Slashdot Mirror
Betting on Y2K Disasters
Doug Muth writes "According to
this article in Wired News, there is a company that is taking bets on which disasters will occur when Y2K comes around. Think a commercial airliner will go down? That's 300-1 odds. Think armageddon will occur? That's 1,000,000-1 odds, though even if you win, I think collecting on that bet would be a bit pointless."
Oh, arms sales _within_ the US. And the bet is only open via phone ("please ask for a supervisor").
:)
Still could be worth a tenner, seems pretty badly worded to me, they should've gone for "up 50% over last years' sales". There's also a dodgy looking "YES -200/1" as opposed to the others with "YES +1000/1" or similar. Gives the impression there's something I don't know going on. Apart from the obvious.
Dammit!
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
Suprisingly, Not a lot of banks run Unix. most run Unisys, IBM and other mainframe
How many of you are buying high-capicity weapons and stockpiling on food? Not many of you I bet.
I've always kept some food stockpiled. Considering that earthquakes and other natural disasters still seem to happen, it's kinda stupid not to.
As for guns, I have what I have always had. Having 50 guns as opposed to maybe 3 isn't going to up your odds of survival in any kind of situation.
The people I think are funny are the ones paying $200+ for "y2k survival kits" containing items you could by in nearly any sporting goods store for a fraction of the cost.
Finkployd
The odds are negated on that one, so you're actually betting against firearms sales increasing. That would seem to me to be a bit of a losing proposition.
Personally, I'm sticking five hundred bucks on a utility failure. It's worth it just for the entertainment value.
Kinda reminds me of the stories out of LA during the riots in 92. Liberal gun control types were scared out of their minds and ran to their nearest corner gun store to purchase a gun. Too bad they couldn't get one... 3 day waiting period. Doh!
Odds that a win95/98 box crashes: 1-1.000.000 - You get a dollar for each million you bet :)
-----------------------------------
So, despite the way you flippantly dismiss the bank reaction of "it's not that big a problem", that is the correct reaction to have. It clearly is important that the banking system survive Y2k (which it will, as demonstrated above), but any one bank is no big deal. A couple people would lose their jobs, some paperwork would ensue and that would be the end. A Y2k-failed airplane, OTOH, would be a disaster.
I beg to differ. The banking system is in no way garaunteed to survive the coming panic. All it takes is a a large chunk of paniced population removing their cash from the bank to collapse the system. I know I won't have any cash in the bank, just because I don't trust people not to panic and riot. There are plenty of scenarios that could result in the a run on the banks... I wouldn't be so complacent if I were you.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
are rare.
Fear my wrath, please, fear my wrath?
Homer
We apologize for the inconvenience.
I remember a statistic quoted on Michael Moore's TV show...
"72% of Americans believe that if Jesus were to return today, we'd be in a lot of trouble"
No self respecting savior of the Human race would be caught dead on earth.
i bet that the world will not come to an end but in the same statement i would like to say that yes water will start flowing the other way. oh yes, there is a santa clause too
Airlines can *require* execs to fly on 1/1/00, but, as these execs have a very good idea of the likelihood of surviving the flight, it is very unlikely that they would take a non-negligible risk of death over the risk of losing their job. Who are they kidding? This is just a ploy to reassure the masses. (It's unlikely the public would even find out if these execs didn't fly. It could easily be a corporate cover-up.)
"I know I won't have any cash in the bank, just because I don't trust people not to panic and riot."
Obviously this makes you part of the problem. I'm sure you are aware of that. What you may not be clear on is exactly how stupid your plan is. Let's follow the logic. One of four outcomes are possible:
1) Everybody removes their money from the bank. Outcome: economic chaos and the money is worthless.
2) Nobody removes their money from the bank. Outcome: economic stability.
3) Everybody EXCEPT YOU removes their money from the bank. Outcome: same economic chaos, including for you since the money is worthless.
4) Nobody EXCEPT YOU removes their money from the bank. Outcome: economic stability for everyone, possible minor repurcussions for you (early withdrawl fees, account re-open costs, mocking and taunting etc).
