While attending a collectibles show on the East Coast over the weekend, at dinner I happened to be sitting beside the wife of the head of the entire Y2K program for a major New York money center bank. I cannot publicly divulge her name or the name of the bank (it's one you are very familiar with) for obvious reasons.

Upon learning what her husband's position is, someone else at our table said, "I'm very concerned about Y2K; in fact, I intend to withdraw a considerable amount of my money from the banks this fall." To which the lady replied, "Oh, I've already done that!"

I submit that if the wife of the head of a major money center bank's Y2K code remediation team has already withdrawn a large sum of money from the banking system, she must be acting on information supplied by her husband. I also submit that this is something we should take heed of.

We're not likely to get any real, hard information from industry or government on Y2K until next January, if then. We need to make our own conclusions largely from deduction from sources such as the above.

-- cody varian (cody@inna.net), May 17, 1999

Answers

Cody, thanks for this post. These testimonials almost always cause the shills to panic and start posting denigrating responses. Let's sit back and watch 'em blow a gasket.

-- Puddintame (achillesg@hotmail.com), May 17, 1999.

Cody:

Did anyone ask here any Y2k questions?

Roger

-- Dr. Roger Altman (rogaltman@aol.com), May 17, 1999.

I live next door to the mistress of the CEO of a major Wall Street firm. She has a dog. I cannot publicly divulge her dress size or the breed of the dog (it's one you are very familiar with) for obvious reasons. I have recently noticed that her dog has been burying far more bones in the back yard than normal.

I submit that this is something we should take heed of.

-- Panicked Shill (b@t.com), May 17, 1999.

Call the tow truck. One disabled shill alongside Yellow Brick Road.

-- Puddintame (achillesg@hotmail.com), May 17, 1999.

Great. Tell a group of near-strangers that you've got a whole heap of cash/coins stashed somewhere on your property. Why not just wear a sign around your neck that says "Rob us"?

-- Worried (about@everything.lately), May 17, 1999.

To the regulars and lurker's, it's Cody's bona fides, after numerous consistent, intelligent posts that make me take this seriously.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), May 17, 1999.

Isn't it funny...

It is understandable that some sources cannot be exposed. So when that becomes the case, all you have is the reputation of the reporter to rely on.

Eventually we will know the result.

By the way, she wears a size 6 in private, but a 4 in public. Her hair is blonde with brown roots. His wife is a red head.

The dog is a toy poodle, apricot colored, and goes by the name of Fifi. She doesn't like the milkbones and that is why he brings them. It gets the dog out of the house.

I don't live next door, but I have a telephoto lens on my camera.

Regular vists are Tuesday and Thursday for 'lunch' at 2-6 PM. Some special nights are Sunday and Monday, with an occasional Friday afternnon/evening here and there.

-- I Spy (paparazzi@distant.view), May 17, 1999.

Postscript to my original message: I said to the lady, "You're telling us that your husband is in charge of a major bank's Y2K code remediation project and that you (and presumably the husband as well) are taking your assets out of the system?" At this she took alarm and would not discuss it further. I think she realized she had let something slip out that should not have.

I also think there is no one more blind than those who refuse to see.

-- cody varian (cody@inna.net), May 17, 1999.

To the "pollys" and I paraphrase:

"There is none so blind as he who will not see" "He who laughs last laughs longest"

-- El Wynn (el@yahoo.com), May 17, 1999.

I'll tell you what I "see" - I have been to several meetings attended by technical representatives of every single Wall Street firm of any significance, including all the money center banks, and the atmosphere, including the off-the-record, over-lunch conversation, is one of total boredom and let's get it over with. Other than whether to bail out of certain underprepared countries like Italy, there is no sense of concern whatsoever.

Who gives a damn if the paranoid wife of some random bank manager is concerned that her country club lifestyle might be threatened unless she has a few Coach bags full of cash?

I would rather not see than be blinded by a match from 5 miles away.

-- Panicked Shill (b@t.com), May 17, 1999.

Shill -- The difference is we "know" Cody but not you. Hope you're right. I KNOW Goldman Sachs has already bought big-time generators for the homes of their senior partners, which says something different than mere indifference.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), May 17, 1999.

Disabled Shill writes "let's get it over with." Anyone recall Gary Gilmore's last words?

-- Puddintame (achillesg@hotmail.com), May 17, 1999.

In addition to a vision problem, Panicked Shill apparently has a comprehension problem--cognitally challenged. This is not the wife of a random bank manager but rather the wife of the guy who heads up the Y2K project for the entire money center bank corporation. Pollyanna grasshoppers just keep on fiddlin', don't they?

-- cody varian (cody@inna.net), May 17, 1999.

1: Of course, Cody's take reinforces your own take on the situation. Therefore, you think he is right, rather than Shill's, who's opinion runs opposite than yours. Basic close-mindedness.

2: I see it a prudent for Goldman Sachs to buy generators. In this industry, they have done everything in their power to address the Y2K problems in THIER industry. They have no power over the power companies (no pun intended). This is basic contingency planning. Would you rather they not do this?

-- newlurker (no@no.com), May 17, 1999.

Here's the optimist side of this - Wall Street (including money center banks) just conducted a massive integrated test of all their core systems and came up with a .02% Y2K failure rate.

The pessimist side - someone overheard someone's wife say she's taking money out of the bank.

If I was going into court with this, I know which side I would want to be on.

-- Panicked Shill (b@t.com), May 17, 1999.

newlurker -- sure, it's great contingency planning but doesn't change my point: indicates more than indifference. They are also installing complete communication back-ups et al.

