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

To: Quad Sevens who wrote (165)	4/21/1998 11:06:00 PM
From: RH	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 888

I'm a little suprised that this Contingency Planning thread has had to spend time debating Y2K with a few doubters. I will summarize the Contingency Planning for Bill and the other doubting Thomases. Since they don't believe there is a problem, their planning should consist of shorting Y2K stocks...nuff said. For eveyone else, contingency planning can involve numerous areas. Cheryl and others have talked about deciding exit time from the markets. I believe this is step one. Regardless of the level of seriousness of Y2K, this appears to be wise planning. There is no loss in protecting your wealth--you risk missing the top, but hey, we're less than two years from 2000 and if it is all a hoax, and the Bull Run continues, you can always jump back in with no harm done. Contacting your broker is good, but I've found that after sending out letters to a couple dozen of the companies that directly affect my life, it is already evident that they've hired the spin doctors to handle the questions. They neatly spout positive statements about how they've got it under control, but they are light on facts and conveniently ignore the more pointed questions. I believe the only safe bet is making sure you've got enough liquidity to wait out any storm and be sure you're record keeping is perfect so when the dust settles you'll be able to assist the 'morons' who you'll be stuck dealing with when you've found that they've lost your records or worse... One major step right now for me is to look carefully at my employer and my wife's employer's level of compliance. Since my wife works for a major airline (flight attendant) I have concern not only about the longevity of the company but also about the safety of the industry. The company sends out glowing accounts of the testing and cooperation that is going on within the industry, however, a Toronto news radio station reported today that an industry delegate stated at a government commission that despite the large sums of money being spent on Y2K compliance, safety on Jan 1, 2000 was still a possible issue. (sorry, I should have gotten the name and title of the person, but I was on the freeway at the time). Anyway, I'm not stockpiling noodles and water or building my wind generator yet, but the three steps I sort of mentioned above are a good place to start for any contingency planning. And no, I'm not too concerned about the blender, the toaster or my shaver. If it ever gets that bad, I don't think we'll be spending much time using them anyway. It's when 100 embedded chips out of 100,000 in a power generator station fail and/or need replacing that the concern should arise--too bad it's so hard to find out which chips they are and in some cases how to get at them. I've read the report, the doubters can go find it. Regards, RH