... is primarily economic in measurement and goes like this.

5. Infrastructure collapse (2000-2025). 4. Major depression (2000-2010). 3. Mild depression (2000-2005). 2. Serious recession (2000-2001). 1. Bump or mild recession (2000).

I don't want to get overly specific (how much GDP drop means "depression")? Economists argue over these things. I am requesting personal, perceptual and intuitive thinking here. You can certainly justify your ratings with as little or much evidence as you'd like.

I also don't want to get overly specific about possibilities of martial law (since that could be a feature of any scenario from 2 to 5). Nuclear war is a 5, obviously. Grid problems could be a feature of any scenario, though grid collapse will put someone at a 4 or 5, I would think.

Now, here is where it gets complicated, but I think we Yourdonites are up to it.

Give your rating for U.S. first; then global (but including U.S., we were part of the world last time I looked). Ratings are in terms of percentages adding up to 100 (examples will follow).

Your overall rating will be a single number (1 thru 5) based on the highest percentage you assign to a GLOBAL outcome.

Confused yet?

Here are two examples:

Sample Pollyanna:

5: 0, 0 4: 0, 0 3: 2, 4 2: 10, 15 1: 88, 81 Overall: 1 (ie, 81 for the most-likely global outcome; first column is U.S. only).

Sample Doomer:

5: 5, 5 4: 55, 62 3: 35, 30 2: 5, 3 1: 0, 0 Overall: 4 (ie, 62 for the most-likely global outcome).

No DECIMAL points allowed.

It seems as though the economic impact (and/or time to recovery which these categories also suggest) is becoming the best way to brainstorm potential scenarios.

Good luck. The clock is ticking ......

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), May 29, 1999

Answers

Forgot to put in columns, sorry:

Mine:

..U.S., Global
5: 10, 15
4: 35, 40
3: 30, 35
2: 20, 10
1: 5, 0
Overall: 4

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), May 29, 1999.

5:0,15; 4:30,50; 3:50,25; 2:15,10; 1:5,0 My most likely scenario is a 4 with a 30/50 split. I feel that our major exposure to y2k will come from overseas. We live in the global marketplace. It is not credible to beleive that we can go on with sky high stock valuations when the majority of the world is in turmoil. A substantial amount of foreign capital resides in the US. I have a hard time beleiving that it would stay here if times got rough enough.

-- cw (cwiowa@uiowa.edu), May 29, 1999.

BigDog,

I usually do not respond to surveys such a this, but since it is you doing the asking, I will offer my response, although it is different than what you request.

Due to the numbers and varieties of unknowns, I see no way to decide the likelihood of various scenarios. On the scale you describe, I would sometimes lean toward a 3 and sometimes lean towards a 4.

Whatever the magnitude of adverse economic effects of Y2K problems per se, government policy reactions (quite aside from war and/or martial law) can exacerbate and prolong economic problems for years on end. I see no way to estimate the magnitude of such additional problems.

Jerry

-- Jerry B (skeptic76@erols.com), May 29, 1999.

where does someone look you up in 2026 to thump your melon when you are wrong?

-- False (prophets@suckup.profits), May 29, 1999.

B.D. I am not enough of an "economist" to attempt to quantify the impact.

I wanted to point out another element, however, that may come into play: our national debt. U.S. national debt when held domestically in bonds by U.S. citizens is uncollateralized, but when held by foreign nations and citizens, it is collateralized in the form of our nationally controled resources National Forests, wilderness, nationally controlled resources, etc. (An observation was made at a recent lecture I attended on the subject that government control through regulation has intensified as our debt has grown.) This could bring the international impact a bit further into our shores.

-- anon (anon@anon.com), May 29, 1999.

Jerry and Anon --- Thanks but to you and others, this is an intuitive exercise. The more economists that stay out of it the better: that way we'll be more accurate. Don't hesitate, it's all guesswork, obviously.

As for "False", what's your prediction? Far as I can tell, I only rate an "5" scenario at 15%, scary but hardly probable. Not sure why you are so torqued ....

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), May 29, 1999.

Here are my thoughts:

Rating......US.......Global

---------------------------------------
*1*............0.............0.....
*2*............5.............0.....
*3*...........10............0.....
*4*...........80...........90....
*5*............5............10....

===============================

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), May 29, 1999.

My numbers reflect anticipated Y2K impact on economies + my expectations for the future had Y2K never reared its ugly head.

U.S. Global 5: 5, 5 4: 15, 15 3: 50, 50 2: 25, 30 1: 5, 0 Overall: 3

Thanks for asking. I think your question is important. It forces each participant to re-evaluate his/her outlook on the big picture.

-- Bingo1 (howe9@pop.shentel.net), May 29, 1999.

Ron --- have you thought of giving Infomagic a call recently ;-) ? Would you care to give your thoughts on your view? As well as construct HTML tables for all the rest of us!

You're right, views change and it might be interesting to re-run this thread in 45 days or so (think I will). Mine have stayed pretty consistent over the past six months.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), May 29, 1999.

I don't usually do surveys yada yada yada. Things are pretty dead today. For BD, who doesn't project an attitude along with his survey requests. ;-)

.. U.S., Global
5: 2, 10
4: 35, 50
3: 40, 30
2: 15, 10
1: 8, 0
Overall: 4



-- Elbow Grease (Elbow_Grease@AutoShop.com), May 29, 1999.

Hey Mutha,

tsk tsk,

your results are not centred poperly under the the US and GLOBAL tables :)

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), May 29, 1999.

BigDog,

Infomagic? Yeah I've got him on the phone as I write ... but really, think Infomagic would skew out further on the curve than I have. Still my numbers aren't a bell curve are they?

