Y2k was 8 years early with the financial meltown of 2008 and american economy failing

Y2k was 8 years early with the financial meltdown of 2008 and american economy failing, do you remember back to the Y2k fear of 1999 were everything was meant to fail and not work as the clocks hit midnight into the year 2000?, well i think that this worry and fear was 8 years too early because by 2008 a lot of things did fail when it came to the economic meltdown and financial crisis, then obama came into office and said he would fix it but has not either.

i think people were just 8 years or so early with there fears for Y2k as a few years after banks did fail and the economy did crash.

"Y2K - Fear, Anticipation
As Americans Stockpile
For 2000
By Steve James
12-31-99

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Fear of flying, fear of terrorism, fear of the Apocalypse or just plain fear of the unknown gripped many Americans in the waning days of 1999.

After celebrating their caviar hopes and champagne dreams on New Year's Eve, thousands of people expect to dine well into the new year on Spam, soup, dehydrated fruit and bottled water, perhaps huddled in dim light around heat generators.

Despite assurances by President Clinton's chief adviser on year-2000 issues that Americans were not gripped by a siege mentality or hoarding food and supplies, many were stocking up anyway, just in case.

Some fear that outdated software will prevent computers from distinguishing between the years 2000 and 1900, resulting in widespread malfunctioning of systems that control important functions such as air traffic control, defense, banking, utilities and government administration.

Lou Marcoccio of GartnerGroup Inc., a business technology adviser, cited a survey showing 70 percent of Americans planned to buy emergency items in anticipation of possible power cuts or food shortages. Sixty percent said they would draw money from the bank before Jan. 1, 15 percent said they would get alternative power sources, and 50 percent said they would fill car fuel tanks.

Emergency Survival Food Service was doing a roaring online trade in dehydrated meats, fruit and vegetables, not just to hard-core survivalists, who predict a Y2K breakdown of law and order, but also to ordinary families who just want to make sure they have two weeks' worth of food.

``The year 2000 computer bug is a major threat to our way of life,'' the Evanston, Ill.-based company said on its Web site. ''Computers can render our country vulnerable to an electronic Pearl Harbor, a surprise attack launched in cyberspace by an enemy state of terrorists. Food will become scarce and it will become a form of currency more powerful than money itself.''

Chief Executive Officer Steve Bernard, however, was a little less alarmist in a telephone interview with Reuters. ``What's the worst thing that can happen? Nothing. And then you can still eat the food,'' he said, adding that his company had shipped a $250,000 food package to a church group and a year's supply to two couples in Britain.

Millions of Americans were also stocking up the old-fashioned way, even if they were not suffering from what Long Island psychologist Leon Zacharowicz labeled ``millennial delusion'' -- a fear that something catastrophic or apocalyptic will happen as the year changes to 2000.

``We're selling every flashlight and every two-burner (propane) stove,'' said Mike Damico, manager of a Kmart store in Manhattan. At a nearby hardware store, Weinstein & Holtzman, New Yorkers were snapping up flashlights, batteries and propane stoves. Owner Jeffrey Hymowitz said he had sold more than 600 flashlights this month, compared with 75 normally.

The New York City Housing Authority sent letters to its 600,000 tenants urging them to stock up on food, water and batteries and develop an ``emergency plan'' to deal with potential blackouts or banking problems. Meals on Wheels, which distributes hot food to the elderly, has sent 45-pound care packages to 16,000 New Yorkers.

``I'm waiting for disaster,'' one shopper, Jay Wishner, told the New York Daily News. ``Do I have cases of food! Cases of rice, containers of water, canned ham and vegetables!''

Across the Hudson River in New Jersey, it was the same story. ``If nothing happens, I'm going to have a generator,'' said Frank Seidl, a Trenton fireman buying the emergency power equipment in West Windsor on a frigid day. ``If something does (happen), I'll have heat for my family.''

U-Haul International Inc., which operates a network of 960 propane stations across North America, reported a steady increase in propane sales in recent weeks and said sales were up 30 percent this week compared with the same week last year.

``It appears that people are concerned about the upcoming Y2K weekend and want to have their propane tanks topped off for their grills and heaters, just in case,'' said Richard Herrera, U-Haul's vice president for retail sales.

Several makers of processed food that stores easily said sales were up in the last months of 1999. Hormel Foods Corp., which makes Spam luncheon meats and canned Dinty Moore stews, said it was seeing signs of ``Y2K-related pantry inventory build-up'' which helped boost the company's fiscal fourth-quarter profits.

Fruit and vegetable canner Del Monte Foods Co. said it expected sales in the December quarter to be 1 million to 2 million cases higher than normal due to buying ahead of Y2K.

Spokesman John Faulkner of Campbell's Soup Co. said the company's soup shipments increased 2-3 percent at the end of Campbell's first fiscal quarter in December. He said Campbell had received requests from large-volume club stores for more 12-packs of soup, a request attributed to Y2K-related buying.

U.S. banks are packing their vaults with spare cash. Currency in circulation, at a record $589 billion on Dec. 8, has set new highs every week this quarter.

A spokesman for the Brink's security company, part of Pittston Co., said it had been working with the Federal Reserve and banks for over a year to handle the extra volume of money shipments. He declined to give details.

Fear of terrorism prompted the city of Seattle to cancel its New Year's party, and in New York, where some 8,000 police officers will be patrolling Times Square Friday night, officials denied rumors that they had bought 250,000 body bags and planned to use the ice rink at Madison Square Garden as a temporary morgue in the event of a terrorist attack.

Even as he announced a New Year's contingency plan for New Jersey's largest city, Newark, Mayor Sharpe James acknowledged the danger of scaring the public. ``The worst thing we can do is to make people think the sky is falling,'' he said.

Federal Aviation Administration head Jane Garvey took James' words to heart and will fly from Dallas to San Francisco on New Year's Eve -- to show there is nothing to worry about.

Airline ticket sales are way down due to public fears that air traffic control will be disrupted. In addition, airlines are taking a cautious approach. As a result, airlines have cancelled most of their flights over the Friday-Saturday year change. There will be only 45 airliners in U.S. skies at the stroke of midnight (EST), compared with an average of 5,500 to 6,000 military and civilian planes aloft on any given afternoon in the United States, the FAA said.

Psychologist Zacharowicz said it may be irrational, but fear of the millennium can be real to those he is treating. ``As you get closer and closer to New Year's Eve, people are talking more and more about their anxieties.

``But it's the extreme action -- that person building a bomb shelter -- that we have to be careful of,'' he told the New York Post."

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