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Technology Stocks : Y2K (Year 2000) Personal Contingency Planning -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jwk who wrote (19)	4/14/1998 9:27:00 AM
From: Douglas Rushkoff	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 888

answers. jwk: a gun, or, preferably, a sense of community. I see y2k as an opportunity in this regard. But if you ain't friends with your farmer neighbor now, it's going to be tricky. GPS: I looked at the Navy's week-rollover site and it doesn't look pretty to me. I'm sure the power plants and airports can figure out what to do, but private yacht owners are certainly going to have a little trouble accounting for the 1024 weeks past. Stock Market: There's two issues here -- 1. are the companies you are invested in going to be in trouble? 2. is your investment brokerage house going to be screwed up? Question 1 may be real; this is where genuine fundamentals matter, as well as company assets that don't depend on product flow. Still, I'm not scared about Coke or Disney or anyone else of that magnitude going under. There could be a crash, but try timing it! Buffet and Soros are already pulling out so they can buy in later. I think the crash we'll see will look more like churn, with small investors selling their investments at bad prices to bigger ones. (The little guy has done too well in this market for the big boys to tolerate.) Question 2, well, I don't buy this one. While Etrade may lose a few transactions, I'm not concerned about people with portfolios in Fidelity, Merrill, etc. IMHO, the biggest problem will be the panic; true, panic is real, and people might yank some money out of the banks. FDIC could get shaky or worse, and the instruments bought by money market funds will be going cheap. My safety play: lakehouse, well water, and friends in the 'hood. I may volunteer now for local Red Cross, too. I'd rather be part of the solution than worried about myself.