Here is the URL for the McAlvany Intelligence Report which has a November 8, 1999 audio broadcast with a guest who attended the Year 2000 Symposium in New York at the end of October.

http://www.audiocentral.com/rshows/mir/default.html

Also, you can go directly to the Year 2000 Symposium site at URL

http://www.brainstorm-group.com/Y2K_Events99.html

You can see who the spoke and get session descriptions.

The speakers at this confernce have very high credibility. For example, Dr. Thomas P. M. Barnett Senior Strategic Researcher, U.S. Naval War College.

The prior meetings of the Year 2000 Symposium have been focused on problem solving. The New York meeting at the end of October was on Crisis Management. For the group, it was a given that big problems were ahead. The focus was how to manage the serious problems ahead.

Just an example: Dr. Barnett (mentioned above) estimated international oil disruptions in the range of 10% to 15%. To give you some sense of perspective, the 1974 energy crisis involved a 4% disruption.

The audio is definately worth listening to. It runs 35 minutes. The Year 2000 Symposium site has some good info as well.

The summary of the meeting is shocking. I know you all have heard that before, many times. But this comes off different. The folks at the Year 2000 Symposium have no agenda and they are experts. They sound very "matter of fact" about the whole thing.

A few more examples:

5% percent failure rate for the banking industry. Our econonmy does not have the ability to handle it.

1% failure in embedded systems. That is 1000 times for than normal. We don't have the resources to handle it.

The FBI says that at the stroke of midnight, they are expecting 200,000 (yes, 200,000) computer viruses will be released. Unmanagable.

Fortune 1000 companies finally come clean in their 3rd Quarter 10Q SEC filings. Half won't be ready and many believe it threatens their existence. [I may have to pay a visit EDGAR]. The members of the symposium suspected that the veil has been removed in the 3rd quarter reports to protect against lawsuits. The 3rd Q 99 10Q's are the last reports for the year.

Japan and China will suffer severe disruptions.

There will be local and regional power outages in the United States. However, they don't think the entire national power grid will go down at one time. Even local/regional outages will have dramatic effects.

They expect social disorder in major metropolitan areas where infrastructure failures occur. It will happen. The only question is where.

The bottom line is that they were working under the assumption that major disruptions would occur. For them, it is simply a given.

After listening to the report, I have come to the conclusion that I have no more time to waste debating pollies. We are in big trouble. No more time for fun and games.

-- Pete (pberry1_98@yahoo.com), November 09, 1999

Answers

Thanks very much for the summation, Pete.

-- Mara (MaraWayne@aol.com), November 09, 1999.

Thanks Pete!

Diane

Earlier pre-conference details...

Year 2000 BrainStorm Conference For IT Types--New York, October 26-28, 1999--A Speaker: Thomas Barnett, U.S. Navel War College

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id= 001bNV

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), November 10, 1999.

Pete- This has to be some of the most sobering info I've come across. Thanks for the impetus to complete my preps ASAP!

-- Gia (laureltree7@hotmail.com), November 10, 1999.

See also...

You *MUST* Listen to this!

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id= 001jX8

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), November 10, 1999.