The best outcome is 2, the worst is 1 or 3. 4 is intermediary. In any case, the global outcome is the same as the local outcome. Let me rephrase and repeat that: Whatever happens to everyone else, economically speaking, will also happen to you. In still other words, it mostly doesn't matter if you take your money out or leave it in. And the extent to which it does matter it is slightly weighted towards leaving your money in (outcome 4). So leaving it in is the best strategy. Which further means most people should do it and we will avoid economic chaos. What we have here is a graphic representation of Hofstadter's solution to the Prisoner's Dilemna.
---
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
Yea, but even without a computer glitch, 300:1 doesn't sound that unreasonable. Thats about one per year. Plus I'm sure they've given themselves a very wide profit margin.
One the other hand, I don't remember ever hearing about banks failing in any major way.
It's a tax on the poor but hopeful. The only way a system of government (or insurrance/etc.) works is by taking from those who have and giving to those who have not. You can't tax the poor to give to the poor. (Well, you can, but you're an idiot.) It reminds me of all those stockholder lawsuits. (Please, I will pay you lots of money to reach into one of my pockets, extract some money, and put it into my other pocket! I pay cash!)
But I suppose people will be morons anyway, and at least this way it's the authoritative mob and not the common mob that's running the show and taking the proceeds.
But really, have you seen all the stupid ads on TV for the lottery these days? As if people aren't already stupid and uneducated, as if we have to encourage them further to commit mass lunacy? And funded at taxpayer's expense?
It's a stupid, stupid world out there.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
In this new age of near instantaneous transmission of information(except when under the slashdot effect), it is very interesting to see the weight which this betting agency places on Y2k events happening.As a true computer nerd, I get asked quite often by computer newbies what I think will happen come Y2k. Honestly, with my level of outside the home PC usage, I'm not too sure.While I know that one of my machines is Y2k compliant, the 486 in the corner is not. What I am saying is this does not mean I am more than passingly familiar with the system the electric company uses, or the airport, or the police department. Here comes CompanyX, who puts it all in perspective for me by translating technology that I am not expert in into financial terms that are much more universally understood. I mean how else do we assign importance to an event/object; Assign a monetary value to it! Isn't this extension of capitalism to be expected in this day of communication? One of the biggest adjustments our society as a whole needs to contemplate, is the way we process our information. There is a lot of new technology in this world, and for most people, there is not the time or motivation to become experts in more than a few fields. What about the rest of the world , the world in which we are not expert? We need to rely on others to gather data, and to some extent process that information for us. As with any scientific process, if the data is bad or unreliable, then the results from that point on are skewed. For the majority of us who rely on mass media for our info/processing, how often is that data skewed or incomplete?
While I feel confident that I can point to my own weakness' in this area, I wish I had an answer. I do believe that for me, the answer is continued education, and a constant re evaluation of what I believe to be relevant/important/true. As I grow older and wiser, well...we'll see, won't we.
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both, and deserve neither. " Ben Franklin
If the world does end, do I still have to pay the death tax?
That's my 1/50 of $1.00 US
JM
--Justin Mitchell
"2nd Place is a fancy word for losing" --Bender (Futurama)
Not quite right... Armageddon maybe has better odds than YOU winning the lottery, but certainly has no better odds than SOMEONE winning the lottery somewhere in the world. The event of someone winning the lottery in fact has happened quite a few times in men's history; Armageddon still hasn't.
This sig under construction. Please check back later.
"On Discworld, it is clearly recognized that million-to-one chances happen nine times out of ten." - Science of Discworld, p. 227
Ever heard the saying, "Lotteries are a tax on people who are bad at math?" This is even better.
I spent a long car trip with a friend trying to scheme up ways to make money off these idiots worrying needlessly about the year 2000. Most of the ideas were discarded as "too evil". Now, I wish we had a little less conscience.
I love the reasoning of some of these people:
"Obviously, the Creator uses a base-10 number system and He likes big round numbers. So you would really want to avoid being in, say, mobile home number 1,000,000 on 1/1/2000." (paraphrased from Dilbert)
Our date system is arbitrary. I really doubt that aliens or the Messiah pay a whole lot of attention to it. Life is a lot less exciting than we imagine it to be sometimes.
Americans riot maybe once every few years and rarely cause more than property damage -- It's the Soccer (football) fans overseas that riot every freaking week and trample people to death on a monthly basis.
Say what you will about us being violent, we try not to kill as many people while "celebrating" as our more illustrious friends elsewhere...
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
How many of you are buying high-capicity weapons and stockpiling on food?
:)
Me, but I do that stuff anyway.
