Hi folks:

Newcomers may think I'm trolling, but the regulars should recognize my handle and vouch for my sincerity.

I left a few weeks back to get my head on straight after following y2k like a hawk for way too long. With apologies, I had to leave. I must confess there are a lot of new names already. It's not clear what gets you to this board after the fact. In any event, I was so immersed in y2k from the vantage point of this forum that it was impossible to imagine why the world wasn't in a complete panic over the probabilities. I miss the discussions (especially the market discussions since you folks are the only "bears" in the world it seems.

I thought I would share with you what the world looks like from the outside (i.e., when you are paying no attention whatsoever to y2k.) In return, I'm hoping some of you might fill me in on what you are seeing from the inside. My observations are as follows:

(1) Even with people drawing to my attention any event that seems relevant, y2k is virtually undetectable from my perspective. Recent discussions with the y2k coordinator from my university to whom I had given a presentation to about the risk of y2k called to get my last read before a presentation to the trustees. He said they had 16 glitches that were virtually all cosmetic (e.g., screwy date stamps).

(2) I keep seeing computer problems that are never declared to be a y2k problem (LOL). The airports always seem to be in a mess when I travel. However, they do not look like show stoppers.

(3) In a nutshell, it really looks like a BITR.

Now, is there any chance that you folks could tell me what it looks like from the inside. Does it look like a case of slow torturous bit-rot of the kind DWay suggested? Are reports of oil disruption significant? In essence did the US spend a ton on a minor problem or are there still a pile of small companies and foreign countries hitting the wall in painfully slow motion? Should I sell my gold holding company and Prudent Bear Fund??!! (Just to contribute a little bit to the stock discussions, several weeks ago Barron's noted that the NASDAQ price-earnings ratio has increased 7-fold in five years; I will not easily rejoin the bulls.)

I miss hacking out the days events with you guys. I can tell you this, I have been left permanently changed (touched) by my 3-year effort to understand the world as we know it.

-- Dave (aaa@aaa.com), January 24, 2000

Answers

Lots of reports. Lots of speculation (in every sense). Lots of indifference, post rollover. Very little to support certainty either way, except: So far, so good.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), January 24, 2000.

Hi Dave. Arnie here. Yes, I'm still around watching how this plays out.

So far, it's been less than a wonderful bump in the road. While there are more 'events' occurring than what the mainstream is covering (Y2K? that was last year...), I've seen very little evidence of anything having immediate impact on the masses. Some bills are getting screwed up. In a few places people aren't getting properly paid. Some arrest warrants are being issued against the wrong people, etc. etc.

As a quick peruse of the forum shows, OIL is THE hot topic right now.

There seem to be several factors involved in the current price of crude. Just after rollover, some papers reported a glut of oil. Now that's all changed. None of this volatility may be Y2K related.

As for financial advise, I'll leave that to those better able to read the current situation than I am.

FWIW, Mrs. Rimmer and I will be maintaining our current level of preparation at least through this year, if not longer. No, we don't think we're going to see any widespread infrastructure failures at this point, but as the folks in the southeastern US will tell you, there are 'local' failures (ice storm) for which Y2K preps can come in quite handy.

-- Arnie Rimmer (Arnie_Rimmer@usa.net), January 24, 2000.

Dave,

I ran across this place very late in the runup. Nonetheless, like you, what I found here (and elsewhere to be sure) think about changed some of my habitual thought patterns. OK, exacerbated others, but that's another story .

I can't tell you if it will play out as BITR or something between 'bleeding from a thousand cuts' or worse. Does this layman consider recent, still-playing-out oil and energy-related developments significant? Uh huh. What I don;t know is if the bite will be because of energy shortages, super-high prices, or the effect on the bubble economy. If a lot of the cards come crashing down, all I may know fo sure is that I'm getting tired of ducking, bobbing and weaving!

My hunch, perhaps slightly educated hunch, is that quite a bit of process control manual operations is frantically gong on. In a JIT world, that's significant. We also are not past even February 1st or March 1st -- think mainframe EOM processes. We have not seen significant effects from Solar Max -- which while off-topic, can sure complicate an already shaky situation. Oh, and I cannot entirely discount international intrigue. We as a country are in some and rapidly heading into other major windows of vulnerability -- you don't go at your enemy when he's stongest, do you?

One of the more thought-provoking books I've read recently had to be "Patriots -- Survising The Coming Collapse". Are we headed that way? I cannot bet against it, but I sure hope not.

-- Redeye in Ohio (cannot@work.com), January 24, 2000.

I know the author of this book and he was outspoken in our community about Y2k and survivalism, secretive about where he was moving to for y2k, big on selling guns and suddenly we find out in October he moved to Fremont, CA in the east bay and works for Oracle - one of the most densely populated areas there are! None of us could figure it out. Guess he couldn't make any money.

-- Stella (stella@yahoo.com), January 24, 2000.

Yes, quite a lot to "decompress" from. It seems that whatever happens, we are back to business as usual. There may be some catastophic event - like IRS problems, but we seem to be able to maintain the infrastructure to deal with it.

The threats to our "world" remain the same, and although there is much discussion about various scenarios -Running out of OIL, increased ability of THTB to monitor and contriol the citizens, etc, I believe that very few will ever know the true stories behind the dealings of the Big Guys - whatever they are.

The market is in serious trouble, or soon will be IMHO, but you can short it, and be OK.

-- Gregg (g.abbott@starting-point.com), January 24, 2000.

Well, actually, my bookshelf contains a few more books than "Patriots...", and on quite a few more topics. For awhile I kind of felt like I was going back to my Scouting days (don't ask how far back, please!). "Patriots..." was thought provoking not so much for the economics of how it supposedly happened, but for the detail of the afterwards. For me, when I find myself wanting to read and reread something, it's either darn obtuse, or richly textured. This was more the latter.

"Life After Doomsday" by Clayton was and still is another thought-provoker for me. Factually it's much stronger than "Patriots..." -- for me, those two got me thinking along some similiar and some very different lines. For that matter, I've been going back through Clayton considering how the coming Solar Max might affect us.

As someone phrased it so aptly in a post a day or so back, this seems to be turning out to be a multifaceted, disjointed series of events with a tree farm timeline, in a world that thinks now! is too slow.

-- Redeye in Ohio (cannot@work.com), January 25, 2000.