Published Tuesday, November 30, 1999, in the San Jose Mercury News

Y2K stockpiling causes worries

http://www.mercurycenter.com/premium/business/docs/y2k30.htm

[Fair Use: For Educational/Research Purposes Only]

NEW YORK (AP) -- Kosmas Spiridellis, the top technology manager at the securities firm CIBC World Markets, may be precisely the sort of well-informed American who gives Y2K planners insomnia.

Spiridellis is the main fixer of millennium bugs for his company, but he still plans to withdraw a few thousand dollars in cash, just in case there are glitches that cause bank computers to misread Jan. 1, 2000, as 1900. ``We all have to be prudent,'' he maintains.

Not so fast, many government and business leaders say. Such last-minute moves repeated the world over could create bigger problems than computer bugs themselves.

Forget about Y2K doomsayers and survivalists, who long ago squirreled away months' worth of freeze-dried food, guns and ammunition. It's 11th-hour stockpiling by the rest of us, acting roughly at once, that's got experts concerned in the current millennium's final weeks.

``Perceptions could become reality,'' said Andy Kyte, an analyst at the consulting firm Gartner Group, based in Stamford, Conn.

Drug companies are bracing for a surge in orders for medicine. Some sellers of emergency equipment such as electricity generators already are sold out. Phone companies are worried that millions of people will pick up the phone at once to check for a dial tone -- overloading the system.

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), December 01, 1999

Answers

Damn straight, gonna pick up the phone :)

-- hell yeah! (fuggem@they_deserve_it.com), December 01, 1999.

Here's a kernal of truth:

"Forget about Y2K doomsayers and survivalists, who long ago squirreled away months' worth of freeze-dried food, guns and ammunition. It's 11th-hour stockpiling by the rest of us, acting roughly at once, that's got experts concerned in the current millennium's final weeks."

See, it WILL be the DGI's fault after all.

-- impala (impala@wild.com), December 01, 1999.

I plan to pick up the phone at 9:00 p.m. PST on 12/31/99 and again at 12:00 p.m. 12/31/99.

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), December 01, 1999.

impala,

Or, the DGI's who DGI about Just In Time inventories would think the cupboards are bare because the hoarders cleaned them out. Then it will be the fault of the preparers after all!

-- (RUOK@yesiam.com), December 01, 1999.

It really annoys me that now, us GIs are considered to be the "problem" for "hoarding" supplies, when all this could have been prevented if the Kotsky and Bill had gotten the word out a couple of years ago. But, they don't want a prepared populace, that would give us a modicum of independence and be perceived as a "threat" to government manipulation.

Hell, it's OUR country!!

-- No Polly (nopolly@hotmail.com), December 01, 1999.