You lose...
I just had to recompile my kernel for the 100th time, and threw my box out the window.
Sure as shit, that f*cking thing went down!
Please send payment to....
-WW
--
Once there was a time when religion ruled the world.
200-1 that more firearms are sold in the US in December 1999 than December 1998???????
Is there any reason why this would NOT happen?
--
grappler
Vidi, Vici, Veni
You lose...
I just had to recompile my kernel for the 100th time, and threw my box out the window in a
furious rage.
Sure as shit, that f*cking thing went down!
Please send payment to....
-WW
--
Once there was a time when religion ruled the world.
Out of boredom, and a overly large amount of free time, I decided to make some betting odds for what I'm going to be doing come New Year's Eve 2:1 says I'll be exploiting bandwidth left free by all those people out partying by stockpiling mp3
How many minor disruptions does it take to become
a major disruption?
-WW
--
Once there was a time when religion ruled the world.
Out of boredom, and a overly large amount of free time, I decided to make some betting odds for what I'm going to be doing come New Year's Eve. Odds I'll be on my box stockpiling pr0n cuz i cant get a date: 2:1 Odds I'll be overcome with desperation and ask for a date with some 300 pound dominatrix named Bertha: 10:1 Odds I'll be drunk, having fun, and getting it on with some supermodel-esque goddess like everyone else: 999,999,999,999,999:1 Come to think of it, Armageddon is looking pretty good
Out of boredom, and a overly large amount of free time, I decided to make some betting odds for what I'm going to be doing come New Year's Eve.
:)
Odds I'll be on my box stockpiling pr0n cuz i cant get a date: 2:1
Odds I'll be overcome with desperation and ask for a date with some 300 pound dominatrix named Bertha: 10:1
Odds I'll be drunk, having fun, and getting it on with some supermodel-esque goddess like everyone else: 999,999,999,999,999:1
Come to think of it, Armageddon is looking pretty good
Why not bet on something going down, then crack it at new years. Everyone will assume it was a y2k bug and you win the bet, with no further investigation..
I don't think bank or other financial systems will die of y2k causes either. The killer will be the media suggesting that everyone withdraw cash/fill up their gas tanks/stock up on supplies. Panic, not mm/dd/yy, will cause the problems and possibly another 1929 as everyone dumps their stocks a month before new year's.
--
Win98 sux without these 1337 toolz !!
Compared to most lotteries, 1,000,000 : 1 odds are actually pretty good. I'm still not going to bet on armageddon though. =)
- Ted Mao
shameless self promotion - http://kibbles.org
They're kidding, right? Surely it's likely that firearms sales would increase?
Given:
I thought it would be very likely that firearm sales would increase, as those who are prepared for Y2K take steps to defend themselves and their property from panicky ill-prepared hordes.
I would estimate the odds of firearms sales growth without Y2K at 60%, and the odds of firearms being perceived as vital to Y2K preparations by ill-informed people at 50%. Combine the two, and you get a figure at 80%, or almost certain.
I think the 200-1 is good odds, and that's where I would place my money.
Now if I only had some money....
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
Seems like I have noticed to much on actual betting on the Net...Is there that much of it going on? Should be the perfect environment for it, and would make it a lot easier. Are there any plans to open an E-commerce site allowing you to bet with credit cards, on say your favorite sports or presidential elections, or whether or not Hillary where's a wig? Like Ebet.com seems reasonable.
Funny and I thought Perl == Paid employment recently located
I'll give 50 to 1 odds that someone makes a submission to slashdot on Jan. 1, 2000, with the title "First Article! I'm l33t!!" :)
Juiced? Or Not?
Jimmy the Greek would have loved this.
--
rickf@transpect.SPAM-B-GONE.net (remove the SPAM-B-GONE bit)
"People will pay big bucks for the luxury of ignorance."
To go further on this point, I wonder which operating system will whether the year 2000 the best? I'm not sure how exactly you could measure this, but it certainly seems to be an intersting question. Perhaps even a good Slashdot poll on which OS is most (or least (though that might be a foregone conclusion)) reliable.
Just food for thought.
14 digits of Pi are all we need.
The one I want to see is 'Ten or more doomsday cults cease to exist as of Jan 1.' But I'd only get 5-1 odds or somesuch. - dom
- dom
- gnome
What's up, Mr Jones?
