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Non-Tech : The Y2K Newspaper -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: C.K. Houston who wrote (97)	9/20/1999 11:43:00 PM
From: C.K. Houston	Respond to of 198

She said the White House asked the NFR to run a "Y2K in April" campaign for last April where they would push people to plan and buy at that time ... ... Kathy Hotka is the Vice President of Information Technology for the National Retail Federation and she gave a session on year 2000 issues for retailers. The NRF is the largest retail trade association in the world and includes the leading department stores, discount stores, mass merchandise specialty and independent stores and it is one of the few trade associations that has a technology staff. NRF represents 1.4 million retail concerns that employ more than 20 million people ... She said the White House asked the NFR to run a "Y2K in April" campaign for last April where they would push people to plan and buy at that time. The NRF passed on that one too because they didn't feel the message was appropriate for several reasons, one of them being the crossed message that the everything is alright and all the stores will be open in January but you still need to buy now ... She had just gotten back from San Antonio where she gave a talk that was supposed to scare some of these people [retailers who are lagging in Y2K remediation]. There wasn't much interest as they listened to possible technology problem until she mentioned that there was going to be a lot of people walking around with fifty dollar bills in their pockets. (The extra money the Fed is printing is in fifties.) Do the math -- if you need a quick extra few billion, you can print it a lot faster if you do big bills. It is kind of like the old Soviet Union production quotas. The quota for glass was in pounds instead of area, US production is figured in acres. The Soviet glass factories easily made their quotas by making all their window glass half an inch thick. Kathy asked them what they would do when a customer buys a bottle of wine and gives them a fifty, and the next customer also has a fifty, and the customer after them too. They began thinking very hard after that. Maybe we need to begin stockpiling one dollar bills. I've always had trouble doing that. Best Practices, Jon Huntress jon@year2000.com greenspun.com Year2000.com Announcement List, Special Mailing September 20, 1999 Cheryl

To: C.K. Houston who wrote (97)	9/22/1999 10:44:00 AM
From: C.K. Houston	Respond to of 198

Y2K may trigger downturn - U.S. Senate panel WASHINGTON, Sept 22 (Reuters) - The Year 2000 computer glitch is likely to rock world trade and may end more than eight straight years of U.S. economic growth, a special Senate panel studying the problem said on Wednesday. In a report marking 100 days left to the year change, the bipartisan Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem said it was also ``extremely concerned' about Y2K's impact on longer-term U.S. national security and strategic interests. ``Severe long- and short-term disruptions to supply chains are likely to occur' as a result of Y2K-related system failures, the panel said in its 288-page final report. ``Such disruptions may cause a low-to-moderate downturn in the economy, particularly in industries that depend on foreign suppliers,' it said. The U.S. economy, a locomotive for the world, has been expanding since March 1991. The committee listed its greatest concerns as China, Russia, and Italy plus a handful of U.S. oil suppliers: Venezuela, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Colombia and Kuwait. ``Several important U.S. trading partners are severely behind in addressing the Y2K problem ... and are not likely to avoid significant disruptions,' the report said. Other countries' Y2K-related problems may wash up on U.S. shores ``in the form of recession, lost jobs or requests for international assistance,' it said.[...] biz.yahoo.com Cheryl