Word: problem
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...nature of investing in sports teams is that most folks don't really care if they make money at it. They're in it for the thrill. But the Indians illustrate a problem with all IPOs: they are timed for sale, not purchase. They come to market when everything is clicking, when the main risks are that the good times, which you are paying for, won't last. Companies, after all, can peak just like sports teams...
Left uncorrected, the Y2K problem could certainly wreak havoc. But for the most part, it is being corrected--at a collective cost estimated at anywhere from $50 billion to $600 billion. And that does not include what the Federal Government, which is dramatically and perhaps dangerously far behind in dealing with the Y2K issue, will spend (see box). However, the question of how widespread and serious Year 2000 failures will be remains a highly contentious one, often pitting those with a Year 2000 fix or book to sell against those with economic turf and reputations to defend...
...with only minor, if any, disruptions of vital services. There are technical reasons for their saying so, and probably a few public relations ones too. But the primary motivator may be that those companies have survival instincts of their own. "There's no way to overestimate how important this problem is to our customers and to us," says Michael Sansolo, senior vice president at the Food Marketing Institute, which represents most of the country's food wholesalers and retailers. "If the store's not open with food on the shelves, we don't make any money...
...futurist, however, Saffo does see an opportunity in all this to help distant generations. "For God's sake, let's go to five digits [for calendar dates in software] so we don't have a Y10K problem," he advises. Amen...
...more. At last count, at least 4,500 of the government's most vital systems still needed to be repaired. And the studied silence of President Clinton and Vice President Gore on the subject isn't making it any easier to raise the alarm. "This is not a technical problem," Koskinen says. Right. It's a people problem: getting top bureaucrats to listen...