I'm sure Jesus would be REAL happy to hear that people are gambling over his return.
I'm sure they could cast lots over his clothes too...oh wait... been done. nevermind
I post links to stuff here
Odds an NT or 98 box will go down 1:1
Odds a Linux box will go down, well that's impossible.
Matt
There's a 1,000,000 to 1 chance of Armageddon? Am I the only one that thinks it worrying that apparently Armageddon at the turn of the millennium has better odds than winning the lottery?????
- The FAA traffic monitor system runs on a different clock than the typical mm/dd/yy, or the unix 32-bit clock (and I though that it's turnover was due before the end of this year, or about this time next year), such that Y2K should not affect these.
- Most airlines are requiring their Y2K-readiness exec to fly on Jan 1, 2000, prompting these execs to make absolutely sure that they're ready.
Sure, ther will bound to be problems with the air*PORT* system, with schedules going bonkers, lost luggage, and that stuff, but I doubt this will cause the loss of life. If anything, I'd give an airplane crash 10,000:1 odds, and move the bank failure to about 10:1 odds. The banks don't directly have anyone lives in their hands, and many of the smaller bank chains have been slow to implement Y2K as 'it's not that big a problem'.I'll still be getting a written proof of my account status in early Dec, though my bank has promised Y2K complience.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
It might be a sure thing, but at 1-1,000,000 odds that the world WON'T end, you wouldn't make all that much money in the process. If Bill Gates were to bet his entire net worth on the world not ending, he could only make less than $90,000 on the deal.
For more information, click here.
Armageddeon: 1,000,000-1 that the world will end on 1 January 2000.
:)
This looks like the best bet to me. If you bet that it WONT end, you win. If you lose, and the world DOES end, you don't have the pay the bastards back
Roughly 2/3 of the world will hit midnight
before I get to celebrate. If lots of problems
pop up, will Americans start to lose it before
midnight our time?
Ever notice how American cities have riots
after the local team wins the championship?
Sample bet: 100/1 (shouldn't that be 2000/1) that a bank will fail on Jan 1, 2000 because of Y2k problems.
Ways to get around it
a) It wasn't a Y2K problem, it was "human error" etc
b) It wasn't a "failure", just a delay
Or a funny way of doing it:
c) "It didn't fail on Jan 1, 2000, it reported the failure on Jan 1, 1900, so it doesn't count!"
--
Exigo spamos et dona ferentes
better hope your bookie dosent have his money in this bank
Alien captain: Navigator, land us in the prime spot on Earth
Alien navigator: How about Washington, Sir, the centre of power in the developed world?
Alien captain: No, actually, I was thinking about that large dome thing built on that wasteground near the Blackwall tunnel -- you know, the one with all the nasty fumes from the nearby industrial works.
Alien navigator: Righty ho, Sir. Beginning our descent now...
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
I myself live on an army base here in Texas. I will be at a New Years Eve party here on base. So no matter what happens I think the MPs around here will keep the general public from the nearby city from causing a great deal of trouble here on post. I will be calmly sipping my champagne come Jan 1 , 2000 and wondering how many people went to see the creator because of their sheer stupidity. Although I wish I had made the product I saw advertised this morning the Y2K compliant candle. Now that's playing on people's fears.
Good is never enough, when you dream of being great!
You don't place that bet to win, you place it so you can tell your friends "I told you so." and have the bet ticket to prove it. What if armageddon came, and no one believed you when you said "I knew it!"?
HEY! I live up here! And I can tell you right now Ventura isn't going to body slam the Artist for writing '1999'. I will.
--
Yes, banks fail all the time; around 150 failures in a year is not abnormal for the FDIC. (You can check their annual reports on their website.) However, most of them are small institutions. The FDIC has less than 5% of the amount they claim to be insuring, and a great deal of what they do have is tied up in government bonds, so it's not very liquid (you didn't expect the government to be able to keep its hands off a big pile of money, did you?)
If several of the US's largest banks were to fail, the FDIC would be powerless to stop it, and its insolvency would be revealed. It does have some emergency borrowing authority, but that would be strictly printing-press money, so trying to save the economy with it would be rather futile.
...I wouldn't make bets with those whose job it is to fix Y2K bugs. They could just bet on their failure, win the bets and leave the systems f-cked up as before.
