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Technology Stocks : 2000: Y2K Civilized Discussion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Hunt who wrote (525)	9/6/1999 10:05:00 AM
From: Jeff Mizer	Respond to of 662

Y2K conference info excerpt & link gwu.edu excerpt- Comments by Professor Stuart Umpleby on the July Conference on Y2K at George Washington University The y2k conference at GW in late July, which was organized by Paula Gordon, was a very educational event for those who attended. My conclusion is that key officials still do not understand the problem and hence are not preparing adequately. For example, Federal Reserve System Governor Roger Ferguson is aware of the liquidity problem (bank runs) but not the loan portfolio problem -- if a lot of companies cannot function and hence cannot repay loans, banks are in jeopardy. He is the Fed governor in charge of increasing awareness of y2k among bankers! At the close, he said that the discussion had been useful.... In the session on nuclear power, I was not reassured by the replies from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the nuclear industry. The nuclear industry apparently views the questions raised by nuclear activists as the same issues they have raised for years. It is not clear that the industry and the NRC see y2k as a special time with increased risks. In the panel on education the speakers from MIT and Penn State described how their universities are fixing internal equipment. I was the only one who connected y2k to the education, research, and public service missions of universities. With very, very few exceptions this pattern holds across the country. The majority of officials seem to be expecting disruptions at the level of 1,2,or 3. This is the future they are planning for. If disruptions turn out to be at the level of 5 or greater, their organizations will be unprepared. There is a saying, "Hope for the best, prepare for the worst." Regarding y2k we are hoping for the best and preparing for the best. I did not expect that at this late date the level of public and official concern with y2k would be at such a low level. Yagmur Denizhan in Turkey recently told me about a Navajo proverb, "It is not possible to awaken someone who is pretending to be asleep." I heard the following quotation by Albert Camus at a conference in Germany last week. "They were able to do so much, but they dared to do so little." It reminded me of what Paula Gordon has been saying about government officials.

To: John Hunt who wrote (525)	9/7/1999 6:47:00 AM
From: John Hunt	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 662

Millennium bug fears creeping into metals << Metal market players have hedged their bets over possible millennium related supply disruptions, making some year-end metal derivatives more expensive and creating growing tightness in metal forward prices. Analysts said concern over the Y2K problem mostly affected metal markets with their tight supply mechanisms, while dealers in agricultural commodities had less to fear due to large market surpluses. ``Clearly there is some real concern about disruptions to (metal) supplies, whether it is actual physical disruption or whether there are issues in the settlement and banking system,' said Kevin Crisp, vice president of foreign exchange and commodity research at investment bank JP Morgan. U.S.-based commodity trading house, Cargill Inc's South African subsidiary already planned to avoid commodity trades in the country between December 15 and January 15 because of worries over Y2K. >> ... cont'd at ... biz.yahoo.com