From: PaR (par@nu-world.com)
Date: Thu Apr 09 1998 - 12:43:38 MDT
>After the danger (and the huge profit-taking) is over
>(Jan 2?), investors will rush back in to grab all the under-priced stocks.
>Fortunes will definitely be made and lost...unless the doomsayers are right,
>in which case fortunes will only be lost. I would like to hear some more
>discussion about how we can all get rich off of this.
Well, if you really want to get rich off of this you should start your own company
to fix Y2K bugs, and then hire the doomsayers to spread panic. :-) Just
make sure you make all your customers sign disclaimers so they can't sue you. :-)
But seriously ...
"The time to buy is when the blood is running in the streets." --Lord Rothschild
A few people made a lot of money by buying stocks and commodities at rock
bottom prices after the crash of '29. J. Paul Getty the oil magnate as one of them.
It took several years for the prices to recover then. How long it will take this time
(if an economic crash occurs - I'm not so sure one will) will depend largely on how
badly the physical infrastructure and financial markets are disrupted by the Y2K
bug. I for one plan on keeping an eye out for good bargain investments. :-)
As a programmer, I would say the Y2K bug is not that big a technical problem to
fix individually. The problem arises when you have millions of them and you don't
even know where all of them are. IMHO, the biggest problems are complacency
in fixing the problem, and panic over exagerating the problem. As is frequently the
case, the "reality" of the situation lies somewhere between the two perceived
extremes.
FYI - One Cap Gemini report I read stated that 40% of companies have already
experienced "some" Y2K failure. Nothing too bad has happened yet. Although
based on the past record of the bureau-rats, I am highly doubtful that they will
fix all of their systems. Based upon one C-Net article I read about the readiness
of "government" systems, I would say that a 40-50% failure rate of "government"
computers would be realisitc. I expect the "private sector" to fair much better.
Jason
temp email address: par@nu-world.com (new one coming soon)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 14:48:52 MST