J.
damned vulpine http://sb.drtwister.com/
... is the killer gambling app of the net. Mainly because it's not officially recognized as gambling at least in the US, so it isn't against federal law.
This is just another example of people trying to take advantage of others due to a problem that happens "rarely". In fact, if we do it right, the next date problem will be Y10K. Since the ozone layer's opening up, we'll be all dead by then.
How many of you are buying high-capicity weapons and stockpiling on food? Not many of you I bet.
US businesses that currently accept chip and PIN/signature
Banks running NT crash: 10:1
Microsoft blames the crash on time's "exceptional and in-depth knowledge of date manipulation on NT workstations": 5:1
Odds of Armageddon on Jan. 1st: 1,000,000:1
Odds of finding one sober person when the Armageddon comes: 1,000,000,000:1
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
Although the type of "oh, the millenium doesn't finish until 01/01/2001" pedantry generally irritates me intensely (look, we're all going to get very drunk whatever, OK, pedant? If you really want to you can stay at home and sulk, just don't expect everyone else to join in) in this case it could be quite interesting if the law became involved.
More information on this tricky topic can be found at the US Naval Observatory, or alternatively from Douglas Adams, who explains things much better than I could.
Well, if the armageddon truly does come on January 1st, I'm assuming that more than likely the winner nor the betting firm will be around to cash in on the prize. =)
Actually, the FAA system runs on an IBM S/370 machine with software written in the 1960s. An effort to re-write the whole system was scrapped after 10 years and tens of millions of $. An article in Computerworld described the system as so antiquated that the wires literally crackled from age.
If re-writing the system was so difficult, I wouldn't be surprised if fixing it for Y2K wasn't carried out successfully. See, the people who issue these compliance statements are lawyers or MBA biz execs. Typically, they have no clue about what OS, software, etc. constitutes the system and what exactly the problems are.
As for the airline execs flying on Jan 1, 2000. I know a programmer at American Airlines who chuckled and said there was no way he would fly. Airlines don't handle the scheduling and path determination of flights - collision prevention is done by the FAA (read above.)
Keep in mind that the FAA system doesn't have to schedule 2 planes flying opposite each other - simply having a non-working or disabled system can cause a crash. In today's news - a pilot went down the wrong runway and crashed into a construction zone. I would hate to imagine what would happen if the central system went down and you had 100s of planes flying around without any guidance.
I bet that a lot of people are going to run around in the streets like headless chickens, waiting for an apocalypse that doesn't happen (they don't even realize the Julian calendar is fundamentally screwed up, and 2000 isn't even 2000). The rest will have something that doesn't work (I already know my neat 4-head stereo VCR from 1992 won't handle Y2K, meaning I'll have to stop all my advance taping - oh, wait, in 7 years of owning it I have yet to tape anything - never mind!). There will be a few minor glitches, I'm sure - but I think for the most part the world will just keep on chugging along.
Me? I work for an insurance company, and I'm in charge of the desktop remediation. We've tested, and tested, and tested - and at this point every known element in our network is A-OK. I'm sure some user goofed up a spreadsheet date function or something, but we'll find out on Monday and deal with it then. The mainframe was fixes a year and a half ago. We already have a generator - it's tested, too. Ergo, I'm not worried.
Maybe I should go take some of those bets...
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Call me boring, oldfashioned or whatever you want, but betting on disasters is tasteless.
10) IRS doesn't manage to complete remediation efforts. On second thought...
b leh inadvertently trip button marked 'Doomsday Device', unable to blame End of World on Bill Gates
9) IRS manages to complete remediation efforts
8) Hotels booked solid, Antichrist's family forced to sleep in a manger
7) The election of anyone currently running for the presidency of the United States
6) Electrical power fails on Jan 2cd when survivalists simultaneously switch off their kerosene generators
5) The Artist Formerly Known As Prince realizes the futility of a career entirely based on "1999", goes insane, burns down World Trade Center in Minneapolis, gets bodyslammed by Gov. Ventura
4) Rising mound of Y2K memorabilia towers over United States, topples, raises sea level 2 feet when it falls into the Pacific, drowns Antarctic penguins and Tokyo
3) Feuding geeks arguing over merits of KDE/Gnome/EMACS/vi/GTK/Motif/GNU/Linux/*BSD/blah/
2) God certifies the Universe Y2K-compliant, inadvertently forgets nearby meteor storm, is sued by rampaging trial lawyers, points out Acts of Me exemption clause
1) Entire planet shuts down when Jan 1st is declared World Hangover Day
We want endless gardens of data, where the bits can flower, flourish and reproduce. -- Andy Mueller-Maguhn
Looks like I'm going to make some money. They're taking a US firearms sales increase at 200-1 odds. US firearms sales are already up a few percentage points over last year. Even if December sales are relativly static, I'm sure the last rush of nuts will pull up December sales.