I think this discussion forum serves best as a place to share preparation information .. and worst as a place to engage in arguments about whether I'm right and you're wrong .. with the potential for sick exchanges that turn many people off who might otherwise stick around the forum and profit from it. That's why a survey such as this or the kind of personal speculation that I'm about to indulge in seems off-topic to me. But then it's clear many here don't agree with that.

My views will sound similar to many that are heard on the forum. And I don't want to turn your 'intuitive exercise' into something more rigorous so I'll only sketch an outline: in the mid 80's I thought resolving year 2000 problems was going to be a monumental task, in mid 90's I thought it was getting alarmingly late, last year I wrote a piece saying I believed it was then too late to succeed with the technical tasks and we needed to focus on societal issues (at that point I'd say I'd have had a nice bell shaped curve, compressed between 2 and 5 on your scale). I sent a packet to several hundred people .. all of whom I had a personal connection and most were leaders in their communities. About 5% of those responded. 1% enthusiastically with concern; 3% polite thanks; 1% enthusiastically with antagonism. That minimal response surprised me and moved me higher on your scale. The President gave his Y2K talk to the National Academy. The world said ho hum. There was no global leadership, no national leadership (Koskinen doesn't qualify for what I had in mind), little or no local leadership. In the city in which I live not a dollar was budgeted for Y2K work let alone for contingency planning .. and the local government continues to think concern over Y2K is overblown. We know the rest of the picture too well .. there's been little or no work done globally, nationally, or locally to coordinate effective contingency plans for people, with very few exceptions. The Senate hearing seemed more insulting to community preparedness than helpful. Two out of nine senators showed up. And Dodd gave me the impression of spending more time being defensive about the muted criticism of lack of leadership than he did listening with an open mind. We're skidding into 2000 on hopes and denials (I'd like to say a wing and a prayer but that connotes something more gallant and brave than what we're witnessing).

And, bordering on silly, we've got situations like the NASD and NYSE guys (gals too unfortunately) saying hey, ho, let's mix it up, let's start trading at night and oh, by the way, we'll have to do a whole lot of recoding, and, oh yes, redesign, and let's not forget the changes we've got to make to our end of day procedures, and ... And, and, and... And how long is it going to be before those Euro changes get a little more solid? We need to get a stable release so we can get to work on this important extended day stuff...

Not to pick unnecessarily on the securities industry. There's all the work that's being done to open up the utilities to competition, for another example.

Then there's the global context for Y2K. Where to begin? Kosovo/Nato/Russia naturally, but also (no order implied) India/Pakistan/China/U.S., North Korea/China/Taiwan/U.S., stock market/debt/consumer spending/'emerging' market currency/derivative exposure bubble, Israel/Pakistan/Mideast. Does it matter anymore that we are continuing to fly missions and fire missles over Iraq? I think it does. But how? What consequences? I can't begin to imagine.

Nonetheless I also can't imagine there being a Luke Skywalker that could navigate through this explosive time, this complex space without mishap. Even Clinton/Rubin/Greenspan aren't that good. Toss in Blair/Yeltsin/Chernomyrdin/Barak/Albright and I still don't think they're that good.

Still, what do I know? I don't have a talent for predicting the future. My argument is well known. There's too much to fix, there's too little time, much of what needs to be fixed is exquisitely difficult to fix, the interactions between systems and organizations and countries are too pervasive to enable effective localization of problems, not enough is being done to provide contingency plans for many, many people. If power goes out in extended areas for an extended period in a country such as the U.S. then by my definition we're looking at a 5 on your scale. If a regional conflict (Kosovo? India/Pakistan? North Korea/South Korea? Israel/Palestine? China/Taiwan?) develops to such an extent that it becomes a more global conflict then again I think we're looking at a 5. On the other hand, if the world navigates its way through these minefields I think we'll just have a real computer mess on our hands with a concomitant mess in the lives of real people .. a 4. And if we're truly fortunate, the interactions between computers and societies will be more manageable than they seem to me to be. We'll be able to isolate failures (as Koskinen and Bennett and others suggest), and just have to deal with the consequences of some large holes in the global economy .. a 3. I just don't see how we get to a 2.

When I'm surprised by a turn of events I've usually missed some whole big thing. Didn't even think of it's existence. I keep reading and listening .. I hope to hear some 'whole big thing' I'd missed come lumbering down the trail.

Then again, if it does, it sounds like Mutha will get a good laugh.

-- Ron Rodgers (RonRodgers@Resilience2000.com), May 29, 1999.

Big Dog: US Global

5 25 45

4 45 55

3 30 0

2 0 0 1 Ya got to be kidding

Probably didn't format well

Some days I'm not so optimistic......

-- Jon Williamson (pssomerville@sprintmail.com), May 29, 1999.

Mutha you maroon,

you spelt properly wrong, arf arf!

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), May 30, 1999.

5---100%---100%

4----80%----80%

The rest at 0%

Agree with Ron Rodgers almost 100%.

My doom-laden figures reflect my gut feeling, primary concerns being a banking collapse, the poisonfire scenario, kamikaze military plays by certain countries yet TBD...

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), May 30, 1999.

"Hey Mutha,

tsk tsk,

your results are not centred poperly under the the US and GLOBAL tables :)

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), May 29, 1999. "

I think thats why 'mutha' put the word in quotes (:

-- IRONy MAN (marvel@comic.books), May 30, 1999.

Thank you, Irony man,

I'm just jerking Muth F's chain :)

And his table is STILL NOT CENTRED - WHAT a maroon

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), May 30, 1999.