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Gold/Mining/Energy : Silver prices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TD who wrote (723)	2/15/1998 8:48:00 AM
From: Tommaso	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 8010

I wonder if you would mind explaining clearly why there should be much of a connection between a dating problem on some computers and the prices of precious metals? All I can see is that there is a vague premonition that at the year 2000 money will become useless because of some computer problems. Since paper money and checking accounts were working just fine for a century before the invention of the computer, it's hard to see the logic. When all the banks were closed in the Depression, cities paid workers in scrip, which was ad hoc paper money printed almost overnight, and this scrip was immediately accepted for things like a cup of coffee. Human beings are much too imaginative to be stopped from their daily activities just because a computer is too stupid to know what day it is. A Krugerrand or even a silver-clad quarter would probably be less useful than just a postdated check or even an IOU. On the other hand, there seems to be a very real shortage of physical silver needed for commercial purposes. This is what is driving the market. The so-called Y2K problem is somewhat like a possible attack by flying saucers.

To: TD who wrote (723)	2/16/1998 10:18:00 AM
From: Tommaso	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8010

Anyone who wants to enjoy being terrified by the possibility of a disaster caused by computers that don't know what the date is can locate congenial companions at this address: exchange2000.com I do enjoy the idea of a person sitting up till midnight on December 31, 1999, surrounded by piles of bags of Kennedy silver-clad half dollars and hoping that the ball on the TV screen will go the wrong way at midnight and that two days later IBM stock can be picked up at 25 cents (in silver) per share. Maybe that is what caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. That is, it wasn't a meteorite, it was just their computers weren't programmed correctly when 100,000,000 B. C. changed to 99,999,999 B. C. Meantime, however, the price of silver is going to be determined (unless there is government intervention) by a combination of actual industrial needs plus whatever hoarding, speculation, and short covering occurs. The problem of computer dating is no more relevant to the price of silver than the local newspaper's column on astrology.