And at those odds, it's better than the RH IPO.
.sig: Now legally binding!
First, the disclaimer: I am a programmer working at a bank. I don't work on the mainframe, but I have been involved with Y2k testing and remediation.
. The FDIC has sent competent examiners to go over everything with a fine-toothed comb, so I can guarantee that our particular chances of failure are NOT as high as 10%.
But let's interpret your 10:1 odds as "1 bank in 10 will fail" rather than "every bank has a 10% chance of failing". Even this is implausible. What with recent mergers and acquisitions most banks are medium to large (mine is medium). The larger the bank, the more the scrutiny and the less the chance of failure. My bank is fine and large banks are even more fine.
How about a third interpretation: "There is a 10% chance that, somewhere in the US, a bank will fail on 1/1/2000". So what? Bank failures happen all the time--that's why we have FDIC insurance. As long as you put less than 100,000 in each of your accounts, you will get reimbursed by the gov't. Furthermore, given all the above, that bank will probably be small and therefore affect very few people.
So, despite the way you flippantly dismiss the bank reaction of "it's not that big a problem", that is the correct reaction to have. It clearly is important that the banking system survive Y2k (which it will, as demonstrated above), but any one bank is no big deal. A couple people would lose their jobs, some paperwork would ensue and that would be the end. A Y2k-failed airplane, OTOH, would be a disaster.
---
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
If I am not mistaken, betting odds are a reflection of the ratio of bets taken (with a small margin for the house), not the actual probibility of an event actually happening. for example: a sports book opens the betting of team "A" vs Team "B" at 3:1. Is team "A" three times more likely to beat Team "B"? No, if team "A" wins, your winnings are 3 times your bet. the house will change the odds as the ratio of bets for and against a particular outcome are compiled. Calculated properly, this insures that regardless of the outcome of an event, the house always makes some $$$ It is not unusual for the odds to change significantly as bets are received before the book is closed.
This Y2K thingy is going to be one of the biggest farces ever. Nothing, other than minor disruptions, will take place.
want to bet that nothing's going to happen but dissapointed that the odds would afford you little reward if you win? Call up the Art Bell show and send him a link to the site... He'll get more doomsdayer's than they could handle. Watch that 300:1 switch around to 1:300.
Ever notice how American cities have riots after the local team wins the championship?
:)
One word: "Football" (or soccer for us Americans)
While there are many things you can laugh at us for, our sports fans are sedate compared to some countries in Europe and South America I could mention.
If you want to insult us, our government is the best target
Finkployd
"Why am I doing this? My Karma is too high"
Yeah, well, one of the bookies they interviewed is also giving 100:1 that the President announces that the moon landings were faked. Since they presumably don't take bets on the other side, this is undoubtedly their way of "favoring the house". That is, I wouldn't take these numbers as indicative of any sort of real estimate of what is likely to happen when the calendar rolls over.
I remember reading that the government of China made an announcement to that effect, but somehow I don't think chinese airlines constitute "most" of the airlines in the world. However, that does bring up an interesting point vis a vis these wagers. Most of them are worded such that only a single incidence is needed for the claim to pay off. If the bookies made their odds estimates with countries like the US, Canada, and Britain in mind and they didn't specifically exclude other, less prepared countries, then they could be in real trouble if a plane goes down or a bank fails in some obscure corner of the world.
It's hard to see how Y2K could screw up existing bank balances. A more likely scenario is that interest calculations and the like go haywire, but even these, it would seem, are going to be the sort of error that would instantly fail a reality check.
Maybe I'm just an optimist (or maybe I just don't have that much money to lose), but about the extent of the extraordinary steps I'm taking regarding my finances is keeping my bank statements (which I usually throw away as soon as I balance my chekbook) for the next few months. I guess I have to lump myself in with the crowd that feels that the Y2K charlatans that feed on public hysteria over the unknown are worse than the actual bug will ever be.
-r