Shill -- it's one anecdote, duh. Yours is another, cool, but without the credibility that comes from Cody's long-time reliable posting here. Since everything is peachy, who do you work for, what do you do, how long did the projects you were involved take, etc? We are genuinely interested.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), May 17, 1999.

Thanks for another data point, cody.

Y2K "understanding" sure is a "crazy quit" of snippets from all over the map.

Wish we didn't have to remain "standing under" it all. (Including the anonymous shills).

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), May 17, 1999.

To Panicked Shill: All I want to know is the truth about Y2K. Is it likely to be a major disaster, a non-event, or something in between? You may have very valuable information on this. How about telling us who you work for and how you happen to be able to attend functions with the major money center bank official, etc. Give us something to back up what you say.

I can't reveal the lady's name or the company at which her husband works without running the risk of getting her into trouble. I think she realizes fully that she should not have spoken publicly about this. She may be an overly alarmist type but I suspect she has the full cooperation of her husband in her cash withdrawal, and her husband is uniquely in a position to know what's likely to happen.

Personally, I hope you're right and I'm wrong.

-- cody varian (cody@inna.net), May 17, 1999.

It's not about who's right or wrong, it's about having sense enough not to consider hearsay to be a 'data point'. Especially hearsay about bank withdrawals, which is the most psychologically motivated aspect of Y2K to begin with.

As far as my info goes, it's all documented at www.sia.com, and that's a real data point, regardless of whether this particular shill is a Wall Street exec, or a homeless person living in a T-1 equipped cardboard box in the East Village.

-- Panicked Shill (b@t.com), May 17, 1999.

Cody's credentials have nothing to do with this. What we need to know is how wise and intelligent and truthful is the woman?

-- walt (walt@lcs.k12.ne.us), May 17, 1999.

P.S. SIA has to due with securities, not banking.

You know all of this my source, your source, they're compliant, he's compliant, the guy behind the tree is compliant, stuff makes about as much sense as, ah to hell with it - get to the point!

Let us consider the results of these two seperate independant polls

http://cnn.com/US/9901/10/y2k.poll/index.html and

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/01/990108080346.htm

Now there are two questions about these polls that one has to ask. 1. Do the %s in the polls reflect actual public opinion? If the sampling number is high enough, and if the people polled are randomly taken from the population. If these are true, it is an honest accurate poll. 2. Will the polled people actually do what they say they are going to do? That question is up for grabs.

Back to the poll results. Let's pretend that every single bank, credit union, saving & loan, security dealer, and ATM on the face of planet earth is 100.0% Y2K fully compliant. That will be our "given", our "constant" in this "equation".

If the polls are true and if the people do what they say they will do, then the only possible outcome is a collapse of the international banking system. Even if only 50% of those that said they will pull part or all of their money from the bank did so, it would still collapse.

That is the only possible outcome given that our current banking system is based on the fractional reserve legal/accounting system. Other banking/legal systems would declare our present system illegal and a fraud, but for the moment, most people are quite happy with it.

If anybody would like to argue this point, I would be fascinated to hear why this would not be the case.

-- Ken Seger (kenseger@earthlink.net), May 17, 1999.

Ken, as you probably know from my endless posts, I am TOTALLY convinced Greenspan-Kelly and Clinton made an explicit decision to subordinate all Y2K coverage and spin to prevention of pre-Y2K bank runs, even if it risked panic meltdowns if Y2K impacts turned ugly.

Unfortunately, if the tactic doesn't work, we will have the worst of all possible worlds: bank runs, an unprepared public and Y2K impacts STILL up ahead and unknown.

My bet is that the 4Q will see a MASSIVE government-banking campaign to keep the lid on, including explicit appeals to patriotism and "community spirit" as well as readiness to take instant action to temporarily shut down withdrawals if anything turns suspicious.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), May 17, 1999.

I've come to believe that the coming "collapse" is being engineered to achieve the "collapse". Perhaps, this is the way to get rid of the last 1-2% of currency and go to a complete cashless society.

OTOH, the Euro if backed by gold could be a competing currency for "electronic dollars" reasoning that many current dollar holders will continue to want a tangible currency.

I still wonder at the coincidence of so many seemingly random and apparent irrational activities.

Got Prozac?

-- Bill P (porterwn@one.net), May 17, 1999.

I wonder if the whole concept of insider trading is perhaps applicable to Y2K.....

For example, someone in a position of knowledge in a corporation that finds out information about the company is not allowed to buy or sell shares based on that insider knowledge until the corporation has gone public with the info.....in other words, if you have acquired inside information that your companies quarterly statement which goes out next week will show very poor results, you cannot go out and sell all your shares....it can be a very serious offense....

Likewise, if a CEO or director of a firm has insider knowledge that the company will be adversely affected by Y2K, but the company has not disclosed such to its shareholders, could perhaps those directors be found guilty of acting on insider information if they sold off all their shares.....basically by taking a 'looking after #1, screw the other shareholders' point of view......

-- Craig (craig@ccinet.ab.ca), May 17, 1999.

Shill

Wall Sreet is self-reporting. So is the money-center lady. They are reporting opposite views due to self-interest. For both it is self-preservation.

-- Mike Lang (webflier@erols.com), May 17, 1999.

Cody,

Glad to see your back...Y2K related sales good enough again for you to pay your ISP? I know a few months ago you were saying you and other vendors were suffering from lagging Y2K related sales...boy...I really hope things are better for all of you folks

-- Damn Y2K Shills (evilgrin@exposeem.com), May 18, 1999.