie (zoob@aol.com), April 24, 1999.